Thomas Sowell

I love reading Thomas Sowell. He is an amazingly smart man. Earlier this year he even sent me an autographed copy of his latest book "Black Rednecks and White Liberals" after I contacted him concerning an e-mail I had sent another writer concerning affirmative action, amongst other things.

My main point had been that I grew up in a housing projects, the son of a single mother until she married when I was 7. My parents struggled to make ends meet for years and did not finally own a home until I was in my teens. Then I went to college with kids that grew up with far more privelege and options, but they walked away from school with zero debt while I am still saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in loans. Why? Because of skin color. Yes, I do feel discriminated against. Affirmative action sucks. How is that for eloquence?

Anyway. Enough of that. One of my favorite times to read Thomas Sowell is when he does his "random thoughts" columns, and he did one yesterday. I won' spoil the whole column for you, but here are a couple snippets I found especially enlightening:

The beauty of doing nothing is that you can do it perfectly. Only when you do something is it almost impossible to do it without mistakes. Therefore people who are contributing nothing to society except their constant criticisms can feel both intellectually and morally superior.




"We are a nation of immigrants," we are constantly reminded. We are also a nation of people with ten fingers and ten toes. Does that mean that anyone who has ten fingers and ten toes should be welcomed and given American citizenship?