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Ann Althouse spotted a worthy quote from Thomas Sowell.
After watching a documentary about the tragic story of Jonestown, I was struck by the utterly unthinking way that so many people put themselves completely at the mercy of a glib and warped man, who led them to degradation and destruction. And I could not help thinking of the parallel with the way we put a glib and warped man in the White House
Here are some of Sowell’s Random Thoughts from that column.
… Some people seem to think that, if life is not fair, then the answer is to turn more of the nation’s resources over to politicians — who will, of course, then spend these resources in ways that increase the politicians’ chances of getting reelected. …
The annual outbursts of intolerance toward any display of traditional Christmas scenes, or even daring to call a Christmas tree by its name, show that today’s liberals are by no means liberal. Behind the mist of their lofty words, the totalitarian mindset shows through. …
If you don’t want to have a gun in your home or in your school, that’s your choice. But don’t be such a damn fool as to advertise to the whole world that you are in “a gun-free environment” where you are a helpless target for any homicidal fiend who is armed. Is it worth a human life to be a politically correct moral exhibitionist? …
The more I study the history of intellectuals, the more they seem like a wrecking crew, dismantling civilization bit by bit — replacing what works with what sounds good. …
Ed Morrissey reminds us of a Nicholas Kristof column that should not be forgotten. It is a column about how children are abused by America’s care brigades.
There are few columnists in the US that regularly speak to poverty and exploitation as consistently and as effectively as Nicholas Kristof. The New York Times columnist regularly travels the world, landing in places that most people would work hard to avoid, to highlight atrocities committed against the most vulnerable. While conservatives might balk at Kristof’s conclusions and policy preferences – as I often do – there is no question about his commitment and honesty in speaking on behalf of the downtrodden.
That context is what made Kristof’s column last week all the more remarkable. Instead of traveling to Somalia or another war-torn piece of geography to find poverty and a lack of response, Kristof went to Appalachia to see what poverty looks like in the US, and how government programs respond to it. His conclusion should make people across the political spectrum sit up and take notice:
“This is painful for a liberal to admit, but conservatives have a point when they suggest that America’s safety net can sometimes entangle people in a soul-crushing dependency. Our poverty programs do rescue many people, but other times they backfire.”
Kristof finds a number of cases where well-intentioned social-service programs produce perverse incentives that work to keep people in poverty rather than lift them out. Briefly, from a column that should be read carefully in full, those examples include a financial incentive to keep children illiterate, welfare benefits that punish marriage, and the ease in which children move from poverty programs to disability programs as adults.
The result, as Kristof discovered to his discomfiture, is precisely the kind of institutionalized poverty and dependency that safety-net programs produce when designed or expanded poorly. From a societal point of view, it’s a form of child abuse. …
And Richard Vedder reminds us how the caring folks in the academy serve themselves.
Major university presidents, supported by their governing boards that typically they have wrapped around their fingers, behave often like Marie Antoinette (“Let them eat cake”) or Leona Helmsley (“only little people pay taxes.”) The most recent outrage is the revelation by Jack Stripling of the Chronicle of Higher Education that 25 of the 50 highest paid university presidents have their income taxes paid by the school. These presidents, who typically are left-of-center rent-seekers, constantly beg the federal government for more money. Most of them no doubt fervently support President Obama’s campaign to tax successful people more, even though they are amongst the few high-income Americans that simply do not pay taxes -no “alternative minimum tax” for them.
This is objectionable at multiple levels. First, of course, is the issue of equity. Is it right for 99.999 percent of Americans to face tax obligations, but not a privileged academic aristocracy -the top .001 percent? Within higher education, why should the janitor cleaning the president’s office pay literally infinitely more in tax than his boss? It puts the Warren Buffet and his secretary analogy to shame. …
Todd Zywicki thinks the problems at universities start with the trustees.
The gruesome sexual abuse scandal and cover-up within PennState’s football program that exploded during fall 2011 rocked the conscience of a community, spawned a raft of criminal indictments of university officials, and ended the careers of the university’s storied football coach Joe Paterno and the university’s long-serving president.
The severity of the depravity at PennState renders the incident nearly unique. But the response of the university’s leadership—to downplay and cover-up the allegations—is not.
Based on my experience serving as an independent trustee on the Dartmouth Board of Trustees and my academic study of higher education governance, I believe that the cowardly response of PennState’s leadership is consistent with how many university boards today would respond. I submit that the core principle animating the modern university is a fundamental dishonesty that subverts its core mission. Although the events at PennState are extreme, they merely magnify the smaller dishonesty and lack of integrity that characterize the modern university.
The purpose of this two-part essay is to sketch the basis for my provocative claim and explain how this situation came to be. I will also offer some tentative suggestions as to how to rectify it.
Evidence of the myriad dishonesties that illustrate the core of the modern university is manifest. Some of the evidence is systemic and some is anecdotal evidence that illustrates deeper truths. Consider some examples. …