[Rhodes22-list] A black essayist speaks out on Obama - Sowell great as usual (Political)

[Hank]

Here is a little light reading to get the week started.  Enjoy!

Hank



*Please read. Thomas Sowell: great as usual. nfs*
        *An Old Newness Thomas Sowell *

*Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow
The Hoover Institution
Stanford University
Stanford, California 94305 *



*
*By Thomas Sowell
Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Many years ago, a great hitter named Paul Waner was nearing the end of his
long career. He entered a ballgame with 2,999 hits -- one hit away from the
landmark total of 3,000, which so many hitters want to reach, but which
relatively few actually do reach.

Waner hit a ball that the fielder did not handle cleanly but the official
scorer called it a hit, making it Waner's 3,000th. Paul Waner then sent word
to the official scorer that he did not want that questionable hit to be the
one that put him over the top.

The official scorer reversed himself and called it an error. Later Paul
Waner got a clean hit for number 3,000.

What reminded me of this is the great fervor that many seem to feel over the
prospect of the first black President of the United States.

No doubt it is only a matter of time before there is a black president, just
as it was only a matter of time before Paul Waner got his 3,000th hit. The
issue is whether we want to reach that landmark so badly that we are willing
to overlook how questionably that landmark is reached.

Paul Waner had too much pride to accept a scratch hit. Choosing a President
of the United States is a lot more momentous than a baseball record. We the
voters need to have far more concern about who we put in that office that
holds the destiny of a nation and of generations yet unborn.

There is no reason why someone as arrogant, foolishly clever and ultimately
dangerous as Barack Obama should become president -- especially not at a
time when the threat of international terrorists with nuclear weapons looms
over 300 million Americans.

Many people seem to regard elections as occasions for venting emotions, like
cheering for your favorite team or choosing a Homecoming Queen.

The three leading candidates for their party's nomination are being
discussed in terms of their demographics -- race, sex and age -- as if that
is what the job is about.

One of the painful aspects of studying great catastrophes of the past is
discovering how many times people were preoccupied with trivialities when
they were teetering on the edge of doom. The demographics of the presidency
are far less important than the momentous weight of responsibility that
office carries.

Just the power to nominate federal judges to trial courts and appellate
courts across the country, including the Supreme Court, can have an enormous
impact for decades to come. There is no point feeling outraged by things
done by federal judges, if you vote on the basis of emotion for those who
appoint them.

Barack Obama has already indicated that he wants judges who make social
policy instead of just applying the law. He has already tried to stop young
violent criminals from being tried as adults.

Although Senator Obama has presented himself as the candidate of new things
-- using the mantra of "change" endlessly -- the cold fact is that virtually
everything he says about domestic policy is straight out of the 1960s and
virtually everything he says about foreign policy is straight out of the
1930s.

Protecting criminals, attacking business, increasing government spending,
promoting a sense of envy and grievance, raising taxes on people who are
productive and subsidizing those who are not -- all this is a re-run of the
1960s.

We paid a terrible price for such 1960s notions in the years that followed,
in the form of soaring crime rates, double-digit inflation and double-digit
unemployment. During the 1960s, ghettoes across the countries were ravaged
by riots from which many have not fully recovered to this day.

The violence and destruction were concentrated not where there was the
greatest poverty or injustice but where there were the most liberal
politicians, promoting grievances and hamstringing the police.

Internationally, the approach that Senator Obama proposes -- including the
media magic of meetings between heads of state -- was tried during the
1930s. That approach, in the name of peace, is what led to the most
catastrophic war in human history.

Everything seems new to those too young to remember the old and too ignorant
of history to have heard about it.

*
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of Basic
Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy.

*