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

[Brad Haslett]

Hank,

Here's Comrade Obambi without his teleprompter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxBX8sz3tO8&eurl=http://ace.mu.nu/

Impressive, huh?  The MSM would be all over this if it was anyone else, but
they were probably too busy with "tingling legs".

What a clown!

Brad

On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 6:21 AM, Hank <hnw555 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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.
>
> *
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