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moonhawksowl
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| Joined: | 7 March 2006 |
| Location: | Neosho, Wisconsin USA |
| Posts: | 100 |
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Posted: 13 August 2008 07:46 PM |
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Thomas Sowell was born in Gastonia , North Carolina and grew up in Harlem
As with many others in his neighborhood, he left home early and did not
finish high school. The next few years were difficult ones, but eventually
he joined the Marine Corps and became a photographer in the Korean War.
After leaving the service, Sowell entered Harvard University , worked a
part-time job as a photographer and studied the science that would become
his passion and profession: economics.
After graduating magna cum laude from Harvard University (1958), he went on
to receive his master's in economics from Columbia University (1959) and a
doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago (1968)
In the early '60s, Sowell held jobs as an economist with the Department of
Labor and AT&T. But his real interest was in teaching and scholarship. In
1965, at Cornell University , he began the first of many professorships. His
other teaching assignments include Rutgers University , Amherst University ,
Brandeis University and the University of California at Los Angeles , where
he taught in the early '70s and also from 1984 to 1989.
Sowell has published a large volume of writing.. His dozen books, as well as
numerous articles and essays, cover a wide range of topics, from classic
economic theory to judicial activism, from civil rights to choosing the
right college. Moreover, much of his writing is considered ground-breaking
-- work that will outlive the great majority of scholarship done today.
Though Sowell had been a regular contributor to newspapers in the late '70s
and early '80s, he did not begin his career as a newspaper columnist until
1984. George F. Will's writing, says Sowell, proved to him that someone
could say something of substance in so short a space (750 words). And
besides, writing for the general public enables him to address the heart of
issues without the smoke and mirrors that so often accompany academic
writing.
In 1990, he won the prestigious Francis Boyer Award, presented by The
American Enterprise Institute.
Currently Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute in Stanford ,
Calif.
Obama and McCain
By Thomas Sowell
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Now that the two parties have finally selected their presidential
candidates, it is time for a sober-- if not grim-- assessment of where we
are. Not since 1972 have we been presented with two such painfully
inadequate candidates. When election day came that year, I could not bring
myself to vote for either George McGovern or Richard Nixon. I stayed home.
This year, none of us has that luxury. While all sorts of gushing is going
on in the media, and posturing is going on in politics, the biggest national
sponsor of terrorism in the world-- Iran-- is moving step by step toward
building a nuclear bomb.
The point when they get that bomb will be the point of no return. Iran 's
nuclear bomb will be the terrorists' nuclear bomb-- and they can make 9/11
look like child's play.
All the options that are on the table right now will be swept off the table
forever. Our choices will be to give in to whatever the terrorists demand--
however outrageous those demands might be-- or to risk seeing American
cities start disappearing in radioactive mushroom clouds.
All the things we are preoccupied with today, from the price of gasoline to
health care to global warming, will suddenly no longer matter.
Just as the Nazis did not find it enough to simply kill people in their
concentration camps, but had to humiliate and dehumanize them first, so we
can expect terrorists with nuclear weapons to both humiliate us and force us
to humiliate ourselves, before they finally start killing us.
They have already telegraphed their punches with their sadistic beheadings
of innocent civilians, and with the popularity of videotapes of those
beheadings in the Middle East
They have already telegraphed their intention to dictate to us with such
things as Osama bin Laden's threats to target those places in America that
did not vote the way he prescribed in the 2004 elections. He could not back
up those threats then but he may be able to in a very few years.
The terrorists have given us as clear a picture of what they are all about
as Adolf Hitler and the Nazis did during the 1930s-- and our 'leaders' and
intelligentsia have ignored the warning signs as resolutely as the 'leaders'
and intelligentsia of the 1930s downplayed the dangers of Hitler.
We are much like people drifting down the Niagara River , oblivious to the
waterfalls up ahead. Once we go over those falls, we cannot come back up
again.
What does this have to do with today's presidential candidates? It has
everything to do with them.
One of these candidates will determine what we are going to do to stop Iran
from going nuclear-- or whether we are going to do anything other than talk,
as Western leaders talked in the 1930s.
There is one big difference between now and the 1930s. Although the West's
lack of military preparedness and its political irresolution led to three
solid years of devastating losses to Nazi Germany and imperial Japan ,
nevertheless when all the West's industrial and military forces were finally
mobilized, the democracies were able to turn the tide and win decisively.
But you cannot lose a nuclear war for three years and then come back. You
cannot even sustain the will to resist for three years when you are first
broken down morally by threats and then devastated by nuclear bombs.
Our one window of opportunity to prevent this will occur within the term of
whoever becomes President of the United States next January.
At a time like this, we do not have the luxury of waiting for our ideal
candidate or of indulging our emotions by voting for some third party
candidate to show our displeasure-- at the cost of putting someone in the
White House who is not up to the job.
Senator John McCain has been criticized in this column many times. But, when
all is said and done, Senator McCain has not spent decades aiding and
abetting people who hate America
On the contrary, he has paid a huge price for resisting our enemies, even
when they held him prisoner and tortured him. The choice between him and
Barack Obama should be a no-brainer. By Thomas Sowell
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woodsman777
HB Full Member
| Joined: | 30 May 2008 |
| Location: | Washington USA |
| Posts: | 84 |
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Posted: 14 August 2008 07:37 AM |
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Sad but true , its coming and there's not much that can be done to stop it.
the question is how will we as a nation and we as individuals respond .
you know barrack HUSSEIN obama who hates America will give them what
ever they want,do you suppose this is the change for AMERICA that he's been
talking about this whole time? hmmmmm. . .
as a side note Israel will be doing a preemptive strike ,wont stop them
but it will delay it for a while
____________________
FOR EVERYTHING IN LIFE -
-THERE IS A TIME AND A SEASON
WOODSMAN777
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ghrit
HB Life Member
| Joined: | 14 April 2006 |
| Location: | Endless Mountains, Pennsylvania USA |
| Posts: | 225 |
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Posted: 14 August 2008 01:38 PM |
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Sowell is right, we are faced with the choice of the lesser of two evils this time around (again.) He may also be right about Iran.
But it seems to me that there is a significant difference between the Germany of the 30s and the islamicist striped bin Ladins of today. With Germany the atrocities were carried out by a landed nation rather than an ephemeral unlanded philosophy that cannot be pinned to an area on the maps. We mashed Germany and Japan on their own soil. We could do the same to a nation (and may have to with Iran) but squashing bugs that have no allegiance to the land they are on and will relocate to another garbage bin when pressured is another problem entirely.
So comes the question, do you (or can you) support a left leaning old conservative or a young idealistic socialist without a grounding in reality? The future will tell us if we chose correctly, but we MUST make a choice. Either way, I fear we are headed toward isolationism, extreme tightening of our borders, and withdrawal from the rest of the world's problems. Maybe that isn't so bad --
____________________
Remote locations are cheap insurance.
30-06 - billions served
There are two kinds of ships: Submarines and targets
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moonhawksowl
HB Pro Staff
| Joined: | 7 March 2006 |
| Location: | Neosho, Wisconsin USA |
| Posts: | 100 |
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Posted: 14 August 2008 05:02 PM |
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ghrit said
" So comes the question, do you (or can you) support a left leaning old conservative or a young idealistic socialist without a grounding in reality? The future will tell us if we chose correctly, but we MUST make a choice. Either way, I fear we are headed toward isolationism, extreme tightening of our borders, and withdrawal from the rest of the world's problems. Maybe that isn't so bad --"
This may happen And I don't think it would be that bad we can than fix this nation and be a strong America again!!!! The America that our fathers and fore fathers, and YOU GUYS fought for, for our rights & Freedom!!!!!
Besides 145 day in senate LOLS Obama has no experience to run this country but into the ground,or into the hands of our ememies, or has he been preped from childhood to be the antichrist????????
The funny thing he keeps talking about change but ask anybody even the idiots that are going to vote for him don't KNOW,!!!! ( WHAT IS THE DAMN CHANGE)?????
will that be his suprise if made president?
Oh here's one for you guys to ponder Will he place his right hand on the Bible and take the oath of office he'll have to say God!
Wow! how is he going to twist that one 
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Charley
Administrator
| Joined: | 9 September 2005 |
| Location: | San Antonio, Texas USA |
| Posts: | 2223 |
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Posted: 15 August 2008 03:37 AM |
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Dr. Sowell is, IMO, the finest conservative writer in the US today. Brilliant man, but not a great speaker. Walter Williams is much more entertaning, and no slouch as a writer himself.
I don't much like McClain. His views on freedom of speech are spelled out pretty well in the McCain-Feingold bill.
I am not voting for McCain as much as I am voting against Obama. The man is a disaster waiting to happen. His almost nonexistent record in the US Senate shows no indication of his abilities to be a even a caretaker President of the US. His record in teh Illinois House is awful at best...a classic tax and spend leftist. His views on individual rights and responsibilities are downright scary.
I don't really give a crap if his middle name is Hussein, though. It could be Adolf Hitler for all I care, not germane to the issue.
BTW, I don't believe much in physics, but when Mrs. Charley has a feeling about something, I pay attention to it. She's feeling either McCain or Obama better have a good, capable VP, she kinda sees McCain dying in office or Obama getting assasinated, both in the third year. I've learned to trust her feelings on stuff, might be something to watch.
____________________
"You all can go to Hell, I'm going to Texas" David Crockett (and probably George Bush)
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Dirtkicker
addicted handloader
| Joined: | 3 September 2007 |
| Location: | High Plains |
| Posts: | 337 |
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Posted: 16 August 2008 08:42 PM |
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Time and again in the past decades we have been faced with a slate of presidential candidates that are decidedly underwhelming. Like others here, I am tired of voting against a candidate rather for him. I think our media have done us a great disservice in this country by creating an atmosphere in which the awful, frequently unfair scrutiny that a candidate must endure insures that only those who shouldn't have the office will run for it. They don't want us to have a real, living, breathing human being, but a stuffed icon. A mere bag of sound-bites and photo ops.
I'm sick of it.
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jjb2
addicted handloader
| Joined: | 5 July 2007 |
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Posted: 18 August 2008 04:25 PM |
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do you really think voting will make any difference at all?? the last few elections have me thinking that the leader of the U.S. is decided by a small group of very rich men who have already picked the president of the free world and we just are along for for the ride.......... how else do you explain how such an illiterate fool can be that office right now.....i mean the man can't even speak! just something to think about...........................................................
LIFE IS SHORT.................................
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ghrit
HB Life Member
| Joined: | 14 April 2006 |
| Location: | Endless Mountains, Pennsylvania USA |
| Posts: | 225 |
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Posted: 18 August 2008 05:02 PM |
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Voting WILL make a difference, but not necessarily for POTUS. All politics is local. Don't forget that POTUS has to carry his ideas all the way from conception until Congress signs off on it. Get your congresscritters where they need to be first --
____________________
Remote locations are cheap insurance.
30-06 - billions served
There are two kinds of ships: Submarines and targets
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