vision2020
Re: race card
"Slaves to words"
Wow, this is a great article by the excellent Thomas Sowell
that I think you all will enjoy...
"Slaves to words"
TownHall.com
Thomas Sowell
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20020816.shtml
Aug 16, 2002
In the old-time comic strip "Li'l Abner," one of the characters
revealed that a new stranger in town had spent many years in
reform school. Another character replied, "Well, he must be
reformed by now."
Unfortunately, the same gullibility about words occurs far too often in
the real world.
The proliferation of "ethics" courses in our educational institutions
over the past few decades might similarly lead some to think that
people must be more ethical by now. Yet the various corporate
scandals of our times suggest that the ethics courses in business
schools have failed completely. The unprecedented levels of cheating
in our schools and colleges likewise suggest that ethics courses don't
do much for ethics there either.
The big problem with accepting words is that it can keep us from
examining realities. The reality is that ethics courses have not failed.
They have succeeded in doing something wholly different from what
the public was led to believe they were doing.
In their various guises, courses on ethics at all educational levels have
tended to promote moral relativism, undermining the very concept of
right and wrong. In other words, many ethics courses are themselves
frauds.
Right and wrong are not rocket science. So why a need for so many
such courses, except as exercises in sophistry or propaganda for
politically correct notions about issues ranging from environmentalism
to the new trinity of "race, class and gender"?
We have become such slaves to words that many people really believe
that rent control controls rent and gun control controls guns. Yet a
study at the Cato Institute found that cities with rent control laws
usually have higher rents than cities without them.
There are economic reasons why this is so but the key point is that
few people bothered to find out the facts, much less try to analyze the
reasons, because they just assumed that rent control actually controls
rents.
Does gun control actually control guns? Statistics from a number of
countries suggest that tightening up restrictions on owning guns does
not reduce violence. On the contrary, violent crimes have increased in
various countries that have tightened up gun control in the wake of
widely publicized shootings, while those American communities that
passed laws allowing any responsible and law-abiding citizen to carry
a handgun have seen rates of violent crime decline.
Does AIDS education actually educate people about AIDS -- or is it
instead a way to propagandize in favor of accepting homosexuality
and adopting the gay political agenda? If you said the latter, you are
likely to be right more often than if you said the former.
Since homosexuality considerably increases the risk of getting AIDS,
these programs are counterproductive for their ostensible purpose,
however effective they may be for promoting the gay agenda.
Centuries ago, Hobbes said that words are wise men's counters, but
they are the money of fools. Often that money is counterfeit. But you
don't discover that in time if you don't bother to look at the reality
behind the words.
Alarm bells ought to go off when people start calling themselves
"public interest" law firms or "public interest" research groups. Who
are they to define what the public interest is, while pursuing their own
political or ideological agendas? There would not be any issues if other
people did not see the public interest differently.
Why is there a halo around organizations that are called "non-profit"?
People who head up such organizations are not volunteers donating
their time. Often they are paid far more than owners of restaurants,
hardware stores or gas stations can expect to make as profit. Why is
money that is called one thing better than money that is called
something else?
Since non-profit organizations usually have to get their money from
donations, many of them are fountainheads of hysterical propaganda.
Some of the biggest and phoniest scares of our time have come from
non-profit organizations, crying wolf in order to raise money -- the
money of fools.
--- DonaldH675@aol.com wrote:
> Dear Visionaries,
>
> The following paragraph from Credenda Agenda Volume 9 is Doug Wilson's
> self-published "explanation" of how racism developed in the South:
>
> "We must recognize the racism that has afflicted many in the South since the
> war is the fruit of the Reconstruction, not of slavery and the war. Those
> southern whites who today despise blacks, far from showing ongoing
> resistance, are continuing to submit to that humanist nightmare which was
> first imposed at Reconstruction. Far better would be the attitude of Southern
> whites who fought and bled alongside Southern blacks. At a reunion of the 7th
> Tennessee Cavalry in 1876, Col. William Sanford said, 'And to you our colored
> friends . . . we say welcome. We can never forget your faithfulness in the
> darkest hours of our lives. We tender to you our hearty respect and love,
> for you never faltered in duty nor betrayed our trust.'[ The Confederate
> heritage includes deep affection between white and black."
>
> This thinking is as limited in scope and understanding as it is morally
> repugnant. Vision 20/20 readers who are interested in Doug's glorification
> of the "old South" (or those who are morbidly curious) should visit
> http://www.credenda.org/issues/9-1thema.php
>
> Please, Doug, spare us any future lectures on race or the "race card." If I
> feel the urge to listen to defenders of the Old South, I'd just as soon turn
> to Jesse Helms, David Duke, or better yet, "Gone with the Wind." The latter,
> at least, has entertainment value.
>
> One more day for to tote the weary load,
> Rosemary Huskey
>
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