Thomas Sowell sounds the alarm
Sowell remains clear-thinking at 92 – and he’s always been among the clearest of thinkers. His latest essay is called “The Point of No Return.”
Here’s an excerpt:
This is an election year. But the issues this year are not about Democrats and Republicans. The big issue is whether this nation has degenerated to a point of no return — a point where we risk destroying ourselves, before our enemies can destroy us.
If there is one moment that symbolized our degeneration, it was when an enraged mob gathered in front of the Supreme Court and a leader of the United States Senate shouted threats against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, saying “You won’t know what hit you!”
There have always been irresponsible demagogues. But there was once a time when anyone who shouted threats to a Supreme Court Justice would see the end of his own political career, and could not show his face in decent society again.
You either believe in laws or you believe in mob rule. It doesn’t matter whether you agree with the law or agree with the mob on some particular issue. If threats of violence against judges — and publishing where a judge’s children go to school — is the way to settle issues, then there is not much point in having elections or laws.
There is also not much point in expecting to have freedom. Threats and violence were the way the Nazis came to power in Germany. Freedom is not free. If you can’t be bothered to vote against storm-trooper tactics — regardless of who engages in them, or over what issue — then you can forfeit your freedom.
“If you can’t be bothered to vote against storm-trooper tactics — regardless of who engages in them, or over what issue — then you can forfeit your freedom.”
Says it all.
(To be sure, “storm-trooper tactics” were in very visible AND palpable force to a huge extent BEFORE the 2020 elections—e.g., antifa and BLM…that’s right, Jerry Nadler’s “mythical” antifa—and Joe Biden STILL WON that election—“election”?—by a “record number of votes”; however, as I’ve said many a time before, there must be, quite obviously, a definite relationship between those “storm-trooper tactics” and the NECESSITY for Biden’s “record number of votes”….)
I consider myself a “Sowell man”.
“If there is one moment that symbolized our degeneration, it was when an enraged mob gathered in front of the Supreme Court and a leader of the United States Senate shouted threats against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, saying “You won’t know what hit you!” ”
Chuck Schumer should be impeached.
18 U.S. Code § 1503 – Influencing or injuring officer or juror generally
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1503
I gotta tell ya, when you’ve got a lot to lose it seems prudent to keep your head down especially when they start hunting conservatives. Many of us here are vulnerable in many different ways. I don’t want to wake up at 4 am to well armed men willing to shoot you, who then confiscate all you electronics and suggest that you’re some kind of domestic terrorist. You can lose pretty much everything mounting a defense…like General Flynn. And when you’re newly retired it’s difficult to gain even a small measure of it back.
I’ll still vote for conservatives but I won’t attend rallies or protests. As long as it’s not illegal to vote conservative!
Oh no, this is terrible. I’ve been listening to people say “This is it! This is the point of no return!” for 50 years and I’ve gotten away with ignoring them so far. But I consider Thomas Sowell the greatest living American. When he says it I have to believe it.
It’s like the old EF Hutton commercial, when Sowell speaks everyone should listen.
Who remembers the (Black Panther?) activist in front of a PA election site holding a baseball bat and saying that no Repubs would be allowed in? This happened before/during the first Obama election, I think, and Eric Holder made it crystal clear that no charges would be forthcoming. Repubs caved.
Point being, there’s a near-infinite series of provocations available to choose from ….
I don’t think we’re at the point of no return but I did and do think that 2016 was a Flight 93 election. Trump proving there is an alternative to the established order is one of the best things to happen in American politics in generations.
We’re not at a point of no return, however, because the current establishment wants to maintain existing structures of U.S. life and government. They want to corrupt them but they still want to have the same old forms and names. As long as those structures exist, we can still fight back without needing to string people up from lampposts.
Mike
“You either believe in laws or you believe in mob rule.” Thomas Sowell
America’s founding fathers believed in the rule of law but were faced with a ruler who employed tyranny. They repeatedly protested and implored King George and Parliament to give due consideration to their pleas as loyal subjects and free Englishmen. Nothing was left to them but armed rebellion.
The left has politicized federal agencies and employed mobs. If this election does not result in substantive reforms… then what alternatives will be left?
MBunge,
The current establishment is using the existing structures of U.S. life and government to forge the chains of our enslavement. Our Social Credit Score will determine what opportunities and resources are available. Resources that can be rescinded without due process.
The implementation of government controlled Digital Currencies will compel our compliance.
Yawrate: Agreed.
Any time I see new Sowell shared I think back to my time at Fancy New England University place and a polisci/govt class I took in the early 90’s. Professor was not surprisingly liberal himself but took so much time exposing the class to every side of every issue. He was positively fascinated by Newt Gingrich as Speaker, and went out of his way to point out Dan Quayle (!) as a really decent Representative during his time in the House. He exposed me to Sowell back then as well with positive things to say about his intelligence and debating style. It’s sad to think my kind of experience is probably dead for good in most higher learning joints.
I’m sad I’m getting old because I will not see what wonders the universe and the minds of men may reveal in the next generation…if…we don’t destroy ourselves and/or the human race does not succumb to some form of communistic control, quashing innovation and genuine progress (not to be confused with where the “progressives” wish to take us.)
However, we have taken this wondrous experiment in freedom and liberty for granted for far too long, and it appears that the forces of evil have succeeded in their long march through our institutions and are nearly in complete control now.
I am glad that I will not live to see us reach this awful state, but it was foreseen generations ago.
The only thing Orwell got wrong was the year.
The anointed will have to learn their pronouns in Chinese.
Schumer’s actions could easily be interpreted by the Left, as permission from the government to do whatever they want, with Senator Schumer’s full approval.
If you can’t be bothered to vote against storm-trooper tactics — regardless of who engages in them, or over what issue — then you can forfeit your freedom.
Well, this is our problem. North of 40% of the electorate is perfectly content with targeted political violence and the weaponization of public institutions. This won’t end well.
America is done and done for. The only question is the rate of its decline, the speed of its descent into an oppressive tyranny when people elected to the San Diego School Board can generate formalized opposition to “heteronormativity” and ask the young students to consider “safer anal sex” and “what does semen taste like?”
The only way America can remain America is to downsize, getting the entire Left Coast and all of New England out of our United States, which are grossly disunited, and cannot be reunited.
“Always look on the lighter side of life. …..”
The Life of Brian
om:
The Life of Brian was a fiction and a comedy. You offer a stupid remedy to a catastrophic problem. But just shut up and pay your taxes to our neo-Stalinist IRS.
Thomas Sowell calls out Democrat politicians and Democrat voters for being evil.
the Pythons have much to answer for, in deconstructing many British institutions, like the Church the Family et al, if they were not so inimically opposed to Christianity, they would understand that the ‘lighter side of life’ was Life Eternal,
Sarah Hoyt has something similar to say, with a slightly different angle
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2022/08/04/tied-to-the-madman/
@ OBH – I just finished Sarah’s post. It is sobering, to say the least.
Her thoughts, and her commenters, make an interesting companion to Neo’s blog.
Similar substance, and often the same point of view, but very different style.