Writing E-Mail Forwards with Thomas Sowell

I talk about the old white men of the GOP/right-wing pundit class needing to retire quite a bit in these here minutes, and upon reflection, perhaps ALL the men over the age of 45 should retire from the pundit class. It’s not like the right-wing pundit class is hurting for misinformed, malformed prognosticators that will more often than not be wrong. 45 year old men are still respected for their vigor and youth, perhaps having a bit of salt-and-pepper in their hairdo’s, you get the drill. Because this notion that with age comes wisdom is proving to be an utter fallacy for those in the right-wing who bow at the feet of a Krauthammer, Will and in today’s case: Jack Krier’s one Black Friend™ Thomas Sowell.

Maybe the day he farted out his article “Random Thoughts” 84-year old Mr. Sowell was in need of a nap. Perhaps he’s about to go on vacation, because this article reeks of someone getting one of those apocalyptical e-mail forwards from their right-wing buddies, manifested some words around it, and called it a day. It covers all the current day bases…wait a minute did Thomas Sowell just flesh out a GOP/right-wing talking points memo? It’s got all your usual suspects: a new GOP presidential darling, extolling the virtues of a lack of an education, Obama writ dictator, immigration, ceaseless war, academia hating, the IRS, feminism, Democrat/Liberal bungling foreign policy, and then double dipping on another GOP presidential darling! I was merely going to be hyperbolic with the talking points accusation, but it looks to be ABSOLUTELY true!

Fun Fact: Did you know hat Thomas Sowell is an economist? It’s true! He even wrote a book about economics. I watched a college kid try to read it on a plane trip recently. The boy kept shaking his head at what he was trying to read, I sneaked a peek at the pages from time to time, and also shook my head. Utter and complete inane bullshit. So the amazement that he doesn’t write about economics 98.9% of time should be tempered somewhat. But you would like to think that perhaps in these trying economic times that Mr. Sowell’s supposed economy expertise would be quite handy, and that his prodigious banal right-wing also ran baloney writings could be stemmed somewhat.

Let’s break down these random thoughts, that I’m most assured will crop up as a carefully reworded Jack Krier penned editorial in the coming weeks.

He opens with a Obama slam. Yawn. There is also apparently a joke in here that goes over my head. Uh…Har har?

That blasted “mainstream media” is at it again, this time trying to topple Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s rise in the polls! What polls? The GOP/right-wings pants? Exactly! The condemnation: Walker didn’t finish college! The horror! Mr. Sowell then rattles off that LOTS of GREAT people didn’t finish college. Like “[…] Bill Gates or Michael Dell. The Wright brothers didn't finish high school. Neither did Abraham Lincoln or George Washington.” As if this means something. I have also never ceased to be amazed at the bulk of GOP/right-wing pundits with multiple college degrees that then go and admonish a higher education. So academia wasn’t the veiled Satan you say it was while you were in school? Now that you’re out it’s this brainwashing, free thought crushing, useless endeavor? Give me a break. There’s research that shows that the smarter one gets the less inclined they are to be conservative and by extension Republican, maybe that’s why?

Mr. Sowell then notices that there are a ever growing number of things you’re not supposed to say in public anymore. Like what exactly? He doesn’t elaborate. I wonder if like Jack Krier, old man Thomas Sowell said something inappropriate and got mean mugged by some old white lady, or his wife, or daughter. Hell, when you’re that old the amount of stupid bullshit coming out of your old ass mouth is more likely than anything cogent. Which explains the bulk of Mr. Sowell’s output.

Netanyahu’s address to Congress is brought up, only to elucidate the notion that it will finally prove to the American public just how fucked up it is in the Middle East. Really? Americans don’t need to just look back over the past decade of two useless wars, countless lives and money lost, and so on and so forth? That an Israeli provocation in the area and the ensuring retaliation from neighboring countries or vice versa could lead to yet another World War? Nah! With his speech to Congress Netanyahu all but made certain that conflict was not an “if” but “when” for that region and the U.S. better get ready for more war. 

Mr. Sowell then Andy Rooney’s us with a look in to his office space. Calling it a “paper jungle” and…Oh, did you fall asleep? I’m sorry, I don’t know why he needed to put this in here. I hope later in the article he talks about what he looks for when he buys fruit and how he likes to keep it in his house. Perhaps an update on his prostate, and/or how hard or soft his shits were on this particular day.

Ah yes, securing the border, never you mind that according to polls we’ve spent more on the border patrol in recent years than in all other decades combined. That immigration from Mexico to the U.S. is basically a net zero. No, we must pour more treasure in to the useless wedge issue. Then Mr. Sowell asks a rhetorical question about the movements and designs of congress. Really? Aren’t you one of those pundits that applaud the fact that the GOP/right-wing is always jamming up congress with useless grandstanding bullshit?

Now this next one is the very reason I decided to write about this article and nothing else. I wanted to write about Kathleen Parker’s recent navel gazing, hell Tom Purcell had a good one recently too. But no, Thomas Sowell had to write one of the most stupid things ever. In regards to terrorists Mr. Sowell writes:
    “State Department official Marie Harf said, "We cannot win this war by killing them" but instead we need to get to the "root causes" of jihads by providing "job opportunities." We tried getting at the "root causes" of crime back in the 1960s -- and crime rates skyrocketed. But we stopped the Nazis in World War II by killing them, instead of setting up a jobs program in Germany.”
Now, because Mr. Sowell is black, I guess it’s okay to just assume that “we” tried getting to the “root causes” of crime in the 1960’s and not really flesh that first part of the “random thought” out. What does he mean by that? Was there an actual real concerted interest in getting to the “root causes” of black crime in the 1960’s? Or are we just giving Mr. Sowell a pass because he’s merely facilitating his job of saying racist things because his fellow white conservative couldn’t get away with saying baseless bullshit like this in the first place? More importantly, are we talking about black crime skyrocketing in the 1960’s or crime in general. Specifically are we talking crime in the broadest since of the word, or murder, theft, etc?

Then the whole Nazi’s thing is another ball of wax. Oh to live in a time when right and wrong were so patently black and white! But I guess you can cut Mr. Sowell some slack seeing that he’s an economist and not a historian, that he would go ahead and assume that “we” didn’t try and get to the “root causes” of Germany’s problem in the aftermath of the first World War and how their lack of outlook is what let to a little thing like Nazism gaining a foothold in the country. Nah, you see we totally eradicated the hateful rhetoric off the face of the planet by killing Nazi’s right? What’s that? Oh…Neo Nazi’s, the Ku Klux Klan…and so on and so forth? But according to Thomas Sowell, who was ALIVE during WWII, we stopped the bad guys by killing them! The End! Their hateful legacy died with them too, you’d be naïve…or forcibly ignorant if you think that diplomacy works on ANY level. All you need is to crank up the ol’ War Machine® and just drive it in to whatever country or people that are foolish enough to trifle with freedom! The Internets says that Mr. Sowell served in the Korean War, so he more than most of his conservative peers should know the cost of war. Now, The Internets doesn’t specify if Mr. Sowell saw any combat, but at a certain point, and so many more decades of war hawking under his belt, it doesn’t really matter.

Going back to the victimizing Israel well for the next thought. Mr. Sowell’s hyperbole gun is on full blast with this one. Signing a deal with Iran is paramount to throwing Israel to the wolves? Never you mind that the agreement is of the international flavor with U.S., Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia all on board. One would like to think those other countries are at least a bit closer to a nuclear Iran than we are. And I have to wonder if Mr. Sowell even knows what the agreement is about. It’s express purpose is to make sure Iran doesn’t get ANY centrifuge capabilities, and that their nuclear ambitions stay in check. What should be more alarming to conservatives is that Iran is able to rebuild a nuclear program that would normally take two years down in to two months.

Then we hit the ol’ academic piñata again! If you’re sensing a lot of de ja vu in these here “random thoughts” don’t worry, it’s actually happening. This is why I’m supposing Mr. Sowell needed a nap or something. Better yet, he just farted this column out over a weekend and that’s why it apparently loops back over on itself, as he forgot that he just lambasted academia earlier. And so I repeat what I wrote earlier with the addition that Mr. Sowell himself has served on several university faculties, graduated from both Harvard and Columbia…and the University of Chicago…and the think tank he works for, The Hoover Institution, is at Stanford University! Hell, it’s on the campus…so where the hell does Mr. Sowell get off on this “academia is a veiled Satan” rhetoric? Now this “random thought” might hold a bit of water as it approaches the notion that “The young are indoctrinated with demographic "diversity" that contrasts with a squelching of diversity of ideas on social issues.” But he doesn’t elaborate. Aside from stating that campuses are filled with more taboos and intellectual intolerance in America. This is because of professor tenure? In coupling that with Chris Rock’s recent comments that he doesn’t like performing at college campuses because of an intolerance to dirty jokes and taboo topics, perhaps Mr. Sowell has a point. But then there are his fellow conservative writers who are also tenured professors who spend a fair amount of column space crowing about the fact that their tenure allows them to be a racist, regressive conservative blowhard and no one can touch them. As with any social/ideological movement there will eventually be some push back. Social justice isn’t for everyone, and it’s current overreach will be met with a stronger push back as with all movements eventually.

I find it funny in the next “random though” that he takes the IRS and other social entities to task for “losing” things. Is it better to lose things that might disprove something, than to just pretend it doesn’t exist…or by extension matter? These “random thoughts” and their lack of context is pretty damning if the idea is to have other people, aside from his ditto-head readers, read this and then decide they’ve had enough of that mainstream media and Obama’s liberal agenda. Is he talking about the data climate scientists lost a few years back that would lead to the disproving of man made global warming? Also, would it be so bad if conservatives just agreed that global warming is real and stop pretending nothing is happening? You don’t have to like it, and in fact you can just out and out say that you’re being paid by the fossil fuel industry and the other earth hating corporations to be in constant disbelief and call it a day. This “random thought” is fucking loaded! He even slides in a dig at “affirmative action” for some reason. I feel like with this “random thought” there’s plenty of data he has failed to recognize that would combat his bullshit, but then the randomness and his conservative bonafides would be in question.

I don’t understand this “radical feminist” “random thought” not being couple or tripled with these previous anti-academia talking points. Hell, I think it would’ve been neat had Mr. Sowell actually taken the time and fleshed out an article on this straw man argument. You see, radical feminists are strangely silent about this whole ISIS thing. You know the most evil current boogeyman to the GOP/right-wing? According to Mr. Sowell, the “radical feminists” have sure been quiet on the whole ISIS front. But that makes me wonder if he’s just out of touch, and not that “radical feminists” aren’t saying anything about ISIS. Would having “radical feminists” on your side actually help the saber-rattling for war that is currently possessing the GOP/right-wing? “Well you know, we weren’t so sure about going in to more ceaseless war’s, but then all these “radical feminists” joined our cause, and now it is most just!”

A “random thought” about John Kerry is next, who made the mistake of saying the world isn’t so dangerous now. But then someone else said it wasn’t! Which is in line with the conservative world view that ever single thing is awful and terrible and the apocalypse is JUST around the corner, OH MY GOD EVERYONE HATES AMERICA AND IS COMING TO ATTACK US…somehow! Give me a fucking break. Is the GOP/right-wing not going to be sated until the U.S. just becomes the imperialistic overlord to the world?

Finally, book ending his “random thoughts” another dig at Obama. “We should never again put a first-term Senator in the White House.” But then goes on to list three other first-term senators for the Republican Presidential Candidate Clown Car Rally™! Oh, because they’re YOUR guys, I get it now! And also he’ll be ready in 2020! Ah, so clever Mr. Sowell. Since Marco Rubio admitted he was so wrong on immigration, he gets the Thomas Sowell seal of approval for the far flung future! You wanted something substantive as a better reason to be a GOP presidential candidate? Did you forget that you’re reading a Thomas Sowell column, come on!