The author of more than a dozen books, Dr. Sowell is now a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. In his newest work, Intellectuals and Society, he will discuss why so many disasters of our time have been committed by experts or intellectuals. You may remember FDRs Brain Trust which according to later studies is a prolonged the depression by several years. The wiz kids at the pentagon under McNamara who managed to mess up the Vietnam War, you can run through an impressive list of things, of disasters brought about by people with very high IQs
Thomas Sowell on Intellectuals and Society
Posted by admin on December 17th, 2010
Posted in Depression Videos 
Around the 18:00 mark: What the host says about reading Marx's Communist Manifesto... EXACTLY MY WORDS when I read the bloody thing myself!
Thomas Sowell is such a beautiful person, to hear such humility from such an accomplished and extraordinary intellectual is remarkable, it warms my soul ^^
Intellectuals and Society..is this a Fictional or Non-Fictional..;)
Sigh :/ around 15:00 is pretty tragic. To para: "Lets judge things like 'climate change' ad hominem."
@jdshields2006 Some pretty simple causation there. Finland consistently tops the education rankings and it's as public as you get. Any sound 'market' based theory of education system performance should explain Finland away and then Denmark....
@towneslives Yeah. Violent crime in the UK and US is pretty much at parity. It's just the insane US murder rate because every tom dick and harry is armed.
A good case comparative case is Scotland which has a higher violent crime rate all round than the US but actually has less murders likely because Scott, Duncan and Ian don't have guns.
@Redsociology Yes and no. Props to Sowell for using the scientific method and looking for evidence, but I am afraid he's pretty selective. He reminds me of those 'young earth' yet professors of Geology that manage to always make room for Noah.
For instance he peddles myths like the banking crisis was down to; "US government forcing banks to loan x,y,z US government a,b,c...." when the reality of the matter the same thing happened the world over...
@towneslives That's based on the premise that the only thing that leads to more homicides is availability of guns. This would be true if both countries had environments which were exactly the same.
There are more burglaries in Britain than the US? Maybe, but there are more than three times as many homicides in the US, not to mention the countless accidental deaths from gun use. There are also about 25 times as many homicides from firearms in the US than the UK. I'd rather be burgled than shot; I don't know about Thomas Sowell.
Public education sucks in America, there is no doubt about it. Who is in total control of the public education system? Think about it...Now think why America is in crisis...Who has the party majority in the House of Representatives? Think about it...
I actually stumbled across this video, because I am taking an Economics class in college. The book required to have for the class is "Basic Economics - 3rd Edition" by T. Sowell.
**I attend a private university.**
@indledbap The goal of the constitution is to protect your individual and property rights, not to affect burglary rates or gun crimes. They knew that you have the God given right to protect yourself, enumerating the right to bear arms to prevent the tyrrany of government excesses or evil persons.
@hyetalian1 although I dont agree with his view it made perfect sense to me.
@indledbap Many more people are killed by knives then guns.
@indledbap This makes absolutely no sense...You over complicate things.
@AmbientSmiley You clearly do not know what fascism is...
While I consider myself a left intellectual to be, would anyone agree that Sowell's arguments, though I take issue with how he interprets data and how he looks at certain trends, makes a somewhat more subtle argument than the host, who comes off as a very crass ideologist for right wing and libertarian thought. Sowell would have been much better with a more neutral interlocutor.
Is Thomas an intellectual? And will he stand to answer for the anarchy and following fascism that he is trying to inspire? What a moron this man is...
@indledbap I would say that the constitution does not give rights but rather protects the rights that we believe we have been endowed by the happenstance of our existence. I will venture to state that he most likely uses them in the context of protectors rather than dispensers. As for the US constitution, the rights of US citizens as interpreted by the founders are protected by it while the Geneva convention is similar in purpose. Rights must be able to exist in civil and uncivil society.
@elvisfan22 My point was: it is oversimplifying the issue to say that if you ban guns, burglary goes up - so don't ban guns. There are other important factors which affect burglary rates. Also you have to weigh up the costs and benefits of banning guns. Would you rather have fewer burglaries, or fewer gun-related deaths? (oversimplification) There are other ways to get burglary rates down. Of course, the figures can't decide the policy, people with personal opinions decide the policy in the end.
@indledbap No, he does not refer to them as if they were not constructed by humans. He refers to them in the specific context of giving civilian trials to terrorist prisoners. Trials are carried out by government according to the Constitution, and the treatment of prisoners is governed by the Geneva Convention. His point was that giving civilian trials to such prisoners is not required by those laws, and therefore calling it a "right" is an example of the misuse of the term he was discussing.
@indledbap The intellectuals whom Sowell criticizes are the types who peddle ideas intended to serve as the blueprint for the remaking of society, and especially of the economy, so while he ventures outside his expertise when discussing these people, he doesn't do so as much as one might think. Furthermore, he is well within his expertise when discussing the results of the kind of economic planning espoused by those whom he criticizes. Contrary to your claim, his arguments are quite powerful.
How many times did the guy giving the interview hold up the book? Did Sowell say "I'll give you $20 each time you hold up my book" or something?
@indledbap I don't understand your comment. "Burglary" hasn't or has gone up since Britians gun ban?
@indledbap most of the murders in the US are in the inner cities and in the US we also have a higher proportion of security systems per home per capita than the UK
And Britain's burglary rate is higher than the U.S. because, when the general population doesn't have guns to protect itself, burglers are encouraged to burgle? And when you give the population guns it encourages people to shoot each other, hence America has a higher murder rate than the UK… Sloppy, over-simplistic analysis, much like a number of Mr. Sowell's points.