Diest TKO wrote:Foxfyre - Okay, whatever, I gave you a door out from Sowell, but you choose to sit. That's your prerogative. Before I go any further, I'd like to address one thing you said which is inflammatory.
Foxfyre wrote:...a nation still shaking off the final formal remnants of racist policies.
This is still going on. You think we are rid of racist policies?
Okay, moving on. As far as my turn goes, I already gave you my example: MLK. I'll expand though, as to why I think he is a patriot. To me, it is because MLK had zero delusions about his country, and that loving his country didn't men lying about it being the best. Loving his country meant taking care of it and it's citizens.
There will never be a means to declare the USA as the greatest nation in the world. To do so, is a waste of time. MLK did more for the USA by fighting against it's injustice than he would have defending it's name and saying it's the greatest nation on the planet. We certainly have all the tools needed to make ourselves the greatest if someday a means to measure such a thing appears. That by itself is not enough though. If we are ever to be the greatest, it won't just be what we do, but how we do it.
A war on terror is meaningless, if we inspire the same kind of terror we aim to fight.
I think it's funny that Sowell's articles attack the school system he went through and still produces his views. I stand by my original statements, Sowell's article is poorly done. As a writer he had a responsibility to defend his own words by addressing the counter point. Poor rhetoric without support.
The skinny is this, there are patriots across this nation and I resent the idea that somebody feels the need to define something that many experience in such a way to disqualify them.
There are patriots that feel the best thing for the country is to embrace many international ideas. The best idea doesn't have to be "American Made" before we try it. That's stubborn, and dangerous.
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You, a master of unsupported (and supportable) statements presume to criticize Sowell for writing poorly and not supporting his thesis? Please show your published work syndicated through hundreds of newspapers who apparently think he writes quite well. Please show your 41 books written on education, economics, race, ethnicity, history, and assorted subjects for which you have not had a problem finding a publisher eager to get them. And then consider whether Thomas Sowell writes so poorly.
I have never said that MLK was not a patriot. Nor did MLK ever attempt to belittle or demean his country or suggest that it was inferior to other countries. Like Sowell he had the ability to see his country as it was, with the good and the bad, and as a citizen could and did criticize without tearing it down. Some of MLK's words:
Quote:"The spirit of Lincoln still lives; that spirit born of the teachings of the Nazarene, who promised mercy to the merciful, who lifted the lowly, strengthened the weak, ate with publicans, and made the captives free. In the light of this divine example, the doctrines of demagogues shiver in their chaff.
America experiences a new birth of freedom in her sons and daughters; she incarnates the spirit of her martyred chief. Their loyalty is repledged; their devotion renewed to the work He left unfinished. My heart throbs anew in the hope that inspired by the example of Lincoln, imbued with the spirit of Christ, they will cast down the last barrier to perfect freedom. And I with my brother of blackest hue possessing at last my rightful heritage and holding my head erect, may stand beside the Saxon--a Negro--and yet a man!"
. . . . .And from his "I Have a Dream" speech:
Quote:". . . .I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed - we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.
This will be the day, this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!". . . ."
These are not the words of a man who throws the baby out with the bathwater any more than Sowell does. MLK was not fighting against his country but was fighting for a principle. If you had bothered to actually read what Sowell is saying, he sees what is every bit as clearly as did MLK, and is as specific in the wrongs that he has seen and sees.
Both were/are Conservatives to the core which allowed/allows them the freedom to not have to tear down in order to see what can be built up. They don't have to blind themselves to what is right in order to declare what is wrong. Neither saw it necessary to demonize anything or anybody in order to state what needs to be fixed, corrected, improved, changed, or remedied. Both loved their country.
Sowell criticizes the school system that is NOT the school system that produced his views. In his writings you will see how much he appreciates the education he received. It was about 20 or 25 years or so ago that he went back to study the test scores of his segregated inner city New York school in the 1940's and compared those with the white kids' school in the same neighborhood. He found that some years the white kids did a bit better in this or that subject and some years the black kids did a bit better in this or that but overall the results were comparable. He in no way is arguing for segregation as an acceptable or good thing; he is only recognizing that he was not disadvantaged in any way in the education he received.
He strongly argues now that the present day public schools are not educating kids anywhere near as competently. And he sees that after 40 years of liberalism in education, the black kids have been especially disadvantaged for a number of reasons.
To illustrate how you, a young liberal, so often misinterpret what you see, hear, and read:
I commented that Sowell saw ". . . .a nation still shaking off the final formal remnants of racist policies."
And your response:
Quote:This is still going on. You think we are rid of racist policies?
First, I didn't say that. But since you failed to see what I was saying in that context, perhaps you could enumerate what racist policies remain?
What did the 13th, 14th, 15th, and 24th Amendments and Civil Rights Act miss?
I agree that there are some racist policies remaining, but what remains are all out of the liberal playbook however inadvertently they are intended to be racist.
Sowell was all grown up when those last two amendments and the Civil Rights Act happened. He has seen the good of tearing down artificial barriers and he has seen the reality of consequences of tearing down great black institutions with them. He in no way condones slavery in ANY form and to this day speaks out against it, yet he can appreciate how he himself has benefitted because somebody dragged his ancesters over here in a slave ship which allowed him to be born an American and now be a free man with no artificial or any other barriers to his potential or opportunities. He can recognize the evils of slavery without feeling like a victim himself.
Sowell can understand the principles behind affirmative action and forced bussing and all the other policies that have been implemented to address inequities due to racism. And he is intelligent and honest enough to also see the downside of those things.
Sowell and MLK were contemporaries less than six months apart in age. Both descended from slaves and grew up under segregation. Both had to sit in the back of the bus. MLK's life was cut short, but he would have seen Thomas Sowell as a shining example of a free man with a clear vision of what was and what the efforts of hundreds of thousands of people have accomplished by throwing off the shackles of racism. And he, like Sowell, would have proclaimed "Free at last".
You see MLK was a conservative which means to be able to separate history from present day and to conserve what is good even as you change what must change. And conservatives are generally able to stop fighting a war after it has been won and go about the business of taking advantage of the victory. Liberals, however, too often seem to insist that the war continue and refuse to move past it and move on. When repairs have been made, conservatives can enjoy the fruits of their labor. Liberals keep wringing their hands and bemoaning the fact that it was broken.
Thomas Sowell understands that. Most liberals don't.
(I was guilty of a bit of that when I first started on A2K but I've developed skills to avoid that pitfall at least most of the time now.)
