Thomas Sowell is an idiot. Yeah, I know-- dog bites man.
If ordinary people, with no medical training, could perform surgery in their kitchens with steak knives, and get results that were better than those of surgeons in hospital operating rooms, the whole medical profession would be discredited.
Yet it is common for ordinary parents, with no training in education, to homeschool their children and consistently produce better academic results than those of children educated by teachers with Master's degrees and in schools spending upwards of $10,000 a year per student — which is to say, more than a million dollars to educate ten kids from K through 12.
He then goes on to point out that the economists who were running the planned economies in China and India haven't done as well in allocating goods and service as the "market." It's two-fer idiocy. First, he's comparing apples and oranges. Home education and a g-school education have nothing in common except the word "education." I have no doubt that I'd be a total flop at running a class of 25 or 30 6th-graders. The "system" is completely different. Just as a market economy is a completely different system than a planned one.
Second, he's attempting to carry water for the GOP's latest anti-intellectual meme. Scientists are elitists when they talk about climate change. Economists are elitists when they talk about the economy. Obama's an elitist when he talks about anything at all because he's smart (and McCain's not). Here's a news flash: Being smart is good. Knowing what you're talking about is good. Stephen Colbert nailed the attitude almost three years ago:
I’m sorry, but this reading initiative. I’ve never been a fan of books. I don’t trust them. They’re all fact, no heart. I mean, they’re elitist telling us what is or isn’t true, what did or didn’t happen. What’s Britannica to tell me the Panama Canal was built in 1914. If I want to say it was built in 1941, that’s my right as an American. I’m with the president, let history decide what did or did not happen.
The original Know Nothings weren't ignorant. They just pleaded ignorance about their knowledge of party activities. The modern day Know Nothings-- Bush, Sowell, and the rest of the GOP-- don't know anything and revel in their ignorance:
At a town hall event in Berea, Ohio, Obama recited his plans to encourage the development of alternative fuels and his proposal for energy tax rebates and said Republicans were "lying about what my energy plan is."
"The other thing is, they are making fun of a step that every expert says would absolutely reduce our oil consumption by three to four percent," Obama said. "It’s like these guys take pride in being ignorant. They think it’s funny that they’re making fun of something that is actually true."
I'm so sick of being preached to and (mis)led by a bunch of people who believe that Orwell's "Ignorance is Strength" was prescriptive.
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