If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rule — Thomas Sowell

"Perhaps Sowell’s joylessness stems from the fact that his main idea is the hatred of ideas. It is one thing to be an intellectual and love ideas: why else spend so much time reading and thinking about them? When I come across a bad idea, I disagree with it and, as I am doing here, I try to expose its silliness. But I value bad ideas well enough to take them seriously. I write about Thomas Sowell because I recognize in him a fellow intellectual. But it is by no means clear that Sowell recognizes himself as one. He does from time to time note the existence of “conservative and neo-conservative intellectuals” who offer “an alternative vision” to the dominant ideology and whose influence “no longer negligible” in the media. But then Sowell goes on to write as if the only talking heads on television belong to Bertrand Russell and Noam Chomsky. Safely back to his thesis that intellectuals are always loathsome meddlers who hate capitalism, rationalize evil, and get everything wrong, he is free to quote Eric Hoffer, Paul Johnson, and all like-thinking writers who trod this ground before him."

"Ideas are everywhere, but knowledge is rare."

"The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Therefore we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive."

"Ideas, as the raw material from which knowledge is produced, exist in superabundance, but that makes the production of knowledge more difficult rather than easier."

"While decisions are constrained by the kinds of organizations and the kinds of knowledge involved, the Impetus for decisions comes from the internal preferences and external incentives facing those who actually make the decisions."

"Too many Republicans treat English as a second language, with Beltway lingo being their native tongue."

"...talking as though the Standard Oil Company was the smallest thing he owned."

"The prophecy of Professor Yeshayahu Leibovitz, that the occupation would corrupt us through and through and turn us into a people of exploiters and secret-service-men, has come awfully true. Nothing has remained of the "beautiful Eretz Israel " but a cloying nostalgia, of which Naomi Shemer was a standard-bearer. A small and gallant state, progressive and (relatively) egalitarian, respected by the world, has become an occupying and looting state, hostage to delirious settlers, full of internal violence and "swinish capitalism" (a phrase coined by Shimon Peres, one of those most responsible for this situation). Throughout the world, the idea of boycotting Israel is gaining ground."

"... looking at woman suffrage from the larger standpoint, it would be to the advantage of the men of the present day to grant women that which is really their right--a full and complete equality in every particular. The double social standard which obtains at the present time, whereby a man may commit the social sin without being ostracized, should be done away with. Womans work should be paid as much as mans work, ... It would be of an enormous benefit to the race if she were given an equal right with man in every particular. For not until then can we hope to see reforms brought about that will really unite humanity. ... While laws are only makeshifts to bring humanity to a higher plane where each one will be a law unto himself, doing right without coercion, it is nevertheless necessary that such reforms should be brought about at the present time by legislation."

"While the double standard is galling, there is no ethical defense of Farrakhan’s anti-Semitic remarks. Mallory’s refusal to specifically disclaim Farrakhan’s anti-Semitism is a stain on her work and advocacy. But the argument that Mallory’s interest in Farrakhan is not rooted in anti-Semitism – that she could support Farrakhan’s advocacy for black equality despite his bigoted blind spots – is a more plausible and, frankly, common posture than most of the media is willing to recognize."

"Myths and fictions accustomed people, nearly from the moment of birth, to think in certain ways, to believe in accordance with certain standards, to want certain things, and to observe certain rules. They thereby create artificial instincts that enable millions of strangers to cooperate effectively. This network of artificial instinct is called Culture."

"The streets are still, the final battle has ended. Flushed with the fight, we proudly hail the dawn. See over the streets, the White mans emblem is waving. Triumphant standards of a race reborn."