Thomas Sowell on What to Know Before You Vote Today
"Political rhetoric is no substitute for competence."
–Thomas Sowell
The above quote was originally published in 2011. Here it is in its context:
“Having spent years ruining the housing markets with their interference, leading to a housing meltdown that has taken the whole economy down with it, politicians have now moved on into micro-managing automobile companies and medical care. They are not going to stop unless they get stopped. And that is not going to happen until the voters recognize the fact that political rhetoric is no substitute for competence.”
While the details are different, those words are as true and relevant today in 2022 as they were then.
Yesterday, this present author went to Costco. They were out of eggs, half & half, and celery. That was only the items from my shopping list. I also went yesterday to The Home Depot to get a bucket of drywall mud. They were out of that, but at least I was able to purchase a can of Gorilla Glue spray adhesive for $13, up from $9 last year. To add insult to injury, the gas I used to make my disappointing journey across town cost me over $6 per gallon.
As of today, left-leaning politicians have spent two and a half years in a totalitarian COVID hysteria that was simply and entirely unjustified. Those who opposed it in favor of the reality of the situation were labeled dangerous disinformationists who were a threat to human existence itself. They were shouted down, deplatformed, cancelled, and ostracized. In San Luis Obispo, CA, where I previously lived and worked, over 350 local businesses had shut their doors for good by the end of 2020 because of the state’s draconian COVID regulations. That number only includes SLO itself (a town of less than 50,000 people) and not the rest of the county. Politics is, of course, downstream from culture, and businesses everywhere caught the same draconian fever. We were all told, with virulent threats and slander, to stay inside and have no contact with anyone outside of our own homes. A good friend of mine lost his job because he would not get the vaccine and is now going on a year of unstable employment, working two hours away from the retirement home he bought in 2019 and now cannot afford. The now-unnecessary vaccine mandate culture literally ran over his whole life. And we could multiply anecdotal examples, of which we all have plenty.
Travel was halted. The economy was shut down, the workforce was artificially depleted, and all the while, the current presidential administration has been waging war on fossil fuel. In spite of the rhetoric, gas prices have gone up over $4 dollars per gallon in less than two years. And we have not discussed crime, or inflation, or education, or race relations that are far worse than they’ve ever been in most of our lifetimes.
In other words, we now are experiencing the results of over two years of big government and totalitarian overreach, and it has all been in the name of utopian promises. Rather than being utopian, however, the result has been destroyed lives, economic meltdown, and societal erosion. That is the great result of two years of draconian government increase.
So when you go out to vote today, remember that Costco was out of eggs and half & half yesterday, and that you had to spend $6 per gallon on gas to be disappointed with that news. Then ask yourself this question: Which candidates support limiting government and maximizing person liberty? Then cast your vote accordingly.
“Political rhetoric is no substitute for competence.” You have to ground policy in reality, not in what sounds good.
You can’t replace what works with fine-sounding rhetoric.
“The Vision of the Anointed” examines how intellectuals and social elites have crowned themselves the saviors of society and have replaced facts and rational thinking with rhetoric. The results have been catastrophic for the family, education, crime, and many other aspects of society.