Random thoughts

Random thoughts on the passing scene:

How long do politicians have to keep on promising heaven and delivering hell before people catch on and stop getting swept away by rhetoric?

Why should being in a professional sport exempt anyone from prosecution for advocating deliberate violence? Recent revelations of such advocacy of violence by an NFL coach should lead to his banishment for life by the NFL, and criminal prosecution by the authorities. If you are serious about reducing violence, you have to be serious about punishing those who advocate it.

Have you noticed that what modest economic improvements we have seen occurred during the much-lamented ”gridlock” in Washington? Nor is this unusual. If you check back through history, doing nothing has a far better track record than that of politicians intervening in the economy.

With all the talk about people paying their ”fair share” of income taxes, why do nearly half the people in this country pay no income taxes at all? Is that their ”fair share”? Or is creating more recipients of government handouts, at no cost to themselves, simply a strategy to gain more votes?

Some people are puzzled by the fact that so much that is said and done by politicians seems remote from reality. But reality is not what gets politicians elected. Appearances, rhetoric and emotions are what get them elected. Reality is what the voters and taxpayers are left to deal with, as a result of electing them.

Some people say that taxes are the price we pay for civilization. But the runaway taxes of our time are the price we pay for being gullible.

The United States now has the dubious distinction of having the highest corporate tax rate in the world. And people wonder why American corporations are expanding overseas, providing jobs to foreigners.

Different people prefer different exercises. The Republicans’ favorite exercise is running for the hills. The Democrats’ favorite exercise is kicking the can down the road.

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Distributed by Creators Syndicate.