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The welfare state is the oldest con game in the world. First you take people’s money away quietly and then you give some of it back to them flamboyantly.

Thomas Sowell

It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.
THOMAS SOWELL

Consider Ignorance Knowledge Realize
What is history but the story of how politicians have squandered the blood and treasure of the human race?
THOMAS SOWELL

Blood History Human Politics Story Treasure
Many on the political left are so entranced by the beauty of their vision that they cannot see the ugly reality they are creating in the real world.
THOMAS SOWELL

Beautiful Creation Politics Ugly Vision World
The question is not what anybody deserves. The question is who is to take on the God-like role of deciding what everybody else deserves.
THOMAS SOWELL

Decide Deserve God Role
Clearly, only very unequal intellectual and moral standing could justify having equality imposed, whether the people want it or not, as Dworkin suggests, and only very unequal power would make it possible.
THOMAS SOWELL

Economics Equality Justice People Politics Power
No matter how much people on the left talk about compassion, they have no compassion for the taxpayers.
THOMAS SOWELL

Compassion Law People Tax
As history has also shown, especially in the twentieth century, one of the first things an ideologue will do after achieving absolute power is kill.
THOMAS SOWELL

Achievement Century History Ideas Kill Power
As an entrepreneur in India put it: ‘Indians have learned from painful experience that the state does not work on behalf of the people. More often than not, it works on behalf of itself.
THOMAS SOWELL

Entrepreneur Experience Learning Pain People Work
To believe in personal responsibility would be to destroy the whole special role of the anointed, whose vision casts them in the role of rescuers of people treated unfairly by society.
THOMAS SOWELL

Destroy People Responsiblity Role Society Vision
Rhetoric is no substitute for reality.
THOMAS SOWELL

Exploitation Reality Rhetoric Substitute
The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best.
THOMAS SOWELL

Decide Economics Inspirational Liberty
Economics is a study of cause and effect relationships in an economy.
THOMAS SOWELL

Cause Economics Economy Effect Relationship Study
People who pride themselves on their “complexity” and deride others for being “simplistic” should realize that the truth is often not very complicated. What gets complex is evading the truth.
THOMAS SOWELL

Complex People Pride Realize Simplicity Truth
The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.
THOMAS SOWELL

Economics Enough Lesson Politics Satisfaction Scarcity
No-one is equal to anything. Even the same man is not equal to himself on different days.
THOMAS SOWELL

Deep Difference Equality Himself Justice Man
What all these lofty and vague phrases boil down to is that the court can impose things that the voters don’t want and the Constitution does not require, but which are in vogue in circles to which the court responds.
THOMAS SOWELL

Consitution Court Economics Government Politics

The welfare state is the oldest con game in the world. First you take people’s money away quietly and then you give some of it back to them flamboyantly.

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The welfare state is the oldest con game in the world. First you take people’s money away quietly and then you give some of it back to them flamboyantly.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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