Last week, Thomas Sowell, a leading conservative intellectual, published a four-part series of columns titled “Dismantling of America,” distributed by Creators Syndicate. The first of these is here; each column has links to the other three.
Following are excerpts from each of his “Dismantling of America” columns, as published by Townhall.com:
The Constitution was not only a challenge to the despotic governments of its time, it has been a continuing challenge–to this day–to all those who think that ordinary people should be ruled by their betters, whether an elite of blood, or of books or of whatever else gives people a puffed-up sense of importance….It is no coincidence that those who imagine themselves so much wiser and nobler than the rest of us should be in the forefront of those who seek to erode Constitutional restrictions on the arbitrary powers of government. How can our betters impose their superior wisdom and virtue on us, when the Constitution gets in the way at every turn, with all its provisions to safeguard a system based on a self-governing people?….If the Obama administration gets away with (amnesty and open borders for illegals), and can add a few million illegals to the voting rolls in time for the 2012 elections, that can mean reelection, and with it a continuing and accelerating dismantling of America.
There was a time when most Americans would have resented the suggestion that they wanted someone else to pay their bills. But now, envy and resentment have been cultivated to the point where even people who contribute nothing to society feel that they have a right to a “fair share” of what others have produced….The most dangerous corruption is a corruption of a nation’s soul. That is what this administration is doing.
How much does our own administration in Washington care about the American people and their national security? This is not a question you would usually have to ask about any administration of either party. But this is not like any other administration, and Barack Obama is unlike any other President of the United States in having come from a background of decades of associations and alliances with people who resent this country and its people. Against that background, the Obama administration’s undermining of our long-standing international alliances with Britain and Israel, among others, while seeking to reach accommodations with nations hostile to this country, raises painful questions and even more painful possibilities for the future.
A Constitutional government does not depend on the Constitution but on us. To the extent that we allow clever people to circumvent the Constitution, while dazzling us with rhetoric, the Constitution will become just a meaningless piece of paper, as our freedoms are stolen from us, much as a pick-pocket would steal our wallet while we are distracted by other things. It is not just evil people who would dismantle America. Many people who have no desire to destroy our freedoms simply have their own agendas that are singly or collectively incompatible with the survival of freedom….Those who construct moral melodramas–starring themselves on the side of the angels against the forces of evil–are ready to disregard the Constitution rights of those they demonize, and to overstep the limits put on the powers of the federal government set by the Constitution….
Abraham Lincoln warned of people whose ambitions can only be fulfilled by dismantling the institutions of this country, because no comparable renown is available to them by supporting those institutions. He said this 25 years before the Gettysburg Address, and he was speaking of political leaders with hubris, whom he regarded as a greater danger than enemy nations. But such hubris is far more widespread today than just among political leaders. Those with such hubris–in the media and in education, as well as in politics–have for years eroded both respect for the country and the social cohesion of its people. This erosion is what has set the stage for today’s dismantling of America that is now approaching the point of no return.
The beginning of Sowell’s Wikipedia bio:
Thomas Sowell (b. 1930), is an American economist, social critic, political commentator and author. He often writes as an advocate of laissez-faire economics. He is currently a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. In 1990, he won the Francis Boyer Award, presented by the American Enterprise Institute. In 2002 he was awarded the National Humanities Medal for prolific scholarship melding history, economics, and political science. In 2003, he was awarded the Bradley Prize for intellectual achievement.
