Politics and Policy

Comments on my own and those by other people.

Civil Rights in a Moral Vacuum - by Thomas Sowell

I think he is right about the problem in the black community, but I doubt that bad ideology in the schools contributed as much to the problem as he says.

Alas, I had to take this off, because permission to include it was denied by the _Orange County Register_. It can be obtained on paper by writing to Michelle Horaney of the Hoover Institution Public Affairs Office.

The Human Importance of Material Progress

Since I wrote the above I have started a large page with satellites on progress and its sustainability.

Here's a page on Marxism.

Here is Ronald Reagan's "Evil Empire" speech. I borrowed it from Martin Anderson of the Hoover Institution and scanned it, because I was interested in the role of the "evil empire" quote and the reaction to it at the time in the press. The press was interested in its alleged war-mongering effect and not at all in whether the characterization was true. The phrase had a resounding effect in Eastern Europe and counteracted Jerry Ford having said that Poland was free and Jimmy Carter having kissed Brezhnev.

I posted it, because in Thomas Sowell's The Vision of the Anointed, in the course of a section on the anointed view of Ronald Reagan, he cites Gore Vidal as having jeered at having referred to communism as "another sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages even now are being written." A poster to rec.arts.books took this as Reagan expecting the imminent end of the world, and I see the quote could be given that interpretation taken by itself. Since that phrase is immediately followed by a quotation from Thomas Paine, who certainly did not believe the end of the world was at hand, it is clear that Reagan was referring to the end of communism and not to the end of the world.

Reagan did as much as any American could to end communism and had the good fortune to see that happen.

Present computer and communication technology allows a personal voting system that allows each person to cast his own vote on any issue before a legislature.

Here are some political references.