Quote of the day—Thomas Sowell

Separating words from realities is one of the most important steps toward evaluating government policies, whether domestically or internationally. Since rhetorical skills are the most highly developed skills among politicians, any serious attempt to see government policies for what they are means keeping our eyes fixed on facts despite the distractions of rhetoric.

Thomas Sowell
2010
Dismantling America: and other controversial essays
[Separating words from realities is one of the most important steps in human interaction, not just in evaluating government policy.

I’ve dealt with many well spoken but irrational people and I know that identification of and dealing with them early is far better than later. It’s too bad we don’t have a quick and easy test for this. It would make life in general, not just politics, far better.—Joe]

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2 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Thomas Sowell

  1. Separating words from realities is one of the most important steps in human interaction, not just in evaluating government policy.
    Totally beat me to it. Words can be powerful, and yet they are not reality. Interestingly, the word “spell” as in to form words using characters, and “spell” as in to put someone under your power through covert manipulation, have the same origin. Two senses of the same word, really.

  2. My spouse, a physician, follows this rule about interacting with the parents of her pediatric patients:

    “If I come away from the conversation feeling like I’ve gone insane, generally that means the people I just spoke to are irrational.”

    It speeds things up a lot for her at work.

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