Stopping illegal immigration would mean that wages would have to rise to a level where Americans would want the jobs currently taken by illegal aliens.
Mystical references to society and its programs to help may warm the hearts of the gullible but what it really means is putting more power in the hands of bureaucrats.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques society's reliance on bureaucratic solutions to social problems, suggesting it empowers those in control rather than helping individuals.
Thomas Sowell's quote highlights the disillusionment with societal programs and initiatives that, while they may appear to benevolently address issues, ultimately serve to strengthen bureaucratic power. This perspective implies that such programs often do not genuinely aid those in need but instead reinforce a system where decision-making is concentrated in the hands of a few, diminishing individual autonomy and responsibility.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on government reform, this quote could emphasize the need for less bureaucracy in social programs.
More from Thomas Sowell
All quotes βBlacks were not enslaved because they were black but because they were available. Slavery has existed in the world for thousands of years. Whites enslaved other whites in Europe for centuries before the first black was brought to the Western hemisphere. Asians enslaved Europeans. Asians enslaved other Asians. Africans enslaved other Africans, and indeed even today in North Africa, blacks continue to enslave blacks.
One of the reasons for conspiracy theories is an assumption that people in high places always know what they are doing. When they do something that makes no sense, devious reasons are imagined by conspiracy theorists, when in fact it may be due to plain old ignorance and incompetence.
You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing.
The real problem, both in discussions of mass shootings and in discussions of gun control, is that too many people are too committed to a vision to allow mere facts to interfere with their beliefs, and the sense of superiority that those beliefs give them.
Why is history important? Without history, many people have no idea how many of today's half-baked ideas have been tried, again and again - and have repeatedly led to disaster. Most of these ideas are not new. They are just being recycled with re-treaded rhetoric.
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The only solid piece of scientific truth about which I feel totally confident is that we are profoundly ignorant about nature... It is this sudden confrontation with the depth and scope of ignorance that represents the most significant contribution of twentieth-century science to the human intellect.
I have often seen people uncivil by too much civility, and tiresome in their courtesy.