Are Facts Irrelevant?

Suffering hypnotic mantra of change

Thomas Sowell a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, says facts have receded even further into the background than usual as the hypnotic mantra of “change” is repeated endlessly and people are mesmerized by what I call the tent revival-like rhetoric of Barack Obama. Stowell, himself an African-American, says that few facts have emerged and hardly any represent any real change, much less a change for the better.

Stowell points out raising taxes, increasing government spending and demonizing business is straight out of the New Deal of the 1930s.- “new ” then but not now. It is interesting how many historians and economist argue that those New Deal policies are what prolonged the Great Depression.

Herbert Hoover restricted international trade, to save American jobs with the Hawley-Smoot tariff unemployment went from 9% to 16% in one year and to 25% before World War II ended the “Great Depression.”

“Barack Obama is a politician through and through, even though pretending that he is not is his special strategy to get elected.” Stowell says and politicians do not necessarily act to solve the nation’s problems but their own which is always to get elected or reelected. It is naive to believe otherwise “just because they say so– or say so loudly or inspiringly.”

Stowell eloquently points out Obama employs the ancient political trick of pitting “the people” against “the privileged ” when he ignores it is “the people” half of whom own stocks in 401(k) plans and IRAs who his capital gains tax increase would damage most but continues to substitute class warfare rhetoric about “the rich” for facts.

But, facts says Stowell don’t matter politically. What matters politically is the image of coming out on the side of “the people” against “the privileged.” “But unless you connect the dots between capital gains tax rates and your retirement income, you may fall under the spell of the well-honed Obama rhetoric.

Obama is for higher minimum wage rates. Does anyone care what actually happens in countries with higher minimum wage rates? Of course not. Alas, economists show that higher minimum wage rates usually mean higher unemployment rates among lower skilled and less experienced workers.

But, that’s their problem. The politician’s problem is how to look like he is for “the poor” and against those who are “exploiting” them. The facts are irrelevant.

Nowhere do facts matter less than in foreign policy issues. Nothing is more popular than the notion that you can deal with dangers from other nations by talking with their leaders.

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain became enormously popular in the 1930s by sitting down and talking with Hitler, and announcing that their agreement had produced “peace in our time”– just one year before the most catastrophic war in history began.

Senator Obama may gain similar popularity by advocating similar policies today– and his political popularity is what it’s all about. The consequences for the country come later.