Thomas Sowell has another one of his reliably cute Random Thoughts columns up on JWR. My favorite:
It is self-destructive for any society to create a situation where a baby who is born into the world today automatically has pre-existing grievances against another baby born at the same time, because of what their ancestors did centuries ago. It is hard enough to solve our own problems, without trying to solve our ancestors’ problems.
If there’s any theme to human history, it’s simply that human history is never, never, ever satisfying.
The genius of ancient Athens is snuffed out due to its own hubris. Rome fails to civilize the dark heart of Germany. Africa, the birthplace of Man, fails to progress much past the nursery. The God of the world’s three great monotheistic religions often turns out to be a blood thirsty bastard. Three million farmers defeat a world’s mightiest empire, turn a philosophical revolution into political art — and then millions more of their descendants try their best to piss it all away.
And that’s the danger of combing Random Thoughts with a Mandarin Martini — it can lead to wistful, useless, and embarassingly public pontificating.
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