Three questions from Thomas Sowell

QOTD - Murray Rothbard

The American Enterprise Institue has this infamous quote from economist Murray Rothbard:

“It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a ‘dismal science.’ But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.”

Education

The objects of ... primary education [which] determine its character and limits [are]: To give to every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business; to enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts and accounts in writing; to improve, by reading, his morals and faculties; to understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either; to know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he retains, to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor and judgment; and in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed. 
--Thomas Jefferson: Report for University of Virginia, 1818.

Qotd - Warren Meyer

"Universities are, if anything, institutions based on ideas and thought.  So it has always been amazing to me that university diversity programs focus not on having a diversity of ideas, but on have a diversity of skin pigment and reproductive plumbing.  In fact, if anything, most universities seem to be aspiring towards creating an intellectual monoculture.  Diversity of opinion, of politics, and of general outlook among prospective students are not even decision-making variables in any educational institution I know of.  And within the faculty, many institutions seem intent on purging from their ranks any single voice that diverges from the majoritarian view. "
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2014/04/education-and-affirmative-action.html
Or as blogger Kate Werk likes to say, what's the opposite of diversity? University. 

Red Privilege

RED PRIVILEGE

Red-baiting was one of the more fantastic inventions of the left. Suddenly pointing out that someone was a member of a mass murdering ideology bent on world conquest… was worse than actually being a member of that ideology.

Red-baiting was tacky, hateful and everything that enlightened people didn’t want to be. It was perfectly all-right for a Communist to say he was one. It was alright for an admiring fellow traveler to say it. But not for anyone who thought that mass enslavement and murder under the red flag were bad things.

Red-baiting gave the Marxists and Communists immunity from criticism. Questioning their politics had become worse than their actual politics.

Uncle Miltie

 “People have a great misconception in this way, they think the way you solve things is by electing the right people,” Friedman once said. “It’s nice to elect the right people, but that isn’t the way you solve things. The way you solve things is by making it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right things.”
h/t to W. James Antel III

Michael Crichton on consensus

I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/09/aliens-cause-global-warming-a-caltech-lecture-by-michael-crichton/