Dear Readers:

I’m sorry, but I can’t take it anymore.

The firestorm of controversy that has recently surrounded the issue of just how sexy I am is tearing this nation apart, and I just can’t rest on my laurels (“butt”) and let that happen. When I took office at Theocrats.com, I promised to be a uniter, not a divider.

(Note From Amadeus:As I recall, actually, you said “inciter”.)

Those of you who feel strongly that I am extremely sexy must make peace with those who think I am simply absurdly sexy. You must respect each other’s right to post such online journal entries as the one I recently found on Xanga’s personal blog service, a journal maintained by an aesthetically-pleasing female I know:

“Then I came back to my room and [$] popped up–quite a nice surprise–and invited me for a late-night walk. Now, I don’t turn down late-night walks with sexy bald men [italics mine; get your own] who make me laugh and think at the same time, so naturally, I said yes.â€?

My friends, there is nothing wrong with this expression of admiration. Yes, perhaps you would have described my splendor differently-maybe even via another medium, such as Song or Dance-but at the risk of sounding dangerously ecumenical, don’t you know Variety to be the spice of Life? So I beg you, gentle groupies: Let each woman appreciate me in her own way. Each will be held accountable on the Day of Judgment.

Thank you.

That said, let’s move to today’s topic: a Mr. Thomas Sowell, economist, and a series of columns he wrote just last year concerning affordable housing. Entitled “Housing Hurdles”, the three-part series explains why he opposes various crowd-control and building measures.

So you can read the series for yourself, here are links to the first, second, and third parts, respectively published on the 4th, 6th, and 9th of last February.

Soon after the series was published I wrote an untitled review of it, but as Theocrats.com was not yet a reality at that time, I filed it away for future distribution. Now’s a fine time as any to circulate it, for the following reasons:

1. My criticisms of Mr. Sowell in this review are easily applicable to most “conservative” commentators.

2. It’s not like Mr. Sowell, who’s studied economics at least half a century, is likely to have changed his mind since then.

‘Til next entry, Folks.

Your Sexy Theocrat,

$

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A Review of Thomas Sowell’s “Housing Hurdles” – By [$]

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There is little denying Thomas Sowell’s experience and accumulated knowledge as an economist. As of this writing, Sowell has worked for over forty years in his chosen field of study. He has won the Francis Boyer Award and taught at five major universities, including Rutgers and Cornell. His is an impressive list of credentials which casts him as an authority on economics from whom much may be learned, and happily, Sowell appears interested in teaching those of us who would like to partake of his observations, instructing thousands of students via the penning of newspaper articles, books, and essays. Unfortunately, in his latest series of articles, collectively entitled “Housing Hurdlesâ€?, Sowell participates in the denigration of his own otherwise astute observations and narrows his potential audience by inserting needless vitriolic labeling of other people within his text.

The arguments of the “Housing Hurdlesâ€? articles themselves are well-defined, convincing, and concise. In the first part of his series, Sowell opens with details about the current pricing of houses in San Francisco, a city where housing is highly regulated. He proceeds to effectively illustrate the problem which he wishes to discuss, a scarcity of affordable housing, with the application of a minor amount of math. The remainder of the article is given over to identifying the major aggravators of the natural scarcity of living space, such as building height restrictions, and how they operate. All of this, the economist accomplishes in less than 750 words.

Yet Sowell’s well-executed argument against housing regulations is stained. Almost anyone is capable of observing the deductions and supporting logic of Sowell’s article, agreeing with them, and supporting changes based on them. Sowell antagonizes a number of such potential supporters, however, when he unnecessarily refers to the instigators of housing regulations as “environmental zealotsâ€? twice in the space of one article. These swipes at those responsible for the problem described by Sowell, rather than accomplishing any effective damage whatsoever to the “environmental zealotsâ€? in question, instead wreak a great amount of damage on Sowell, reducing him within the minds of his readers to equal footing with the well-known caricature of a demagogue from the right of the political spectrum. Unfortunate though it may be, any perceived ideology of a commentator often overshadows his or her argument. By referring to people who obviously represent a particular political philosophy with unflattering names, Thomas Sowell squanders the perception of himself by his readers as impartial, and thus his authority in the eyes of anyone biased by his or her identification with “environmental zealotsâ€?. Categorized as a “Conservative commentatorâ€?, Sowell loses most of his potential effect on readers to the stigma of that label.

This seems a tragic mismanagement of Sowell’s ability to teach. As an economist trained to think in terms of opportunity costs, it should not escape Sowell’s attention that it would cost him little to refer to those he names “environmental zealotsâ€? as “city authoritiesâ€?, when compared to the potential gains, whether his purpose for writing is ideological or monetary in nature, available in practicing that civility.