Is Talk Cheap?

Thomas Sowell
3/3/2009

You want responsibility? Obama will give you the word “responsibility.” Why not? It costs nothing.

They say talk is cheap. But in fact it can be devastatingly expensive. Among the generation of Germans who were enthralled by Hitler’s eloquence, millions paid with their lives and their children’s lives for empowering this demagogue to lead them to ruin and infamy.

Germany before Hitler was one of the more tolerant nations in Europe. That was what attracted so many Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe – tragically, to their doom.

German immigrants who settled around the world have been among the more tolerant peoples – not angels, a standard that only intellectuals could use, but comparing favorably with most others.

Do not for one moment think that we are either intellectually or morally superior to those Germans who put Hitler in power. We have been saved by our institutions and our traditions – the very institutions and traditions that so many are so busy eroding or dismantling, whether in classrooms or court rooms or in the halls of Congress and the White House.

The story continues …..