You: [Sowell] has literally claimed that Black Americans were better off during slavery than they are today
Sowell: If we are to go by evidence of social retrogression, liberals have wreaked more havoc on blacks than the supposed “legacy of slavery” they talk about.
If you can't see how these ideas are nothing alike, then I don't know how to help you.
> He's claiming they were better off after slavery and before the modern welfare state,
Goatlover's analysis of Sowell's words was much better than yours, but he too is wrong. Sowell is wisely not making any claims about whether blacks were better off overall in one time period or another. He is focused solely on the impact of the past on the present. In particular, he is responding to the claim that there is “overwhelming evidence that centuries of racial subjugation still shape inequity in the 21st century”.
In response to this claim, Sowell counters that the legacy of liberalism and of the welfare state has had a more negative impact on blacks today than the legacy of slavery. Again, he is solely dealing with the impact of the past on the present, which has absolutely nothing to do with your accusation. Your accusation would require him to make a claim about the overall well-being of blacks in the past versus the present, which Sowell never once makes.
Sowell's words are important, by the way, because diagnosing an illness wrong means prescribing the wrong cure and making the patient sicker, not better. "More harm than good" is the clarion call of the modern conservative, and it is because so many "progressive" policies in the last century have done exactly that, causing more problems, wreaking more havoc, and ruining more lives than helping, saving, or lifting anyone up.
You: [Sowell] has literally claimed that Black Americans were better off during slavery than they are today
Sowell: If we are to go by evidence of social retrogression, liberals have wreaked more havoc on blacks than the supposed “legacy of slavery” they talk about.
If you can't see how these ideas are nothing alike, then I don't know how to help you.
> He's claiming they were better off after slavery and before the modern welfare state,
Goatlover's analysis of Sowell's words was much better than yours, but he too is wrong. Sowell is wisely not making any claims about whether blacks were better off overall in one time period or another. He is focused solely on the impact of the past on the present. In particular, he is responding to the claim that there is “overwhelming evidence that centuries of racial subjugation still shape inequity in the 21st century”.
In response to this claim, Sowell counters that the legacy of liberalism and of the welfare state has had a more negative impact on blacks today than the legacy of slavery. Again, he is solely dealing with the impact of the past on the present, which has absolutely nothing to do with your accusation. Your accusation would require him to make a claim about the overall well-being of blacks in the past versus the present, which Sowell never once makes.
Sowell's words are important, by the way, because diagnosing an illness wrong means prescribing the wrong cure and making the patient sicker, not better. "More harm than good" is the clarion call of the modern conservative, and it is because so many "progressive" policies in the last century have done exactly that, causing more problems, wreaking more havoc, and ruining more lives than helping, saving, or lifting anyone up.