A good word from Thomas Sowell here on personal responsibility and its frequent neglect in discussions of societal ills. My favorite clip (with classes about to start up again):
Students are discussed largely as passive recipients of good or bad education.
But education is not something that can be given to anybody. It is something that students either acquire or fail to acquire.
Read the whole thing.
Thomas Sowell is the author of the recent outstanding book The Housing Boom and Bust which I finished on vacation this summer. If you want a penetrating, 150-page look at the forces that (cumulatively) brought disaster upon the housing market (and with it, the world’s economy), look no further.