Quote of the Day: Newspapers as Polluted Vehicles

To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted, so as to be most useful, I should answer, "by restraining it to true facts & sound principles only." Yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more compleatly deprive the nation of it's benefits, than is done by it's abandoned prostitution to falsehood. Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief, that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time; whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will, &c., &c.; but no details can be relied on. I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false. 

This excerpt is from America’s founding father, principal author of the Declaration of Independence and 3rd US President Thomas Jefferson in a letter to John Norvell, June 11, 1807 (Source: The Library of Congress)

Could Asians Be Assimilating On Western Free Market Ideals?

Asians now comprise as the fastest growing nationalities among foreign students in America.

That's according to the Economist, ``STUDENTS flock to American universities from all over the world. But according to the OECD, a rich-country think-tank, over 40% of the 106,123 foreign students in the country during the 2007-08 academic year came from just three Asian countries: China, India and South Korea. And the 23,779 Chinese students in America far outnumbered those from India and South Korea, which each sent just under 10,000 students to America. But over the period between 1997 and 2008 the number of Indian students grew the fastest. The European presence on American campuses has grown more slowly. But between them, Germany, France and Italy still sent more students to America in 2007-08 than either India or South Korea." (bold emphasis mine)

While the terse article doesn't dwell on the details of which schools Asian students were enrolled at and likewise doesn't tackle with the post graduate life of graduate foreign students (if they remain in the US or have been repatriated ) my guess is that many Asians have been sent mainly to study and assimilate on Western (political, economic, philosophical) ideology, culture and lifestyle.

And perhaps this could be one reason why there has been some interests on Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged in terms of growth in web searches and book sales in India.

According to Reason.com ``Apparently, Indians perform the second most Google searches for Dame Ayn after folks in the U.S., and Ayn Rand's book have sold 50,000 copies there since 2005, about the same sales are enjoyed by John Grisham." As you would observe, Indians have been the fastest growing Asian group during the last 10 years.

Although correlation may not be causation, and 50k copies of Atlas Shrugged is definitely infinitesimal compared to India's over 1 billion in population, our point is that Asians could gradually be adapting more of free trade ideals than their US peers.


According to dlc.org, global governments imposed 155 temporary tariffs at the pinnacle of the crisis in 2008. This is way below the annual average of 189 (from 2000-2008). Nevertheless most of the tariffs have been initiated by the US.

Hence global protectionists sentiment, in spite of the recent crisis and the proddings of Western progressives, appears contained.

As Thomas Jefferson wrote, “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.”

Could Asians be learning more of the Jeffersonian way?