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Pushing Back the Frontiers of Ignorance - Dr. Walter E. Williams |
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Americans enjoyed a rare treat last Thursday as Dr. Walter E. Williams hosted Rush Limbaugh's national radio show. Dr. Williams, who chairs George Mason University's Economics Department, defends liberty with common sense, an uncommon skill that has made him famous. At CS, we've been blessed not only to listen to Dr. Williams on the radio but also to study under him and attend his classes. Here is a bit of his wit and wisdom - as we've heard many times - but you'd do better to pick up some of his books - at right are the two most recent. On Black leaders - can someone name who the Jewish, or Italian or German leaders are in America? What does it say about us that folks think people of color have to have leaders? On Affirmative Action in hiring - the market is the most powerful tool to stop discrimination we have. How long would a pro basketball team stay in business if their owner refused to hire Blacks? They wouldn't survive a season, because Blacks are more productive at basketball than other groups. My momma always told me if you want to get ahead you have to come early and stay late. On Affirmative Action in education - The Black kids studying at MIT have Math SAT scores in the top 10% in the nation. The problem is, the other kids at MIT have Math SAT scores in the top 1% of the nation. Why do we allow the liberal elites in control of schools and universities to recruit young Black kids to be failures? If acceptance at a college was based solely on academic ability, young Black kids might not attend Berkeley and MIT, but they would be on the Dean's list instead of failing out. On Outcome-Based anything - Look, if the Chicago Bulls win the NBA title 8 years out of 10, does anybody care? Do they say we have to take some of those championships and give them to other teams in the league? No. As long as people play the game by the same rules, we don't have to worry that the outcome is unfair. On Slavery and Lincoln - Thank goodness for slavery. If my ancestors hadn't been slaves, I wouldn't have grown up in the richest country in the world. People think Lincoln is great because he freed the slaves, but they forget that Lincoln is the first American President to really make the federal government a central power nobody could resist. How much of the federal bureaucracy would we have today if states could just leave the union like the south tried to do? On Traditional Morality - Liberals and, of course, Libertarians today want to change all sorts of society's moral rules. The problem with that is they don't realize how many of society's critical institutions depend on traditional morality. And nobody can be sure how resilient these institutions are, or how many rules we can bend or break before we reach catastrophe. Take, for example, the family. The family is a legalized monopoly. It takes all sorts of transactions out of the market and that makes the cost of doing things society needs to have done lower. You don't have to put an ad in the paper to find a woman who will cook your dinner, and she doesn't need to look for someone to take out the trash, and pay him a market wage for doing it. Prostitution, screwing around, all of these things are competition to the marriage monopoly. I don't know about you, but I know Mrs. Williams would not put up with much of that competition before society would have to raise the kids, there wouldn't be families around to do it. |
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