Walter Williams, A Voice you can Trust

Walter Williams is one of the triumvirate of conservative commentators, along with young Ben Shapiro and Ann Coulter, who almost never fail to amuse. Walter Williams favorite sentence structure is putting words in his readers mouth.

You say, “Gries, what do you mean by that?” I mean that Walter Williams loves having his readers pose innocent dopey questions that he can immediately and condescendingly answer. Gives the illusion of considering both sides of an issue without having to.

His latest piece does not happen to use this sentence structure unfortunately, but a quick study of William's archives will reveal it’s constant use. His latest piece does borrow another common rhetorical technique, that of answering the question you want to answer without any reference to the actual question.

You say, “Gries, how does that work?” Well it works like this. In his latest article, Williams discusses Princeton University economist Paul Krueger’s contention that the 1950’s and the 1960’s were are more egalitarian time in American society. Krueger’s work, which I must admit I have not read, laments the shrinking middle class, and the subsequent growth of the lower class. Williams, like most conservatives, is uncomfortable with the idea that our society is moving to a division between the haves and the have-nots.

So how does Williams respond? By comparing life now to 100 years ago. Life is probably better now for most people than it was 100 years ago. Isn’t that great? But of course it doesn’t answer the question of whether life is better now than it was 50 years ago. And Williams focuses mainly on technological and medical innovation in his article, ignoring the social and economic ramifications of Krueger’s work.

You say, “Gries, I’m sick of reading your web log, would you kindly shut up.” Yes. Yes, I will.

Oh, don’t miss Ben Shapiro’s discussion of female sexuality. Pretty bold territory for young Ben. Commondream’s columnists didn’t update today, but I love their headline. “ELECTION FALLOUT: WORLD IN FEAR OF AN EMBOLDENED BUSH…” Just have this image of a gigantic Bush making the Godzilla sound and knocking over the Eiffel Tower. Most ideologically motivated people fear democracy.