Walter Williams Makes Sense

Not my normal position on Walter Williams, but today he's making a bit more sense than normal.

Here's Williams' suggestion in a nutshell. Start strict enforcement of immigration law, as Arizona has begun. Strictly enforce border security. Most importantly, modernize and streamline our cumbersome immigration laws so that people can more easily migrate to our country.

I'd largely agree with that while noting a few standard points. Williams doesn't seem to recognize that Hispanic Americans will be pestered and inconvienced by this new law. He also doesn't spend any time thinking of those businesses that are exploiting this cheap labor. And finally, while I take Williams as sincere when he says he wants to streamline legal immigration, I believe that many if not most of his compatriots on the right do not share that theory, and in fact want to keep immigrants, both legal and illegal, out of America. I could be wrong on that last point; but looking at some of the signs and nastiness, I don't think so.

Walter E. Williams and the Census

Walter E. Williams' latest article concerns the Census; he essentially argues that the census should consist of one question, specifically how many people live in that house.

Unless a census taker can show me a constitutional requirement, the only information I plan to give are the number and names of the people in my household. The census taker might say, "It's the law." Thomas Jefferson said, "Whensoever the General Government (Washington) assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force."

For those of you wondering, I doubt that Williams would accept the General Welfare clause as applying in this case. He kind of hates that clause anyway. But this would seem an ideal place to apply it. Gathering that information is useful for administering government programs and for research purposes.

But then again Williams opposes most of those government programs as well, if not all of them.

A Non-Biblical Post

But don't worry, I'm sure I'll be returning to the Conservative Bible eventually. This morning's post comes from an article by Walter E. Williams, who has served as a fill-in host for Rush Limbaugh.

Today's leftists, socialists and progressives would bristle at the suggestion that their agenda differs little from Nazism. However, there's little or no distinction between Nazism and socialism. Even the word Nazi is short for National Socialist German Workers Party. The origins of the unspeakable horrors of Nazism, Stalinism and Maoism did not begin in the '20s, '30s and '40s. Those horrors were simply the end result of long evolution of ideas leading to consolidation of power in central government in the quest for "social justice." It was decent but misguided earlier generations of Germans, like many of today's Americans, who would have cringed at the thought of genocide, who built the Trojan horse for Hitler to take over.

There's an old brainteaser - what if you had a time machine and could back in time to kill Hitler as a boy. Would you do it? Well thanks to Williams, no need for a time machine. We liberals are working to build a Nazi/Stalinist/Maoist state right now. And it's up to you conservatives to stop us. Presumably by peaceful means, if possible.

I should point out that this is very simplistic bad history as well; but I've done that a few times in the past. Suffice it to say that declaring all of the monsters of history Liberal is very satisfying (somewhat like declaring the Bible conservative) but does not make historical sense.

Back to the Present

I'm not sure how to write this. Walter E. Williams has written an article in which he argues in favor of both Succession and Nullification, two "constitutional" rights that have been been null since the 1860s. But Williams finds them still valid.

While the U.S. Constitution does not provide a specific provision for nullification, the case for nullification is found in the nature of compacts and agreements. Our Constitution represents a compact between the states and the federal government. As with any compact, one party does not have a monopoly over its interpretation, nor can one party change it without the consent of the other. Additionally, no one has a moral obligation to obey unconstitutional laws. That's not to say there is not a compelling case for obedience of unconstitutional laws. That compelling case is the brute force of the federal government to coerce obedience, possibly going as far as using its military might to lay waste to a disobedient state and its peoples.

What makes this somewhat more disturbing is the sight of Williams, a black man, arguing in favor of two principles who's historical usage was to preserve slavery (although not the most interesting position he's taken). Nullification first appeared in an attempt by South Carolina to require black seaman to be imprisoned while in port. It's most famous use was over tariffs it is true, but with one eye on what can the Federal Government impose should they decide to approach the question of slavery.

At any rate the doctrine of nullification ended in the 1830s and succession of course was put to bed in the Civil War. Seems unlikely that either doctrine will be successfully applied today, Texan political posturing notwithstanding.

The Wisdom of Walter Williams

In these days of turmoil and strife among the Republican Party, it's nice that Walter E. Williams isn't scared. He's so uninterested in the current struggle between Huckabee, Romney, and McCain that this weeks article is largely about how much he hates bad grammar.

I could point out, I suppose, that no candidate is likely to be crazy enough to suit Mr. Williams. So maybe he just doesn't care.

President Bush's Tax Cuts

Walter E. Williams takes issue with calling Tax Cuts that President Bush drafted and championed and signed into law his tax cuts. Constitutionally I suppose he is correct.

Presidents can propose or veto taxes and Congress can override vetoes. The bottom line is that all taxing authority rests with the U.S. Congress. The next time you hear someone condemn or praise Bush's tax cuts, ask them whether the Constitution has been amended to give the president taxing authority.

Bit of a nitpick though, isn't it? I mean hooray for accuracy and all, but the truth is that if Gore had been President we wouldn't have gotten those Tax Cuts. President Bush was instrumental in passing them. I also note that he and his fellow Republicans aren't shy about attributing economic success to the Bush Tax Cuts.

Anyway the rest of William's article is about how rich pay more taxes than the poor. Of course he carefully doesn't mention the bit of tax cuts on the middle class, because that would, well, give the game away.

Soft Bigotry

Walter E. Williams is out there shilling for racism again, in his latest article. Admittedly this isn't as bad as the time(s) he compared seeing a black male to seeing a tiger, but it's still not very good.

His point is that rather than conspiring against Blacks, Whites are simply not thinking about them at all.

Are white people obsessed with and engaged in a conspiracy against black people? I'm guessing no, and here's an experiment. Walk up to the average white person and ask: How many minutes today have you been thinking about a black person? If the person wasn't a Klansman or a gushing do-gooder, his answer would probably be zero minutes. If you asked him whether he's a part of a conspiracy to undermine the welfare of black people, he'd probably look at you as if you were crazy.

Well of course there are pretty well known conspiracies to keep black people from voting, but let's agree with Williams and pretend that nobody is after black people. What he forgets is that you don't have to be after someone to hurt them or to oppress them. I mean how often do you think about chairs, and yet you sit in them all day long. By the same token, it takes very little conscious thought to see blacks as inferior and shove them aside in your mind.

Straight Thinking or Screw the Poor

Walter E. Williams latest article takes on two ideas. First of all he feels that we shouldn't believe Normative Statements. For example you might feel that Gas shouldn't cost $9.00 a barrel. But that's a normative statement - you are saying it simply because you think it is true, but there's no facts involved.

Positive statements deal with what was, what is or what will be. Normative, or subjective, statements deal with what's good or bad, or what ought to be or should be. Confusing the two leads to considerable mischief.

. . . Having explained the difference between positive and normative statements, I tell my students that in no way do I propose that they purge their vocabulary of normative statements. Normative statements are excellent tools for tricking others into doing what you want them to do. I simply caution that in the process of tricking others, there's no need to trick oneself into believing that one normative statement is better or more righteous than another.

Consider the following statement; A certain amount of Government Regulation is necessary. Is it normative? Hmmmm.

Eliminating Government Regulation is good for the economy. Is it normative? I don't know - Williams has sure acted like that statement is Positive or Objective before. Certainly anybody arguing in favor of Regulation, no matter how limited, will be met with William's disdain. I gather this is one of those situations in which he feels that using normative statements is good for "tricking others into doing what you want them to do."

Hey then notes that some people get along just fine without fear, proving that nobody really needs anything.

In some poor African countries, people do without food. Of course, the results of doing without insulin or food are indeed unpleasant, but the fact that the results are unpleasant doesn't require us to deny that non-consumption is a substitute for consumption.

I guess makes sense. If the poor don't want to pay for food they can starve. One could point out that we as a society have a duty to help those unfortunates, but I suppose that would be one of those normative statements.

Walter E. Williams

I wrote yesterday about D'Souzas decent into madness - well he's not the only one. But it's hard to get worked up about Walter E. Williams being essentially crazy because he seems so gosh darn happy about it. This weeks article he takes on Democracy and finds it lacking.

Does democracy really deserve the praise it receives? According to Webster's Dictionary, democracy is defined as "government by the people; especially: rule of the majority." What's so great about majority rule? Let's look at majority rule, as a decision-making tool, and ask how many of our choices we would like settled by what a majority likes.

Would you want the kind of car that you own to be decided through a democratic process, or would you prefer purchasing any car you please? Ask that same question about decisions such as where you live, what clothes you purchase, what food you eat, what entertainment you enjoy and what wines you drink. I'm sure that if anyone suggested that these choices be subject to a democratic process, you'd deem it tyranny.

How gleefully insane. Of course I wouldn't want to choose my car using a tape measure either. Or a banana. Democracy isn't a process that works for decisions on an individual basis. It only works on decisions a society or an organization makes.

It's funny how clearly Williams misses the point, considering his Libertarianist leanings. Democracy is a good system because it spreads power out among the people - that way everybody has a little power, rather than one person having a lot of power. But then again, I've never gotten the impression that Williams minded some people having a lot of power, so long as they were the right people. Freedom to Williams means that he is left alone to do what he wants. It's not about other people's freedom. Since he's a bought and paid for member of the Conservative Punditocracy, he's probably right that if Bush fulfilled the fevered nightmares of far leftistry and established a brutal fascist regime, well, he'd probably do just fine.

Incidentally I think Williams should write a book on being married given his comments on the Rush Limbaugh show (where he shows up as a guest host on occasion). Apparently he doesn't allow his wife to speak when he is speaking, and requires that she not look him in the eyes when he is chastising her. Apparently it's all good because he's such a fantastic catch that she's lucky to be with him, no matter how he treats her.

Let's Just Pay Black People Less!

That will solve our economic and racial disparities, according to Walter William's latest article. Or at least the minimum wage subsidizes racist hiring practices (which has been a Republican argument for a while now).

What minimum wage laws do is lower the cost of, and hence subsidize, racial preference indulgence. After all, if an employer must pay the same wage no matter whom he hires, the cost of discriminating in favor of the people he prefers is cheaper. This is a general principle. If filet mignon sold for $9 a pound and chuck steak $4, the cost of discriminating in favor of filet mignon is $5 a pound, the price difference. But if a law mandating a minimum price for chuck steak were on the books, say, $7 a pound, it would lower the cost of discrimination against chuck steak.

This is again an interesting argument - black people are, as near as I can tell, Chuck State, while white people are Filet Mignon.

At this point, I'd like to remind everybody once again that Walter E. Williams is in fact Black.

There are two ways to take this argument - one is to assume that Williams does believe that Blacks are really inferior to whites, and that it creates a market inefficiency to pretend that they are equal. I'll be charitable and assume he probably doesn't actually believe that.

The other is that white racist business owners believe blacks to be inferior because they are not exposed to them - as blacks enter the workforce making far less than whites, White business owners will realize how great they are, and will abandon their racist ways. This is a bit of a stretch, of course. We saw how southern employment of Blacks did not, in fact, lead to Black equality. Quite the opposite - White Factory owners were smart enough to play whites and blacks off of each other, screwing both in the process.

This theory, that white racists will like blacks if they are able to pay them less, is contradicted by his own parable. I mean how much exposure to Chuck Steak will make you prefer it to Filet Mignon?

Making the World Safe for White Males

Let's have a moment of silence for all the indignities heaped upon white males (of which I am one).

That's enough. And now let's turn to Walter E. Williams latest article. Walter E. Williams recognizes the vast indignities we white males have suffered (due in no small part to his race, the African Americans). So he is working through a series of articles designed to make us all a bit more comfortable in our resentment of the blacks, the Hispanics, the Asians, the Women, and anybody else we might want to resent. His first one, from last week, told us it's ok to assume that people who look different than us are dangerous.

Today he assures us that it's ok to assume that people who look different than us are incompetent as well.

Imagine an employer plans to hire 20 strong people to manually unload a ship. Fifty people show up for the job, and they all appear equal, except by sex. The employer has zero information about any other attribute, and he would like to hire the physically strongest people in the group. How might he select employees?

I'm guessing the average employer's first approximation would be to select the men in the group. He does so because he surmises that sex is highly correlated with physical strength. Of course, some of the women in the group could be just as strong, or stronger, than the men, but the employer is playing the odds.

He then goes on to discuss under what circumstances an employer might decide on an approach more nuanced than "Boys are stronger than girls. Me hire boys!" First of all he notes that time is money, and so investing in a more rigorous process is an expense for the employer. Actually finding out how strong everybody is takes more effort than just hiring the males. So why would an employer expend that effort? Well he might see some value in finding the best candidates, or the government might force him too. He also suggests that women who want to work as ship unloaders might be willing to work for less money - in that sense they are a bargain, and this might inspire the employer to hire them.

Of course it is one thing for Mr. Williams to say that Men are, on the whole, physically stronger than women. It would be another for employer X to say that Blacks are just not as smart as whites, or Asians just don't have what it takes to be good sales people, or Hispanics just don't have a solid work ethic and so can't be trusted with serious work. But William's logic works just as well in those situations as well, doesn't it?

"Look I'm sorry Mr. Jaurez, but I just don't have a good track record with Hispanics and I'm not interested in taking a chance on you - maybe if you were willing to do the job for 75% of what I'd pay a white guy I'd be interested. But until then, I'm just not."

He then concludes with this justification of his constant support for racism and prejudice.

A few readers, in response to my discrimination discussion, said that my argument justifies the racial segregation of the past. To explain phenomena is not the same as justifying phenomena. You could fall off the roof of a tall building. I explain that your death is a result of the forces of gravity that caused you to accelerate at 32 feet per second and the sudden deceleration when you hit the ground. Wouldn't it be silly if someone accused me of trying to justify gravity and your death?

This is almost as silly as his tiger example. The fact of the matter is that the damage caused to ethnic minorities, women, and others is avoidable, but you argue strongly against any attempts to fix the problem. If people are tripping and falling off of high places, we eventually put up a fence to keep them safe (well, safer). But if people are choosing to exclude some races or religions or genders from a seat at the table, Williams argues that is their right.

Or to put it another way, I can't blame you for describing how the phenomenon grinds people up. I can blame you for your consistent arguments against keeping the phenomenon from grinding people up.

Nostalgia

Walter E. Williams is recycling a column he wrote about 4 years ago. I was out visiting my brother that thanksgiving weekend, and picked this story to write on (because it was kind of a no-brainer to comment on and I was on vacation). Here's a bit from this weeks column.

Imagine heading off to work, you open your front door, only to be greeted by a full-grown tiger. The uninteresting prediction is the average person would slam the door or otherwise seek safety.

Why they do so is more interesting. It's unlikely that person's decision is based on any detailed information held about that particular tiger. More likely his decision is based on tiger folklore or how he's seen other tigers behave. He prejudges, or stereotypes, that tiger.

If a person didn't pre-judge tigers, he would seek more information prior to his decision. He might attempt to pet the tiger, talk to him and seek safety only if the tiger responded in a menacing fashion. The average person wouldn't choose that path, surmising that the expected cost of getting more information about the tiger is greater than the expected benefit and concluding, "All I need to know is he's a tiger, and he's probably like the rest of them." By observing this person's behavior, there's no way one can say unambiguously whether the person likes or dislikes tigers.

Once again we have the embarrassing prospect of a black man shilling for racism. If you want to think blacks are more dangerous than whites, go right ahead. Apparently.

Truly Disgusting

Well with all that's going on in the Israel and Hezbollah war, and the subsequent human fallout, it's easy to lose track of what's really important. But thankfully we have Walter E. Williams to remind us.

Deaths of civilians? Nothing compared to the threat posed by Congress trying to regulate internet gambling. Because you see that is a congressional overreach. Congress doesn't have the power to do that (or 90% of the rest of the stuff they do) if you follow Walter E. Williams theories (and nobody does).

For the record I agree with him that this probably wasn't the most well thought out law; that said, I think it's telling that with all going on, this is what he cares about. Comforting in a way.

Creating New Frontiers of Ignorance

I don't know if this ever happens to anybody else. Sometimes when I'm reading an article (usually my fifth or sixth article and I'm desperate), I will see something funny or confusing and go to write about it. After a moment of writing I turn my attention back to the paragraph in question, and, in a magic eye like fashion, it resolves itself back to making sense. I note this phenomenon as a prelude to talking about why Walter E. Williams latest article doesn't seem to make sense.

Going to present a big more of his article than I usually do, for discussion purposes. It's on the deficit.

Let's push back the frontiers of ignorance about the federal deficit. To simplify things, I'll use round numbers that are fairly close to the actual numbers.

The nation's 2005 gross domestic product (GDP), what the American people produced, totaled $13 trillion. The federal government consumed $2.4 trillion, but it only received $2 trillion in tax revenues, leaving us with what's said to be a $.4 trillion budget deficit.

So far, so good, as near as I can tell. He sets up the question, where do the funds to cover that $.4 trillion come from.

By the way, it's sheer constitutional ignorance to say that President Bush spends or lowers taxes. Article I, Sections 7 and 8, of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress authority to spend and tax. The president only has veto power that Congress can override.

I don't know who is talking about here; if he is complaining about attributing the Bush tax cuts to President Bush he's just splitting hairs. President Bush didn't technically pass his tax cuts (as Williams notes, he couldn't) but his administration drafted the law and got it introduced as his tax cut plan. So if this is what Williams is complaining about, it doesn't make a lot of sense.

On the other hand, maybe Williams surrounds himself with people who don't realize that the Congress passes laws, not the President.

Getting back to deficits, my question to you is this: Is there truly a deficit? The short answer is yes, but only in an accounting sense -- not in any meaningful economic sense. Let's look at it. If Congress spends $2.4 trillion but only takes in $2 trillion in taxes, who makes up that $.4 trillion shortfall that we call the budget deficit? Neither the Tooth Fairy, Santa nor the Easter Bunny makes up the difference between what's spent in 2005 and what's taxed in 2005.

Yeah, thanks for clearing up the fact that the Tooth Fairy, Santa and the Easter Bunny don't make up the deficit difference. That really helps us out. Cause I'm sure a lot of your readers thought that might be the case. I am looking forward to seeing what makes up that $.4 deficit, though, now that you've cleared up what it isn't.

Some might be tempted to answer that it's future generations who will pay. That's untrue. If the federal government consumes $2.4 trillion of what Americans produced in 2005, it must find ways to force us to spend $2.4 trillion less privately in 2005. In other words, the federal government can't spend today what's going to be produced in the future.

Ah. So future generations won't have to pay for the deficit either - the Government has to force more money into their hands right now to pay the bills right now. So where does that money come from?

One method to force us to spend less privately is through taxation, but that's not the only way. Another way is to enter the bond market. Government borrowing drives the interest rate to a level that it otherwise wouldn't be without government borrowing. That higher interest puts the squeeze on private investment in homes and businesses, thereby forcing us to spend less privately.

This is accurate, up to a point, but it kind of makes his last paragraph a liar, doesn't it? I mean Government Bonds are a promise by the government that if you give them X dollars today, they will give you Y dollars tomorrow. Assuming the Government doesn't default on it's promises, that means that people down the road will be responsible for paying out.

William's solution is, as you might expect, for the government to spend a lot less money. But he's made it clear that 2/3rds of the government should be shut down (leaving the military and . . . well the military at any rate). So presumably Government as he envisions it will be considerably cheaper.

For the Children

Consider the first paragraph of Walter E. Williams latest article, "Do we really care about children?"

I cringe with disgust when I hear politicians say, "We're doing it for the children." What's worse is so many Americans mindlessly fall hook, line and sinker for the hype. Judging by our actions, Americans could not care less for future generations, and future generations will curse us for it. Let's look at it.

Now given that title and that opening paragraph, what do you think Mr. William's article is about. Education maybe? School lunches? After School Programs? The Environment?

Nope. It's about Social Security. The fact that very few politicians pitch Social Security (with a minimum entry age of 65, if memory serves) as a program for the children seems to have escaped Mr. Williams. On the other hand, perhaps he is of the opinion that we are all children at heart (I'm not, as it turns out, but many are).

In fact, most people who bring children into the Social Security debate are on William's side. "We need to destroy Social Security now so as to save future generations the trouble of having to destroy it." In fact that is largely Mr. William's argument.

He plays the usual tricks. He takes the amount due in future generations and presents it to our generation as a lump sum (without, I note, providing footnotes so we could check out his figures). This is a little akin to summing up a house mortgage, imagining you would have to pay it as a lump sum, and saying that since you can't swing that much money you shouldn't own a house.

He does recommend raising the age of eligibility for Social Security to 80 on the theory that most of us would be dead by then. Nice when they put their cards on the table like that. He could take the next step and explain that regardless of whether Social Security is solvent till the end of time or not, he thinks its a bad program and one we shouldn't have.

Black Exploitation

Walter Williams, in his quest to become the nuttiest conservative has done it again. In his latest piece, Williams argues against a National Slave Memorial. He states, "If a slave memorial is built on the National Mall, it will simply become a media backdrop for the likes of race hustlers like Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Black Congressional Caucus to spew their anti-American venom and call for quotas and reparations for slavery."

OK, let's follow that logic. So a day honoring Martin Luther King Jr. is bad too, I assume? I mean that provides a focal point for Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson doesn't it? Same with Black History month. Same with paying any official attention to African American history. African American History is best forgotten, due to it's potential for exploitation by liberals. I'm surprised he didn't call on us to tear down all monuments to Black Americans.

The problem with Williams is that he is a prominent black Conservative, and thus calling him nuts may or may not bring forth calls or racism. But unlike Thomas Sowell (who obsesses an incisive mind) and Armstrong Williams (who writes very well, and possesses an empathy that many conservative writers lack), he seems determined to push an America in which Blacks are basically told that we've solved all their problems, and that any further problems they suffer from are their own fault.

Walter Williams on Capitalism

We might think of dollars as being "certificates of performance." The better I serve my fellow man, and the higher the value he places on that service, the more certificates of performance he gives me. The more certificates I earn, the greater my claim on the goods my fellow man produces. That's the morality of the market. In order for one to have a claim on what his fellow man produces, he must first serve him. From Townhall.com.

That is the wonder of capitalism. The problem is that it assumes that all participants in the game are roughly equal or start from roughly equal positions. In the real world they don't. Williams also doesn't seem all that interested in those that cheat in order to get ahead. He doesn't answer the question of fraud. Let's say a CEO takes an enormous salary and runs his company into the ground; far from being financially punished, such a CEO is likely to receive several nice parting gifts (in the form of a Severance package).

So while I agree that capitalism is a moral system, it still requires a certain amount of watching to make it work properly.

Walter Williams

Well Walter Williams, for some reason, really really doesn't want to touch the war. As near as I can remember, he hasn't touched it once. However, he's still got his favorite cause to keep him interested. And that cause is the government taking money away from you and giving it to poor slobs who don't deserve it. While discussing the morality of this situation, Williams comes up with this interesting statement, "How about all the government programs that account for at least two-thirds of federal spending, such as: aid to higher education, Medicare, food stamps, welfare or farm subsidies? Are they moral?"

Hmmmmmm. Two thirds of federal Spending? That sounds like a lot.



Well, lets take those five categories he suggests and graph them and see what that looks like. Do we get close to Williams' two-thirds?



Hmmmm, that's not very close, it seems to me. Now I am using 2001 data, because that appears to be the most recent year for which we have firm numbers. I got my information from Office of Budget and Management's website. Of course there isn't a budget category marked "Welfare," so I used the Unemployment Compensation and Other Income Supported programs under Emergancy Response Fund, which seemed to fit the bill for "Welfare."

Of course the missing piece could be Social Security. I mean that is a huge chunk of the budget, and I'm surprised that Williams didn't mention that in his initial 5. But then again, I'm not surprised. Social Security is a very popular program, precisely because it isn't technically a means of giving money to lazy bums. You put money in and then when you retire you get money out. It's a big harder for Williams to demonize that program in the same way he demonizes Farmers. So lets see what the graph looks like with Social Security in.



Still not even close to two thirds. Oh well, perhaps we'll never know exactly what Williams meant, except that he wants the government to fold it's tents and get out of dodge and so on and so forth.

Constitutionality and Libertarianism

Interesting article today by Walter Williams about a recent report put out by the magazine Human Events. It lists the top ten most outrageous Government Programs, including the Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency Standards, Amtrak, Endangered Species Act, and so on. Obviously several of these programs are those that might take away some corporate profits. But that's not William.s point.

Williams presents himself as a Constitutional scholar, arguing that the mandate to enact any of those laws does not exist. The government has no right mandate more fuel efficient cars or protection of wildlife. It's clear that if Williams had his way the government would be like Chief Wiggum in Springfield.

Wiggum: Fine, let me tell you what I tell everybody who comes in here: the law is powerless to help you.
Marge: Do I have to be dead before you'll help me?
Wiggum: Well, not dead -- dying. [Marge gets up to leave] No, no, no, no. Don't walk away. How about this: just show me the knife ... in your back.

The truth is that we do have the general welfare clause which states that the legislature has the power to pass those laws which it deems necessary to protect the American people. Perhaps that clause has been stretched further than it was intended. And certainly the Congress has passed foolish laws. But I can't believe that the alternative would be much better. A government powerless to aid the people would eventually be rejected by the people.

Walter Williams OK's Discrimination

First things first--I misread Ross Mackenzie's article yesterday. For some reason I put Ponyang in China rather than North Korea where it actually is. So I apologize for that mistake, and promise you i will almost certainly make that kind of mistake again.

Moving on to today's article, we have the sad spector of Walter Williams shilling for racism.

There are those who would argue that Walter Williams decision to embrace conservatism makes him a sellout to his race (Williams is Black), but I am not one of them. I understand that the Conservative Viewpoint has positive aspects for all races, and I don't think any American owes political allegience to one party or point of view by virtue of the color of their skin.

But what Williams supports today is dispicable. He states, "Suppose leaving your workplace you see a full-grown tiger standing outside the door. Most people would endeavor to leave the area in great dispatch. That prediction isn't all that interesting, but the question why is. Is your decision to run based on any detailed information about that particular tiger, or is it based on tiger folklore and how you've seen other tigers behaving? It's probably the latter.

"You simply pre-judge that tiger; you stereotype him."

OK Williams let me put forward this argument, one I don't believe but that is believed in many places in this country (and not just in "the red states." Black people are self evidently dangerous. They are stronger physically, given to violence as a way to solve their problems, and have resentments against normal (white) America. The Government and the Law should be careful to keep thse potential menaces under control, by locking as many of them up as possible, and keeping the rest in a state of terror and fear.

Why not?

Well for one thing, people aren't tigers. Conservatives are always telling America that Mankind is not made up of animals but when it comes down to it, you really mean, many human beings are not animals (the white upper and upper middle class), and others are (blacks, hispanics, "white trash," etc.).

My scenario mentioned above is one interpretation of America's draconian drug laws, and it's interpretation that has a lot of validity.