Walter E. Williams from Creators Syndicate

Should Black People Tolerate This? for 05/23/2012

Wed, 23 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Each year, roughly 7,000 blacks are murdered. Ninety-four percent of the time, the murderer is another black person. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, between 1976 and 2011, there were 279,384 black murder victims. Using the 94 percent figure means that 262,621 were murdered by other blacks. Though blacks are 13 percent of the nation's population, they account for more than 50 perc ...

Updated: Wed May 23, 2012

Should We Obey All Laws? for 05/16/2012

Wed, 16 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Let's think about whether all acts of Congress deserve our respect and obedience. Suppose Congress enacted a law — and the Supreme Court ruled it constitutional — requiring American families to attend church services at least three times a month. Should we obey such a law? Suppose Congress, acting under the Constitution's commerce clause, enacted a law requiring motorists to get eig ...

Updated: Wed May 16, 2012

Leftist Race-baiters for 05/09/2012

Wed, 09 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

MSNBC's Chris Matthews, in a recent debate with former Republican National Chairman Michael Steele, called the Republican Party the "grand wizard crowd." Grand wizard is the title given to the leader of the Ku Klux Klan. It is truly misinformed to call Republicans the party of the Klan. Throughout our history, most Klansmen and most racists have been Democrats. Here are a few racist q ...

Updated: Wed May 09, 2012

America's Two-Faced Liberals for 05/02/2012

Wed, 02 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

President Barack Obama and Wall Street occupiers, along with their allies in the mainstream media and on college campuses, have maintained an ongoing attack on high-income earners, people they call 1 percenters. Listening to their deceitful demagoguery, you would naturally think of them as 99 percenters, but you'd be dead-wrong.

Last week, MSN Money posted a report titled "The riche ...

Updated: Wed May 02, 2012

Devious Taxation for 04/25/2012

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation does a yeoman's job of keeping track of how much we're paying in taxes and who's paying what. It turns out that American taxpayers worked this year from Jan. 1 to April 17, 107 days, to earn enough money to pay their federal, state and local tax bills. That statistic requires some clarification, and I ask my readers to help me examine it.

Accordi ...

Updated: Wed Apr 25, 2012

Good Economists for 04/18/2012

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

It's difficult to be a good economist and simultaneously be perceived as compassionate. To be a good economist, one has to deal with reality. To appear compassionate, often one has to avoid unpleasant questions, use "caring" terminology and view reality as optional.

Affordable housing and health care costs are terms with considerable emotional appeal that politicians exploit bu ...

Updated: Wed Apr 18, 2012

Media Dishonesty and Race Hustlers for 04/11/2012

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

When NBC's "Today" show played the audio of George Zimmerman's call to a Sanford, Fla., police dispatcher about Trayvon Martin, the editors made him appear to be a racist who says: "This guy looks like he's up to no good. He looks black." What Zimmerman actually said was: "This guy looks like he's up to no good or he's on drugs or something. It's raining, and he's just ...

Updated: Wed Apr 11, 2012

Dupes for the State for 04/04/2012

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Public misunderstanding, ignorance and possibly contempt for liberty play into the hands of people who want to control our lives. Responses to my recent column "Compliant Americans" brought this home to me. In it, I argued that the anti-tobacco movement became the template and inspiration for other forms of government intrusion, such as bans on restaurants serving foie gras, McDonald' ...

Updated: Wed Apr 04, 2012

Profiling for 03/28/2012

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Right now, there isn't enough known about the circumstances surrounding the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, a black, by George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old part-Hispanic, during his neighborhood watch tour in an Orlando, Fla., suburb. If evidence emerges that Zimmerman's actions were not justified, he should be prosecuted and punished; however, there's a larger issue that few people u ...

Updated: Wed Mar 28, 2012

Political Rope-A-Dope for 03/21/2012

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

It's not unreasonable to ask how valuable the variously labeled liberal, Democratic or progressive agenda has been to black Americans and whether blacks should proceed in political lock step with this agenda.

According to an American Community Survey, by the U.S. Census Bureau, the top 10 poorest cities with populations more than 250,000 are Detroit, with 33 percent of its residents belo ...

Updated: Wed Mar 21, 2012

Compliant Americans for 03/14/2012

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Last month, at a Raeford, N.C., elementary school, a teacher confiscated the lunch of a 5-year-old girl because it didn't meet U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines and therefore was deemed nonnutritious. She replaced it with school cafeteria chicken nuggets. The girl's home-prepared lunch was nutritious; it consisted of a turkey and cheese sandwich, potato chips, a banana and apple juice. ...

Updated: Wed Mar 14, 2012

It Just Ain't So for 03/07/2012

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 2011 manufacturing output grew by 11 percent, to nearly $5 trillion. Were our manufacturing sector considered a nation with its own gross domestic product, it would be the world's fourth-richest economy. Manufacturing productivity has doubled since 1987, and manufacturing output has risen by one-half. However, over the past two decades, manufacturing employme ...

Updated: Wed Mar 07, 2012

Equality or Inequality for 02/29/2012

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Rick Santorum's speech at the Detroit Economic Club stirred a bit of controversy when he said: "I'm not about equality of result when it comes to income inequality. There is income inequality in America. There always has been, and hopefully — and I do say that — there always will be." That kind of statement, though having merit, should not be made to people who have little ...

Updated: Wed Feb 29, 2012

Math Matters for 02/22/2012

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

If one manages to graduate from high school without the rudiments of algebra, geometry and trigonometry, there are certain relatively high-paying careers probably off-limits for life — such as careers in architecture, chemistry, computer programming, engineering, medicine and certain technical fields. For example, one might meet all of the physical requirements to be a fighter pilot, but ...

Updated: Wed Feb 22, 2012

Rising Black Social Pathology for 02/15/2012

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

The Philadelphia Inquirer's big story Feb. 4 was about how a budget crunch at the Philadelphia School District had caused the district to lay off 91 school police officers. Over the years, there's been no discussion of what has happened to our youth that makes a school police force necessary in the first place. The Inquirer's series "Assault on Learning" (March 2011) reported that in ...

Updated: Wed Feb 15, 2012

Economic Chaos Ahead for 02/08/2012

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Let's think about the kind of mess that we're in. Federal 2010 Medicare and Medicaid expenditures totaled $800 billion. The projected annual growth of both programs is about 7 percent. Social Security expenditures are more than $700 billion a year. According to the 2009 Social Security and Medicare trustees reports, by 2030, 49 percent of federal revenues will go for Social Security and Medicar ...

Updated: Wed Feb 08, 2012

Obama's Racial Politics for 02/01/2012

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

There's been a heap of criticism placed upon President Barack Obama's domestic policies that have promoted government intrusion and prolonged our fiscal crisis and his foreign policies that have emboldened our enemies. Any criticism of Obama pales in comparison with what might be said about the American people who voted him in to the nation's highest office.

Obama's presidency represents ...

Updated: Wed Feb 01, 2012

Schools of Education for 01/25/2012

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Larry Sand's article "No Wonder Johnny (Still) Can't Read" — written for The John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, based in Raleigh, N.C. — blames schools of education for the decline in America's education. Education professors drum into students that they should not "drill and kill" or be the "sage on the stage" but instead be the &quo ...

Updated: Wed Jan 25, 2012

Presidential Nonsense for 01/18/2012

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Last week, President Barack Obama, at a Capital Hilton fundraising event, told the crowd, "We can't go back to this brand of you're-on-your-own economics." Throughout my professional career as an economist, I've never come across the theory of "you're-on-your-own economics." I'm guessing what the president means by — and finds offensive in — "you're-on-your- ...

Updated: Wed Jan 18, 2012

In Greed I Trust for 01/11/2012

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Last week's column started off asking: "What human motivation gets the most wonderful things done?" The answer is that human greed is what gets wonderful things done. I wasn't talking about fraud, theft, dishonesty, special privileges from government or other forms of despicable behavior. I was talking about people trying to get as much as they can for themselves.

Think about g ...

Updated: Wed Jan 11, 2012