Author: Walter Williams

Last week a federal judge ordered Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to allow 10-year-old Sarah Murnaghan, who suffers from cystic fibrosis, to be moved to the adult lung transplant list. That gives her a better chance of receiving a potentially lifesaving transplant. Sarah Murnaghan’s fate should force us to examine our organ […]

In order to understand the liberal and progressive agenda, one must know something about their world vision and values. Let’s examine some of the evidence. Why the 1970s struggle to ban DDT? Alexander King, founder of the Malthusian Club of Rome, wrote in a 1990 biographical essay: “My own doubts came when DDT was introduced […]

Individually, Americans do not deserve to be subservient to such a fear-mongering, intimidating and powerful agency as the Internal Revenue Service; but collectively, we do. Let’s look at it. Since the 1791 ratification of our Constitution, until well into the 1920s, federal spending as a percentage of gross domestic product never exceeded 5 percent, except […]

Dr. Henry Miller, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and Gregory Conko, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, in their Forbes article “Rachel Carson’s Deadly Fantasies” (9/5/2012), wrote that her 1962 book, “Silent Spring,” led to a world ban on DDT use. The DDT ban was responsible for the loss of “tens of millions […]

Brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who are accused of setting the bombs that exploded at the Boston Marathon, attended the University of Massachusetts. Maybe they hated our nation before college, but if you want lessons on hating America, college attendance might be a good start. Let’s look at it. “We need to think very, very […]

One definition given for insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results; it might also be a definition of stupidity. Let’s look at some cities where large percentages of black Americans live under poor conditions. Experiencing a violent crime rate of 2,137 per 100,000 of the population, Detroit is […]

A couple of weeks ago, Black Entertainment Television founder Bob Johnson, speaking at The National Press Club, said the nation “would never tolerate white unemployment at 14 and 15 percent.” Black unemployment has been double that of white Americans for more than 50 years. The black youth unemployment rate is more than 40 percent nationally. […]

Professor Craig Frisby is on the faculty of University of Missouri’s Department of Educational, School and Counseling Psychology. His most recent book is “Meeting the Psychoeducational Needs of Minority Students.” It’s a 662-page textbook covering a range of topics from multiculturalism and home and family influences to student testing and school discipline. There’s no way […]

Are women equal to men? Are Jews equal to gentiles? Are blacks equal to Italians, Irish, Polish and other white people? The answer is probably a big fat no, and the pretense or assumption that we are equal — or should be equal — is foolhardy and creates mischief. Let’s look at it. Male geniuses […]

After reading Dr. Thomas Sowell’s latest book, “Intellectuals and Race,” one cannot emerge with much respect for the reasoning powers of intellectuals, particularly academics, on matters of race. There’s so much faulty logic and downright dishonesty. Many intellectuals attribute the behavior patterns of blacks to “a legacy of slavery” or contemporary racial discrimination. But when […]

American education is in a sorry state of affairs, and there’s enough blame for all participants to have their fair share. They include students who are hostile and alien to the education process, uninterested parents, teachers and administrators who either are incompetent or have been beaten down by the system, and politicians who’ve become handmaidens […]

Let’s work through an example. Suppose 100 yards of fence could be built using one of two techniques. You could hire three low-skilled workers for $15 each, or you could hire one high-skilled worker for $40. Either way, you get the same 100 yards of fence built. If you sought maximum profits, which production technique […]

In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama proposed raising the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $9 an hour. That would be almost a 25 percent increase. Let’s look at the president’s proposal, but before doing so, let’s ask some other economic questions. Are people responsive to changes in price? For […]

Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” has been a box-office hit and nominated for 12 Academy Awards, including best picture, best director and best actor for Daniel Day-Lewis, who portrayed our 16th president. I haven’t seen the movie; therefore, this column is not about the movie but about a man deified by many. My colleague Thomas DiLorenzo, economics […]

There’s a story told about a Paris chief of police who was called to a department store to stop a burglary in progress. Upon his arrival, he reconnoitered the situation and ordered his men to surround the entrances of the building next door. When questioned about his actions, he replied that he didn’t have enough […]

Let’s expose presidential prevarication. Earlier this year, President Barack Obama warned that Social Security checks will be delayed if Congress fails to increase the government’s borrowing authority by raising the debt ceiling. However, there’s an issue with this warning. According to the 2012 Social Security trustees report, assets in Social Security’s trust funds totaled $2.7 […]

Let’s look at experts. Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was a mathematician and scientist. Newton has to be the greatest and most influential scientist who has ever lived. He laid the foundation for classical mechanics, and his genius transformed our understanding of science, particularly in the areas of physics, mathematics and astronomy. What’s not widely known […]

When I attended primary and secondary school — during the 1940s and ’50s — one didn’t hear of the kind of shooting mayhem that’s become routine today. Why? It surely wasn’t because of strict firearm laws. My replica of the 1902 Sears mail-order catalog shows 35 pages of firearm advertisements. People just sent in their […]

Nearly two years ago, U.S. News & World Report came out with a story titled “Educators Implicated in Atlanta Cheating Scandal.” It reported that “for 10 years, hundreds of Atlanta public school teachers and principals changed answers on state tests in one of the largest cheating scandals in U.S. history.” More than three-quarters of the […]

Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., shootings, said: “The British are not coming. … We don’t need all these guns to kill people.” Lewis’ vision, shared by many, represents a gross ignorance of why the framers of the Constitution gave us the Second Amendment. How about a few quotes from […]

Here’s the first paragraph of my last year’s column “Democracy Is Impossible”: “After Moammar Gadhafi’s downfall as Libya’s tyrannical ruler, politicians and ‘experts’ in the U.S. and elsewhere, including French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, are saying that his death marked the end of 42 years of tyranny and the beginning of democracy in Libya. Sen. […]

JoAnn Watson, Detroit city council member, said, “Our people in an overwhelming way supported the re-election of this president, and there ought to be a quid pro quo.” In other words, President Obama should send the nearly bankrupted city of Detroit millions in taxpayer bailout money. But there’s a painful lesson to be learned from […]

Suppose you saw a building on fire. Would you seek counsel from the arsonist who set it ablaze for advice on how to put it out? You say, “Williams, you’d have to be a lunatic to do that!” But that’s precisely what we’ve done: turned to the people who created our fiscal crisis to fix […]

Is there any reason for today’s Americans to care about what happens to tomorrow’s Americans? After all, what have tomorrow’s Americans done for today’s Americans? Moreover, since tomorrow’s Americans don’t vote, we can dump on them with impunity. That’s a vision that describes the actual behavior of today’s Americans. It would be seen as selfish, […]

For decades, it has been obvious that there are irreconcilable differences between Americans who want to control the lives of others and those who wish to be left alone. Which is the more peaceful solution: Americans using the brute force of government to beat liberty-minded people into submission or simply parting company? In a marriage, […]

President Barack Obama narrowly defeated Gov. Mitt Romney in the popular vote 51 percent to 48 percent. In the all-important Electoral College, the difference was larger, with Obama winning 303 electoral votes and Romney 206. Let’s not think so much about the election’s outcome but instead ask: What’s so good about democracy and majority rule? […]

Here’s a which-is-better question for you. Suppose a New Jersey motel room rented for $125 a night prior to Hurricane Sandy’s devastation. When the hurricane hits, a husband, wife and their two youngsters might seek the comfort of renting two adjoining rooms. However, when they arrive at the motel, they find that rooms now rent […]

Here’s one usage of the term gentleman: The gentleman helped the fallen lady to her feet. Here’s another, one we might hear from a newscaster or a police spokesman: Tonight we report on the arrest of two gentlemen who raped, sodomized and murdered an 80-year-old woman. During earlier times, to be called a gentleman meant […]

The Washington Post (10/25/2012), in giving President Barack Obama an endorsement for another four years, wrote, “Much of the 2012 presidential campaign has dwelt on the past, but the key questions are who could better lead the country during the next four years — and, most urgently, who is likelier to put the government on […]