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How does something immoral, when done privately, become moral when it is done collectively? Furthermore, does legality establish morality? Slavery was legal apartheid is legal Stalinist, Nazi, and Maoist purges were legal. Clearly, the fact of legality does not justify these crimes. Legality, alone, cannot be the talisman of moral people.

Walter E. Williams

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Walter E. Williams
Age: 84 †
Born: 1936
Born: March 31
Died: 2020
Died: December 1
Columnist
Economist
Journalist
Radio Personality
University Teacher
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Walter Williams
Walter Edward Williams
Doe
Morality
Nazi
Talisman
Done
Crime
Immoral
Purges
Something
Alone
Crimes
Talismans
People
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Furthermore
Facts
Justify
Privately
Cannot
Clearly
Collectively
Become
Slavery
Apartheid
Stalinist

More quotes by Walter E. Williams

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Wealth comes from successful individual efforts to please one's fellow man ... that's what competition is all about: outpleasing your competitors to win over the consumers.
Walter E. Williams
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Whenever there's a tragedy involving gun use, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, the gun-control lobby and the news media seize it as another opportunity to exploit the emotions of uninformed American people for political gain.
Walter E. Williams
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Maybe I'm overly pessimistic, but most of Africa is a continent without much hope for its people... What [Africa] needs, the West cannot give. ...what Africans need is personal liberty...[and] guarantees of private property rights and rule of law.
Walter E. Williams
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Nothing in our Constitution suggests that government is a grantor of rights. Instead, government is a protector of rights.
Walter E. Williams
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But let me offer you my definition of social justice: I keep what I earn and you keep what you earn. Do you disagree? Well then tell me how much of what I earn belongs to you - and why?
Walter E. Williams
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The freedom of individuals from compulsion or coercion never was, and is not now, the normal state of human affairs. The normal state for the ordinary person is tyranny, arbitrary control and abuse mainly by their own government.
Walter E. Williams
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As American education and intelligence becomes replaced by feelings and emotion, not seeing the forest for the trees has become a major problem.
Walter E. Williams
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A recent study by David Green and Laura Casper, 'Delay, Denial and Dilution,' written for the London-based Institute of Economic Affairs, concludes that the World Health Organization calculated that Britain has as many as 25,000 unnecessary cancer deaths a year because of under-provision of care.
Walter E. Williams
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I learned that you have to evaluate the effects of public policy as opposed to intentions.
Walter E. Williams
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There are people in need of help. Charity is one of the nobler human motivations. The act of reaching into one's own pockets to help a fellow man in need is praiseworthy and laudable. Reaching into someone else's pocket is despicable and worthy of condemnation.
Walter E. Williams
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The idea that even the brightest person or group of bright people, much less the U.S. Congress, can wisely manage an economy has to be the height of arrogance and conceit.
Walter E. Williams
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If the States do not have the right to secede, then they have no rights at all.
Walter E. Williams
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Preaching doom and gloom has been beneficial to the political class. They use it to gain more power and control.
Walter E. Williams
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In a free society, government has the responsibility of protecting us from others, but not from ourselves.
Walter E. Williams
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Most of what Congress does fits the description of forcing one American to serve the purposes of another American. That description differs only in degree, but not in kind, from slavery.
Walter E. Williams
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Many of the wonderful achievements of the 20th century were the result of the pursuit of profits. Unfortunately, demagoguery has led to profits becoming a dirty word. Nonprofit is seen as more righteous, particularly when people pompously stand before us and declare, 'We're a nonprofit organization.'
Walter E. Williams
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Reaching into one's own pocket to assist his fellow man is noble and worthy of praise. Reaching into another person's pocket to assist one's fellow man is despicable and worthy of condemnation.
Walter E. Williams
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Profit is vital to human well-being. Profit is the payment to entrepreneurs just as wages are payments to labor, interest to capital and rent to land. In order to earn profits in free markets, entrepreneurs must identify and satisfy human wants and do so in a way that economizes on society's scarce resources.
Walter E. Williams
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No human should be coerced by the state to bear the medical expense, or any other expense, for his fellow man. In other words, the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another is morally offensive.
Walter E. Williams
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Government is about coercion. Limiting government is the single most important instrument for guaranteeing liberty. We're working on a third generation which has little in the way of education about what our Constitution means and why it was written. Thus, we've fallen easy prey to charlatens, quacks, and hustlers.
Walter E. Williams