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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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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
Economic
Responsibility
Society
Free
Others
Government
Protecting
Economics
Liberty

More quotes by Walter E. Williams

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The founders of our nation feared paper currency because it gave government the means to steal from its citizens.
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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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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Experts and the educated elite have replaced what worked with what sounded good. Society was far more civilized before they took over our schools, prisons, welfare programs, police departments and courts. It's high time we ran these people out of our lives and went back to common sense.
Walter E. Williams
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In keeping Americans ill-educated, ill-informed and constitutionally ignorant, the education establishment has been the politician's major and most faithful partner. It is in this sense that American education can be deemed a success.
Walter E. Williams
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If grade inflation continues, a college bachelor's degree will have just as much credibility as a high school diploma.
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
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Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed
Walter E. Williams
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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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The difference between a thief and a congressman: When a thief steals your money, he doesn't expect you to thank him.
Walter E. Williams
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All we have to do now is to inform the public that the payment of social security taxes is voluntary and watch the mass exodus.
Walter E. Williams
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Politicians have immense power to do harm to the economy. But they have very little power to do good.
Walter E. Williams
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...[I]f we care about our remaining liberties we must at some point draw a line in the sand and let politicians and bureaucrats know we will not tolerate further encroachment on our God-given rights to liberty.
Walter E. Williams
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In general, presidents and congressmen have very limited power to do good for the economy and awesome power to do bad. The best good thing that politicians can do for the economy is to stop doing bad. In part, this can be achieved through reducing taxes and economic regulation, and staying out of our lives.
Walter E. Williams
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Cap and trade is just about the most effective tool for controlling most economic activity short of openly declaring ourselves a communist nation and it's a radical environmentalist's dream come true.
Walter E. Williams
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The prospects are dim for a society that makes mascots out of the unproductive and condemns the productive.
Walter E. Williams
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Increases in money supply are what constitute inflation, and a general rise in prices is the symptom.
Walter E. Williams
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Communism and socialism is [sic] seductive. It promises us that people will contribute according to ability and receive according to needs. Everybody is equal. Everybody has a right to decent housing, decent food and affordable medical care. History should have taught us that when we hear people talk this stuff - watch out!
Walter E. Williams
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Students who are alien and hostile to the education process ought to be removed. You say, What will we do with them? I say that's a secondary issue. The first priority is to stop thugs from making education impossible for everyone else.
Walter E. Williams
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(F)or 50 years, the well-meaning leftist agenda has been able to do to blacks what Jim Crow and harsh discrimination could never have done: family breakdown, illegitimacy and low academic achievement.
Walter E. Williams