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  • Posted by WDonway 3 years, 11 months ago
    Utterly apart from race, Prof. Walter Williams, when it came to the interventionist/welfare state, socialism, and postmodernism, was a "giant who labored in that cloud to lift it from the world."

    That he seems to us a kind of miracle, a black swan whistling Rachmaninoff, is ridiculous. But true. As a black man in America espousing capitalism and individualism, and opposing black racism as the wrong answer to (admittedly widespread) white racism, he was one in 10 million or so.

    Tell me why it is virtually impossible for black men and women to grasp the individualism-capitalism/anti-racism-anti-collectivism nexus, why one in 10 million grasp it? The example of Walter Williams thereby becomes almost ineffably heroic and admirable.

    And those are me feelings upon his death several days ago.

    Share this.

    Tell the world.

    Never, ever shut up about it. Or to quote Andrew Breitbart: “Walk toward the fire. Don’t worry about what they call you. All those things are said against you because they want to stop you..."
    And think about (and READ about) what they called Walter Williams.
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    • Posted by $ 3 years, 11 months ago
      Walter Williams Rest In Peace, as posted by David Henderson in Econlib

      https://www.econlib.org/walter-willia...


      "Dominic Pino, a student at George Mason University, posted a very nice remembrance that really captures who Walter was. My favorite paragraph:

      As Williams persisted well beyond retirement age, his passion for economics undimmed, he was the kind of man that made you say, “He’s going to teach until the day he dies.” On Dec. 1, he taught his last class of ECON 811 to complete the semester, ending the 7:20-10:00 p.m. block around 30 minutes early, as was typical. Fewer than 12 hours later, he died, aged 84. R.I.P.

      Larry
      Dec 2 2020 at 4:52pm
      David, thank you for your wonderful tribute and memories of him. I only met Walter Williams, once — in either 1988 or 1989 in Brooklyn, NY, at a Free Press Conference. Both of us arrived early and were sitting in the hallway outside of the main meeting room. We spoke for about 15 or 20 minutes without interruption, and one of the funniest things he said to me — after I explained how my liberal friends spoke about black Americans and affirmative action — was this:
      “Larry, the problem with those people is that their vision of a black person is somebody holding a mop — somebody who can’t do for himself. Somebody that needs them. The only thing that will fix them is having a black boss.”

      David Henderson
      Dec 2 2020 at 6:29pm
      Interesting story.
      I’m sure Walter didn’t intend the implication that there’s something wrong with spending your life mopping floors. At least I hope he didn’t.
      That story tangentially reminds me of the famous Ayn Rand appearance at the University of Wisconsin in the early 1960s. At the end of her talk, a student asked her:
      In your ideal society, who would take care of the janitors?
      Rand answered:
      Why, young man, the janitors."

      Yesterday was a day of quiet, focused reflection.....and resolve. Part of this was spent in finding the above. At times, a poignant tear, for the loss of the man and the joy that his work is so well preserved. The "tangential" association of Williams and Rand deeply appreciated. Equality 7-2521 came to mind as I reflected on these lives, of others, and my own. A resolve reinforced to be an educator of equity until I pass as well.

      I keep bits and pieces in a narrow file, perhaps a half inch thick, to remind of human endeavor, conflict resolution, learning and right relations. Williams, Sowell, Rand, Jefferson, Lao Tsu....Shupe...and Donway. And one day, perhaps, others may add my name to an honored list, in that, I added to the chorus, animating and not appropriating.

      Tomorrow I challenge the enslavement of mask wearing, in a medical facility, armed with Statute of Law. The real challenge is in addressing the devastation of The Comprachicos. The next endeavor is to seek audience with The Black Student Union of Univ. of Wis., to entreat a different choice as to the separatism they've been steeped within.

      ".....so to clarify their thoughts and cleanse their needs that no cunning meddler could touch them" Bynner 1944, The Way Of Life
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    • Posted by $ Meerkat24 3 years, 11 months ago
      I might assume when you ask why? that it is rhetorical. But many actually do wonder why. As a private school educator (for the past three decades) I would testify that Ayn Rand has already answered it thoroughly and eloquently, hitting the nail on the head (no pun intended, okay maybe a little).

      So I will simply quote:

      Today’s comprachicos do not use narcotic powders. They take a child before he is fully aware of reality and never let him develop that awareness. Where nature put a normal brain, they put mental retardation. To make you unconscious for life by means of your own brain, nothing could be more ingenious. They are the comprachicos of the mind. They do not place a child into a vase to adjust his body to its contours. They place him into a school to adjust him to society.

      The government schools have continued to ruin minds with impunity.
      Horror vacui - Since nature abhors a vacuum, those weak, empty, broken minds will get filled with something. Until students can at least be taught to think and see behind the Argument from Intimidation, what their minds will be filled with is CRAP.
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      • Posted by $ 3 years, 11 months ago
        Thank you for your service in educational sanity.
        I watched my dad for 37 years, K-12, vo-tech, collegiate, mostly in Communication and Human Relations.
        He used a fairly simple formula for teaching. First, life is a matter of relationships and choices.
        The cyclic process we've agreed upon is Awareness, Involvement, Commitment, Evaluation, Insight, Wisdom and Vision. At any time, one makes a choice, based upon a relationship, at any stage of the process, to continue, or cycle back to a previous stage.
        This is the How. The Why is the ambiguity. What choices do I "believe" I have as part of the dynamic.
        Just a guess, but I have a feeling you are familiar with John Gatto.
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  • Posted by kddr22 3 years, 11 months ago
    outlines it quite well. Thank you
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    • Posted by $ 3 years, 11 months ago
      One of my heroes is gone, only in mortal form.
      I reached out to him when I heard of The State Dept's formation of a Commission on Unalienable Rights in July of 2019. I'd no response and not much time to follow up. Walter Williams would have been the sanest of those enjoined, in my opinion.
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  • Posted by Dobrien 2 years, 10 months ago
    We are far down the road. The road That Walter warned US about . Is there an exit ramp ? Yup some of Us have taken it. Are there enough of US.
    We shall know pretty soon.
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  • Posted by freedomforall 3 years, 11 months ago
    "Another common argument is that we need big government to protect the little guy from corporate giants. But a corporation can’t pick a consumer’s pocket."
    Unless the corporation conspires with overly powerful government in violation of the constitution.
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