Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Congratulations Walter E. Williams
Dick Vitale loves to say give the little guy a chance. This year the little guy took the chance and turned it into a Final Four appearance. George Mason University is a little school with a lot of pride. Since I cannot cheer for Kansas or any Big Twelve team, I will root for the little guy.
Walter E. Williams is a little guy with big brains that teaches at
George Mason University. I have enjoyed every opportunity to hear him speak (he's from the economics department). I have only been able to take his courses on line, because George Mason does not admit people of my skin color (white).
I give congratulations to him for the Cinderella story of the year, though I know he had nothing to do with the winning. My bigger congratulations are for his skill in teaching economics. I have been thinking a lot lately about the problem of poverty. I receive messages regularly through the news, politicians, friends, etc. stating that disparity of wages is increasing and that this situation needs to be fixed.
I come from a country that has the richest man in the world (Bill Gates) and the largest gap between the rich and the poor. What is even more telling is the gap between America's poor and the poor in parts of Africa and Asia. Those people cannot read, have no clean water, live in makeshift shacks, often starve, and live in the most horrible conditions imaginable. The American poor have food, water, shelter, schooling, telephones, some even have televisions, cars, and cable TV.
What really bothers me is that the statistics about gaps between poor and rich are always presented in a framework of envy and penalization for the successful. The idea is that Bill Gates owes me because I he is rich and I am not. In an old radio drama-sitcom called "Duffy's Tavern" the manager Archie bet on a horse that died before he could cross the finish line. He was depressed over this until he heard that Duffy the owner had bet on the same horse. This made him joyful and happy.
Is that what makes people happy in life? "Don't better my situation, just make that rich guy suffer a little"?
I would like to see an end to poverty. I think that any solution involving stealing from the rich to give to the poor is wrong. This is fundamentally why the liberals can never convince me to join a redistributionist model. Rather than investing their funds in enriching the lives of the poor, they build a state run Robin Hood to rob from others, justifiable because they "pay their fair share" (skepticism, skepticism). If the gap is such a big injustice, then sell all you have and give the money to the poor. Live the rest of your life directly sending all your personal profits into good charities.
The problem of the framework of these gap statistics is even more compounded because they come from a centralized ideal of a unified society. This is even more tragic. I really get physically sick when I hear the phrase "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts." The fact is that this is a lie and a self contradiction. "Whole" and "sum" are by definition the "sum of its parts," and not greater or lesser than such. Society never exists without first having individuals. Compounding this problem of society is the fact that the individuals within society disagree on the nature of society. This is obviously a greater philosophical problem, but consider the issue of poverty in light of this. If society cannot agree nor unite on the issue of poverty without trampling on the rights of another part of society, then it is best left alone. In the case of poverty, we see the great societies of the past only slowing and hurting the economy. In the end the poor suffer more than they would have had they not united to steal from the rich "legally." I want to live in a world where starving people are fed and where poor people receive a better life. I think that we as individuals will have a greater impact on the problem of poverty if we take the responsibility on our own shoulders and generously deal with it from our own bank accounts.
Walter E. Williams is a little guy with big brains that teaches at
George Mason University. I have enjoyed every opportunity to hear him speak (he's from the economics department). I have only been able to take his courses on line, because George Mason does not admit people of my skin color (white).
I give congratulations to him for the Cinderella story of the year, though I know he had nothing to do with the winning. My bigger congratulations are for his skill in teaching economics. I have been thinking a lot lately about the problem of poverty. I receive messages regularly through the news, politicians, friends, etc. stating that disparity of wages is increasing and that this situation needs to be fixed.
I come from a country that has the richest man in the world (Bill Gates) and the largest gap between the rich and the poor. What is even more telling is the gap between America's poor and the poor in parts of Africa and Asia. Those people cannot read, have no clean water, live in makeshift shacks, often starve, and live in the most horrible conditions imaginable. The American poor have food, water, shelter, schooling, telephones, some even have televisions, cars, and cable TV.
What really bothers me is that the statistics about gaps between poor and rich are always presented in a framework of envy and penalization for the successful. The idea is that Bill Gates owes me because I he is rich and I am not. In an old radio drama-sitcom called "Duffy's Tavern" the manager Archie bet on a horse that died before he could cross the finish line. He was depressed over this until he heard that Duffy the owner had bet on the same horse. This made him joyful and happy.
Is that what makes people happy in life? "Don't better my situation, just make that rich guy suffer a little"?
I would like to see an end to poverty. I think that any solution involving stealing from the rich to give to the poor is wrong. This is fundamentally why the liberals can never convince me to join a redistributionist model. Rather than investing their funds in enriching the lives of the poor, they build a state run Robin Hood to rob from others, justifiable because they "pay their fair share" (skepticism, skepticism). If the gap is such a big injustice, then sell all you have and give the money to the poor. Live the rest of your life directly sending all your personal profits into good charities.
The problem of the framework of these gap statistics is even more compounded because they come from a centralized ideal of a unified society. This is even more tragic. I really get physically sick when I hear the phrase "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts." The fact is that this is a lie and a self contradiction. "Whole" and "sum" are by definition the "sum of its parts," and not greater or lesser than such. Society never exists without first having individuals. Compounding this problem of society is the fact that the individuals within society disagree on the nature of society. This is obviously a greater philosophical problem, but consider the issue of poverty in light of this. If society cannot agree nor unite on the issue of poverty without trampling on the rights of another part of society, then it is best left alone. In the case of poverty, we see the great societies of the past only slowing and hurting the economy. In the end the poor suffer more than they would have had they not united to steal from the rich "legally." I want to live in a world where starving people are fed and where poor people receive a better life. I think that we as individuals will have a greater impact on the problem of poverty if we take the responsibility on our own shoulders and generously deal with it from our own bank accounts.
