In a free society, government has the responsibility of protecting us from others, but not from ourselves.
Walter E. WilliamsRead
However, if we wish to be compassionate with our fellow man, we must learn to engage in dispassionate analysis. In other words, thinking with our hearts, rather than our brains, is a surefire method to hurt those whom we wish to help.
Interpretation
To truly help others, we must analyze situations without letting emotions cloud our judgment.
Walter E. Williams emphasizes the importance of maintaining a balance between compassion and rational analysis when helping others. He suggests that while empathy is essential, allowing our emotions to dictate our actions can lead to unintended harm. Thus, a dispassionate approach, one that combines both heart and mind, is crucial for effective assistance and understanding in our interactions with fellow humans.
In practice
During a community meeting addressing local issues, one might quote Williams to emphasize the need for objective discussions.
In a free society, government has the responsibility of protecting us from others, but not from ourselves.
What we call the market is really a democratic process involving millions, and in some markets billions, of people making personal decisions that express their preferences. When you hear someone say that he doesn't trust the market, and wants to replace it with government edicts, he's really calling for a switch from a democratic process to a totalitarian one.
The true test of one's commitment to liberty and private property rights doesn't come when we permit people to be free to do those voluntary things with which we agree. The true test comes when we permit people to be free to do those voluntary things with which we disagree.
Powerful government tends to draw into it people with bloated egos, people who think they know more than everyone else and have little hesitance in coercing their fellow man. Or as Nobel Laureate Friedrich Hayek said, "in government, the scum rises to the top".
If one person has a right to something he did not earn, of necessity it requires that another person not have a right to something that he did earn.
The essence of government is force, and most often that force is used to accomplish evil ends.
On this sacred path of Radical Acceptance, rather than striving for perfection, we discover how to love ourselves into wholeness.
The cleverly expressed opposite of any generally accepted idea is worth a fortune to somebody.
I have learned things in the dark that I could never have learned in the light, things that have saved my life over and over again, so that there is really only one logical conclusion. I need darkness as much as I need light.
Everybody has losses - it's unavoidable in life. Sharing our pain is very healing.
Growing up in Westboro, there was a culture of celebrating death and tragedy... a very calloused way of seeing other people's pain. After I left, it took me a while to be able to really empathize with what it must have been like for the loved ones of people whose funerals we protested.
If there are people at once rich and content, be assured that they are content because they know how to be so, not because they are rich
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