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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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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
Economics
Constitution
Instead
Liberty
Economic
Rights
Government
Protector
Nothing
Suggests
More quotes by Walter E. Williams
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
Vote for me. I'll use my office to take another American's money and give it to you.
Walter E. Williams
Politicians exploit economic illiteracy.
Walter E. Williams
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
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
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed
Walter E. Williams
One of the wonderful things about free markets is that the path to greater wealth comes not from looting, plundering and enslaving one's fellow man, as it has throughout most of human history, but by serving and pleasing him.
Walter E. Williams
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
Trying to get government to be as efficient as business is as hopeless as trying to teach cats to bark and dogs to meow.
Walter E. Williams
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
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
We will not make inroads into the gun-violence problem until we acknowledge the underlying causes of youth behavior today, compared to yesterday. ... we must come to the realization that laws and regulations alone cannot produce a civilized society. It's morality that is society's first line of defense against uncivilized behavior.
Walter E. Williams
Most of the great problems we face are caused by politicians creating solutions to problems they created in the first place.
Walter E. Williams
Recent school shootings have lured ill-informed Americans into a war on our Second Amendment guarantees, led by the nation's tyrants and their useful idiots. ... The Second Amendment was given to us as protection against tyranny by the federal government and the Congress of the United States.
Walter E. Williams
Poverty in Egypt, or anywhere else, is not very difficult to explain. There are three basic causes: People are poor because they cannot produce anything highly valued by others. They can produce things highly valued by others but are hampered or prevented from doing so. Or, they volunteer to be poor.
Walter E. Williams
It's people seeking more for themselves that has produced a better life for all Americans.
Walter E. Williams
Politicians have immense power to do harm to the economy. But they have very little power to do good.
Walter E. Williams
The bottom line is that the true test of one's commitment to freedom of association doesn't come when he allows people to associate in ways he approves. The true test of that commitment comes when he allows people to be free to voluntarily associate in ways he deems despicable. Forced association is not freedom of association.
Walter E. Williams
The prospects are dim for a society that makes mascots out of the unproductive and condemns the productive.
Walter E. Williams
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
