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True liberty requires coexisting with people who say things and engage
in voluntary acts that we deem offensive.
The Daily Signal
Are You Really
Pro-Liberty? Here Are a Few Tests.
Walter E. Williams
March 15, 2017
Most Americans, whether liberal or conservative, Democratic or
Republican, do not show much understanding or respect for the
principles of personal liberty.
We criticize our political leaders, but we must recognize that their
behavior simply reflects the values of people who elected them to
office. That means we are all to blame for greater governmental control
over our lives and a decline in personal liberty.
Let me outline some fundamental principles of liberty.
My initial premise is that each of us owns himself. I am my private
property, and you are yours.
If we accept the notion of self-ownership, then certain acts can be
deemed moral or immoral. Murder, rape, and theft are immoral because
those acts violate private property.
Most Americans accept that murder and rape are immoral, but we are
ambivalent about theft.
Theft can be defined as taking the rightful property of one American
and giving it to another, to whom it does not belong. It is also theft
to forcibly use one person to serve the purposes of another.
At least two-thirds of federal spending can be described as Congress’
taking the rightful property of one American and giving it to another
American, to whom it does not belong.
So-called mandatory spending totaled $2.45 trillion in 2015. Thus,
two-thirds of the federal budget goes toward Medicaid, Medicare, Social
Security, food assistance, unemployment, and other programs and
benefits that fall into the category of taking from some and giving to
others.
To condemn legalized theft is not an argument against taxes to finance
the constitutionally mandated functions of the federal government. We
are all obligated to pay our share of those.
Many say that government spending guarantees one right or another.
That’s nonsense. True rights exist simultaneously among people.
That means the exercise of a right by one person does not impose an
obligation on another. In other words, my rights to speech and travel
impose no obligations on another except those of noninterference.
For Congress to guarantee a right to health care, food assistance, or
any other good or service whether a person can afford it or not does
diminish someone else’s rights—namely, their right to their earnings.
Congress has no resources of its very own. If Congress gives one person
something that he did not earn, it necessarily requires that Congress
deprive somebody else of something that he did earn.
Another area in which there is contempt for liberty, most notably on
many college campuses, is free speech.
The true test of one’s commitment to free speech does not come when he
permits others to say things with which he agrees. Instead, the true
test comes when one permits others to say things with which he
disagrees.
Colleges lead the nation in attacks on free speech. Some surveys report
that over 50 percent of college students want restrictions on speech
they find offensive. Many colleges have complied with their wishes
through campus speech codes.
A very difficult liberty pill for many Americans to swallow is freedom
of association.
As with free speech, the true test for one’s commitment to freedom of
association does not come when one permits people to voluntarily
associate in ways that he deems acceptable. The true test is when he
permits people to associate in ways he deems offensive.
If a golf club, fraternity, or restaurant were not to admit me because
I’m a black person, I would find it offensive, but it’s every
organization’s right to associate freely. On the other hand, a public
library, public utility, or public university does not have a right to
refuse me service, because I am a taxpayer.
The bottom line is that it takes a bold person to be for personal
liberty, because you have to be able to cope with people saying things
and engaging in voluntary acts that you deem offensive. Liberty is not
for wimps.
Read this and other articles at The Daily Signal
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