Top Economist: Americans Have "Contempt for Liberty"

Famed economist and columnist Walter Williams says America has embraced the government thievery of personal property to benefit others, and he says the politicians are only doing what the voters want them to do.
Williams is a distinguished professor of economics at George Mason University. He is a syndicated columnist and has substituted for talk-show host Rush Limbaugh. His new book, a collection of his conservative-to-libertarian columns, is titled “American Contempt for Liberty.”
The title may sound a bit harsh, but Williams insists that’s exactly what’s happening in this country.
“The average American thinks that it is indeed moral for the Congress to forcibly use one American to serve the purposes of another American,” Williams told WND and Radio America. “It will forcefully use one American to serve the purposes of farmers in term of farm subsidies or bank bailouts or welfare or food stamps.”
He added: “I think that the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another is immoral. As a matter of fact, that’s the working definition of slavery.”
Williams is quick to point out that he has no problem helping his neighbor in need. It’s how that help is structured that he rejects out of hand.
“I believe that helping one’s fellow man in need by reaching into one’s own pockets is praiseworthy and laudable,” he said. “Helping one’s fellow man by reaching in someone else’s pockets is worthy of condemnation. For the Christians among us, when God gave Moses the commandment ‘thou shall not steal.’ He did not mean that thou shall not steal unless you got a majority vote in Congress.”
To see how far and how quickly the American system has drifted from its constitutional moorings, Williams cites an impassioned speech that James Madison delivered on the House floor just a few years after the Constitution was ratified.
“In 1794, Congress appropriated $15,000 to help some French refugees. James Madison stood on the floor of the House, and he said, ‘I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article in the Constitution that authorizes Congress to spend the money of their constituents for the purposes of benevolence,’” said Williams, who argues that the U.S. government is now drowning in forced charity.
“If you look at the federal budget today, two-thirds or three-quarters is for the purpose of benevolence, or it can be described as the government taking the property of one American and giving it to another to whom it does not belong,” he said. “If a politician is running for office today, making the same statement that James Madison made, the American people would run him out of town on a rail because they’d have contempt for that sentiment.”
Williams said both parties engage in this “contempt for liberty” on a regular basis.
“Conservatives and Republicans believe in taking your money and my money and giving it to farmers and banks. Liberals and Democrats believe in taking your money and my money and giving it to poor people and cities. They both agree on taking our money, but they disagree on what to use it for,” Williams explained.