https://www.ocregister.com/2020/12/02/never-forget-the-great-walter-e-williams/Walter Edward Williams, one of the world’s greatest champions of liberty, passed away this week at the age of 84. His life and ideas will never be forgotten.
Born in Philadelphia on March 21, 1936 and raised in the Richard Allen housing projects, Williams never allowed himself to be a victim of his circumstances.
Williams always believed in the value of hard work and the fundamental promise of America.
After being drafted into the military, Williams penned a letter to President John F. Kennedy in 1963 calling out the rampant racism of the times and in the military itself.
“Should Negroes be relieved of their service obligation or continue defending and dying for empty promises of freedom and equality?” he wrote. “Or should we demand human rights as our Founding Fathers did at the risk of being called extremists? … I contend that we relieve ourselves of oppression in a manner that is in keeping with the great heritage of our nation.”
“Prior to capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man,” he said. “Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving your fellow man.”
At the core of Williams’ views of the world is the notion of self-ownership, the principle that we own ourselves.
“I am my private property, and you are yours,” he wrote. Illegitimate, coercive and non-voluntary intrusions on individuals, he argued, are fundamentally immoral. Whether it’s a criminal assaulting you physically or the state dictating what you can or can’t do with our own life, Williams always put the dignity and integrity of the individual first and foremost.
