It is easy to export the outward symbols of democracy — constitutions, elections, parliaments, and the like — but you cannot export the centuries of experience and development that made those institutions work.
Tag: Walter E. Williams
(1936 – 2020) American economist, commentator, and academic.
Republic or democracy?
In a democracy, the majority rules either directly or through its elected representatives. As in a monarchy, the law is whatever the government determines it to be. Laws do not represent reason. They represent force. The restraint is upon the individual instead of government. Unlike that envisioned under a republican form of government, rights are seen as privileges and permissions that are granted by government and can be rescinded by government.
The coming financial meltdown
Social Security, Medicare, and its coverage of prescription drugs have an unfunded liability that exceeds $100 trillion. When those roosters come home to roost, they will make the financial meltdown we’ve been though look like child’s play.
Why most Americans love government
If [most Americans] privately took someone’s earnings to give to a farmer, college student or senior citizen, they would be hunted down as thieves and carted off to jail. However, they get Congress to do the identical thing, through its taxing power, and they are seen as compassionate and caring. In other words, people love government because government, while having neither moral nor constitutional authority, has the legal and physical might to take the property of one American and give it to another.