The true test of one's commitment to liberty and private property rights doesn't come when we permit people to be free to do those voluntary things with which we agree. The true test comes when we permit people to be free to do those voluntary things with which we disagree.
Interpretation
True commitment to freedom is tested by tolerance for actions we may disagree with.
Walter E. Williams emphasizes that the ultimate measure of one's dedication to liberty and private property rights is not in supporting choices that align with our beliefs, but rather in allowing and respecting choices that contradict them. This principle highlights the importance of tolerance and the essence of true freedom, which encompasses all voluntary actions, regardless of our personal opinions on those actions.
In practice
Using this quote during a debate about the limits of free speech.
However, if we wish to be compassionate with our fellow man, we must learn to engage in dispassionate analysis. In other words, thinking with our hearts, rather than our brains, is a surefire method to hurt those whom we wish to help.
In a free society, government has the responsibility of protecting us from others, but not from ourselves.
What we call the market is really a democratic process involving millions, and in some markets billions, of people making personal decisions that express their preferences. When you hear someone say that he doesn't trust the market, and wants to replace it with government edicts, he's really calling for a switch from a democratic process to a totalitarian one.
Powerful government tends to draw into it people with bloated egos, people who think they know more than everyone else and have little hesitance in coercing their fellow man. Or as Nobel Laureate Friedrich Hayek said, "in government, the scum rises to the top".
If one person has a right to something he did not earn, of necessity it requires that another person not have a right to something that he did earn.
The essence of government is force, and most often that force is used to accomplish evil ends.
A man is the sum of his misfortunes. One day you'd think misfortune would get tired but then time is your misfortune
The word liberal comes from the word free. We must cherish and honor the word free or it will cease to apply to us.
Ultimately we want to use dream to liberate ourselves from all relative conditions, not simply to improve them.
Of more worth is one honest man to society, and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.
A man's life of any worth is a continual allegory, and very few eyes can see the mystery of his life, a life like the scriptures, figurative.
There are in truth three states of the converted: the beginning, the middle, and the perfection. In the beginning they experience the charms of sweetness; in the middle the contests of temptation; and in the end the fullness of perfection.
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