Negative, Not Positive

"Why should I trade one tyrant three thousand miles away for 3,000 tyrants one mile away? An elected legislature can trample a man's rights as easily as a king can."
--Benjamin Martin (The Patriot)

The quote below comes from a large thought stream of that Prof Williams has dedicated to the subject of democracy and liberty. These pages have reflected on these thoughts from time to time.

"Democracy and liberty are not the same. Democracy is little more than mob rule, while liberty refers to the sovereignty of the individual.”
―Walter E. Williams (@WE_Williams)

— Larry Elder (@larryelder) October 27, 2019

His central proposition is that associating liberty with democracy, or claiming democratic processes as essential to free society, is sloppy thinking. As our founding ancestors well understood, democracy is more accurately associated with tyranny than with liberty.

A good case can be made that it has been statists who have tried to condition Americans to believe that democracy is rightly associated with freedom and liberty.

Don't fall for it. In the long run the relationship between democracy and liberty is negative, not positive.