Walter E. Williams, 84, Dies;

The New York Times ^ | December 4, 2020 | Robert D. Hershey Jr.

[yoe]

Walter E. Williams, a prominent conservative economist, author and political commentator who expressed profoundly skeptical views of government efforts to aid his fellow African-Americans and other minority groups, died on Tuesday on the campus of George Mason University in Virginia, where he had taught for 40 years. He was 84.

His daughter, Devon Williams, said he died suddenly in his car after he had finished teaching a class. She said he had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and hypertension.

As a public intellectual, Mr. Williams moved easily between the classroom and public forums that gave him wide reach. He wrote a syndicated column, lectured across the country and frequently appeared on the radio as a substitute host for the ardently conservative Rush Limbaugh.

[logician2u]

The NYT insists on calling everyone who would prefer a smaller federal government "conservative" whether they are or not.

Walter Williams, in a 1991 appearance on Wall Street Week with William Rukeyser,went to some lengths explaining the difference between his preference for the government's role in society and most everyone else's, including people who call themselves "conservative."

An excerpt from the transcript (unedited, and there are errors. The video is worth watching if you have the time and bandwidth):

Are you a black conservative. No I'm a radical. That is. Anybody in America you know Americans in general have utter contempt for the principles of individual liberty and any American who believes in individual liberty is indeed a radical. Most Americans believe it's a legitimate function of government to confiscate the property of one person and give it to another to whom it does not belong. But I disagree I think that government shouldn't be in those problems and then moreover the the big problems that our country face faces has to do with the immorality of government that is two thirds of the federal budget consists of those programs whereby the government stake in one person's earnings and giving it somebody else.

Some of the other tributes to Williams (that's how he would address himself in those little Aristotelian dialogs he would make up to illustrate his thought process, back when he was Rush's fill-in host a few years ago) I've seen called him a conservative-libertarian which may be closer to the truth.

But he was also radical, in a positive way.

A great man.

[KC Burke]

Sad to say goodbye to that great man “Williams” as he often said and you remind us.

[Auslander154]

Was terribly sad to hear of his passing.
He was such a great Rush substitute host with a wry sense of humor.
He was an economics professor non pareil and the ultimate man of freedom and crusader for individual responsibility.

I think he would like to be remembered by all the sentimental gifts he said he gave his wife on their anniversary:

like that toaster and vacuum cleaner and chain saw