"Recessional," by David Mamet - A Review

 Memorial Day is a favorite. One can feel patriotic without looking over one’s shoulder. My wife and I plan to attend Monday’s parade in Old Lyme for the first time since 2019. While it is a far cry from the parades I remember in Peterborough in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when dozens of veterans of both World Wars and Korea marched, it is fun to see the people, hear the music and to reminisce, when taps are played at Duck River Cemetery.

 

Sydney M. Williams

30 Bokum Road – Apartment 314

Essex, CT 06426

 

Burrowing into Books

Recessional: The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of a Free Lunch

David Mamet

May 28, 2022

 

“Our American covenant, like any covenant, is aspirational.

It is a reduction of biblical wisdom to practical political language like the Constitution.”

                                                                                                                                Recessional, 2022

                                                                                                                                David Mamet (1947-)

 

David Mamet is an American script writer and playwright who won Pulitzers for Glengarry Glen Ross (1984) and The Cryptogram (1995). He is also that rare individual – a conservative who labors in the world of letters. More surprisingly, he is a defender of Donald Trump, at least in some instances: “Trump was vilified with greater vehemence than anyone in Western memory.” He [Trump] refused “to speak in hieratic language…He speaks American.” Mamet describes himself as one who would like to conserve love of family, community, service, country and God. 

 

This is a short book – 215 pages – with 38 essays on myriad subjects. “The Fountain Pen,” leads to musings on newspapers, Damon Runyon, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison and others; “Moby Dick,” “The quest reveals the object ever receding.” In “A Message from Schpershevski,” he writes about the difference between justice and social justice, where justice is “…a dispassionate, considerate, supportable, and moralresolution of differences…” while “…social justice is the negation of that ideal. Here ‘feelings’ are insisted upon as superior to order and process.” In “Grief and Wisdom,” he writes of robber barons, both past and present: “Why would the oligarchs of Silicon Valley, the richest individuals ever on earth, want more power…Does the possession of money exempt one from human vanity, acquisitiveness, arrogance, and pride?” Elsewhere, in the same essay, he writes of the use of fear to control the electorate: “The lockdown (Covid) was the manipulation by those in power of the response to a natural phenomenon. In this it resembles the Left’s insistence on global warming; fear gives power to the governments who are, as always, the tools of the plutocrats.”

 

In an essay, “What’s in a Name,” Mr. Mamet writes of how fashions change: “Derelicts become vagrants, then the homeless. The people are the same, but the social problem has been inverted into a political solution: rename and worship them.” In “Disons le Mot,” he writes of charter schools: “Of course the Left is opposed to charter schools. They are opposed to education. Teachers are, to the Left, a protected class, which is only common sense: they are a money machine, kicking back fortunes to the party, and a purveyor of the essential service of indoctrination.” In “Some Linguistic Curiosities,” he writes of his objection to the word “homeland” in the Department of Homeland Security: “The word reeks, of… the Teutonic das Heimat”, a word that reminds him of Nazi German. He concedes, though, “It obscures no nefarious purpose; it is merely a fatuity.”

 

Mr. Mamet writes from the perspective of a man who tries to make sense of a nation knocked off its rails by the politically correct, those for whom appearance is more important than reality: “Conservatives shake their heads in sad wonder at the idiocies of liberals,” he writes in “Chelm; or, No Arrest for the Wicked,” “But we do not wish them dead, shamed into poverty, or jailed; we simply find them stupid.”

 

This is a literate and wise kaleidoscopic collection of essays, destined to be unpopular with the woke.

"Self-doubt"

 What the Durham trial has exposed is not getting the press it and the people deserve. The decision by the Clinton campaign to deliberately instigate a false story of Russian collusion by Donald Trump – no matter what one thought of him – was the dirtiest trick ever played in Presidential politics. It tells us what sort of a President Mrs. Clinton would have been. Why is this not getting more coverage? Can you imagine the headlines if roles were reversed?

 

Sydney M. Williams

30mBokum Road – Apartment 314

Essex, CT 06426

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Self-Doubt”

May 24, 2022

 

“The greater the artist, the greater the doubt.

Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.”

                                                                                                                                Robert Hughes (1938-2012)

                                                                                                                                Art critic

                                                                                                                                Time magazine, June 10, 1996

 

Self-doubt is usually considered a negative. And when it dominates one’s activities it is. In Measure for Measure, William Shakespeare has Lucio speak to Isabella: “Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we might win, by fearing to attempt.” A recent article in National Review, signed by 59 conservatives, was titled “America’s Crisis of Self-Doubt:” “Our traditional values of fair play, free speech and religious liberty are trampled by inflamed ideologies determined to impose their will by force and fear.” That is all true, but the real problem is the over-confidence of the woke who, with religious zeal, see society “as archaic, unfair, and racially biased.” As a governor of impetuous behavior, self-doubt is a positive.

 

Questioning one’s beliefs can lead to changing one’s opinions, or to strengthening one’s resolve. Self-doubt is akin to skepticism; the former is the questioning – not the dismissal – of one’s abilities, while the latter seeks proof of an allegation. Recall the story of Jesus and the Apostle Thomas, known as “Doubting Thomas.” He refused to believe in the resurrected Jesus until he could see and feel Jesus’ crucifixion wounds. As a skeptic, he wanted evidence to justify his belief. Abraham Lincoln was plagued with self-doubt regarding his ability to manage the Civil War, yet doubt caused him to work harder and to achieve a better understanding. John F. Kennedy had self-doubt as to whether he could live up to the expectations of his father and the memory of his dead brother. But he gathered inner strength, as doubts faded and confidence was restored. More recently, Elon Musk’s evolvement from a “moderate Democrat” to a “moderate Republican” was a consequence of doubting his loyalties to a party that hewed too far to the left.

 

Self-doubt, when one is weighing competing political policy options, is healthy, as it allows one to use logic, reason and common sense to overcome skepticism before reaching a conclusion. Extremists, who see no need for self-doubt, have taken over our politics, especially on the left. In an interview with the Claremont Review of Books, Norman Podhoretz was quoted regarding the struggle within our country’s culture: “One side…believes that America is a force for good in itself,” while the other side claims, “America is evil in itself…” As neither party tries to understand the other, compromise is impossible. Quoting Daniel Bell, Barton Swaim wrote recently in The Wall Street Journal: “The tendency to convert concrete issues into ideological problems, to invest them with moral color and emotional charge is to invite conflicts which can only damage a society.” A plethora of moral certitude and a lack of self-doubt is common among those on the left dubbed “virtucrats” by Joseph Epstein – a term he defined in his 2002 book Snobbery: The American Version as “any man or woman who is certain that his or her political views are not merely correct but deeply, morally righteous in the bargain.” – “Often wrong, but never in doubt,” defines the path they follow.

 

Self-doubt would have questioned the claim that on-line radicalization and racism were the sole motivations behind Payton Gendron’s decision to kill ten black people in Buffalo last week. Self-doubt would have asked: Did not mental illness also play a role? Why have politicians left the mentally ill to live on streets in cities like San Francisco, Lon Angeles, New York, St. Louis and Austin? Self-doubt would have been a good thing for members of the media who accepted without question the now debunked Trump Russian collusion story, a story created by the Clinton campaign in 2016. Self-doubt may have prevented the Biden Administration’s embarrassing creation of the Orwellian-named Disinformation Governance Board, which has now, thank God, been abandoned. Media and political leaders could learn from William Butler Yeats’ poem, “The Second Coming:” “The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity.”

 

When I was in high school, members of the debate team were assigned which side of the resolution to argue. If assigned the affirmative, the next week we might have to argue the negative. While the purpose was to hone one’s debating skills, these guidelines served to remind us that there are two sides to issues. Being able to see two sides – a trait abetted by self-doubt – plays a vital role in composing intelligent and defensible opinions and may change or reinforce one’s beliefs.

 

My purpose, in this essay, is not to suggest that fervency in one’s beliefs is wrong, but that opinions should be based on empiricism, logic and common sense. Self-doubt plays a role in better understanding the issues we face, and it is always most wanted where it is least exercised. It is the antithesis of self-doubt, the religious-like zealotry of extremists, that is the most dangerous. Mainstream media does a good job of calling out the far-right, but they ignore the self-anointed far-left who see themselves as the rightful determiners as to what to read, speak and believe. That is where danger lurks.

"Aging"

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Essays from Essex

“Aging”

May 21, 2022

 

“This is what youth must figure out:

Girls, love, and living.

The having, the not having,

The spending and giving,

And the melancholy time of not knowing.

 

This is what age must learn about:

The ABC of dying.

The going, yet not going,

The loving and leaving,

And the unbearable knowing and knowing.”

                                                                                                                                              E.B. White (1899-1985)

                                                                                                                                              “Youth and Age”

                                                                                                                                              Poems & Sketches of E.B. White, 1981

 

We are born; we grow up, and we die. In a nutshell, that is aging. In truth, however, aging is much more. Aging takes us from a time where everything is new – people, things, experiences – when joy is in the anticipation and when the future stretches toward infinity and unknowns are exciting, to a time when we recognize life is finite, when joy is found in memories and experiences, and when, with apprehension, we look toward unknowns. Where are we headed? Will those I leave behind fare well?  

 

We age differently. Some become old betimes, others age gracefully and pain free. For a few, old age is lonely, a period of quiet despair. For others, it is a time of creativity and of giving back. Plato, who lived to be about eighty, thought aging natural and therefore good. His student Aristotle, who died at sixty-two, denounced old men as miserly and loquacious. In a some ways, however, we age similarly. Bones become brittle and our skin wrinkles. Hair thins or turns white. We forget where we left the keys, or the name of the person with whom we dined yesterday. Doctors’ visits become more frequent, and our pill intake increases. Almost fifty years ago an older client told me that a man spends the first half of his life making money and the second half making water. I now understand what he was saying.

 

There is a tendency, as we get older, to favor the past over the present. Michel de Montaigne, the 16^th Century French essayist, wrote: “Every period of life has its peculiar prejudices; whoever saw old age that did not applaud the past and condemn the present times?” In truth, age gives us perspective – there is good and bad in the past and in the present.

 

Two photographs – one of Caroline and me leaving the Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York on a Saturday afternoon in April 1964; a second is of the two of us following renewal of our wedding vows in April 2014 – a 50^th anniversary celebration, performed at the insistence of our grandchildren who, oddly, missed the original event! With us in the second photo are our three children, their spouses and ten grandchildren, the latter dressed as bridesmaids and ushers. So, while the population of the U.S. increased 66% from 192 million to 318 million between 1964 and 2014, our family increased 900% from two to eighteen. Granted, there is some double counting because of in-laws. Nevertheless, I am happy to have helped give life to so many.

 

I look at my grandchildren and remember myself at their age and wonder: Would we have been friends? It seems such a short time ago, but so much has transpired in the intervening decades – in the world, in our nation, in my life. We long for simpler times. We empathize with the siren call of Elizabeth Akers Allen’s 1859 poem, “Rock Me to Sleep:”

 

“Backward turn backward, oh time in thy flight.

Make me a child again just for tonight.”

 

But there is no turning back. Nor should there be. So long as there is breath in our lungs, life in our limbs and reason in our brains, we should look ahead, enjoy what time we have, and do what we can to make life bearable for those who follow. As a friend once said: “In life, it is not the destination that counts, but the trip.” That does not mean ignoring history, for we are molded by the past, and mementos in the form of photographs, books, pictures and objects remind us of earlier years. They allow us to see life as a continuum, that we are part of a never-ending production line. Just as we were fashioned by those who came before us, we help shape those who come later. Life is not static; it is in constant flux. Man is a creative animal, so as standards of living change so do the standards by which we live; though the moral code embedded in the Ten Commandments is eternal. While we become more judgmental as we get older, that reflects our recognition that evil exists and is in competition with good; age helps us distinguish between the two

 

 

For me, old age has provided the opportunity to relax, to spend time with family and friends, to read and to write of issues that confront our times. I realize, as one does when old age creeps up, how short is our time, and that we owe it to ourselves to make the most of the time we have. I am thankful to be alive at this moment and to be able to record my opinions and reactions. I have been blessed in the family in which I was born and raised, in my wife, my children, my grandchildren and in my friends. 

 

As for age, I say bring it on!

"Who is Behind the Curtain?"

                                                                     Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Who is Behind the Curtain?”

May 12, 2022

 

“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”

                                                                                                                                The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 1900

                                                                                                                                L. Frank Baum (1856-1919

 

Apart from the final seventeen months of the Woodrow Wilson Administration, when the President suffered a stroke, we have never had a President appear unable to carry out his responsibilities – until now. To be honest, that assessment of Mr. Biden, while I believe it to be true, is based on observation rather than empirical evidence. In the case of President Wilson, the cover-up of his infirmities was due to his doctor, Cary Grayson and his second wife, Edith Bolling Galt Wilson. Dr. Grayson did brief Wilson’s cabinet and the question of succession arose, but the doctor refused to sign any official notice of inability, so Vice President Thomas Marshall remains a footnote, and the Presidency was allegedly managed by Mrs. Wilson.

 

At 78, Mr. Biden became the oldest person to be inaugurated President, eight years older than Donald Trump and nine years older than Ronald Reagan. In both cases, political opponents called into question their mental acuity; so, it is unsurprising that concerns for Mr. Biden have been raised. Four years and ten months after leaving office, Mr. Reagan sent a letter to the American people telling them he was afflicted with Alzheimer’s. In the summer of 2018, eighteen months after taking office, Mr. Trump took (and passed) the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) test. Thus far, Mr. Biden has refused to take a similar test.

 

Since Mr. Biden has not taken a cognitive test, comments that he has early signs of dementia are speculation. Nevertheless, concerns abound and not just among Republicans. A Politico Morning Consult poll in January 2022 found that 48% of those polled do not believe he is mentally fit. An ABC/The Washington Post poll, taken at the same time, indicated that Mr. Biden lacks the “mental sharpness” to be President. A Harvard Youth Poll showed a job approval rate of 41%, despite 57% of the correspondents having voted for him. Anecdotally, anyone who has watched his news conferences has noted his shuffling gait, his fumbling answers and his slurring of words. 

 

Again, none of this is proof of dementia, but enough questions have been raised that the White House should respond. After all, the U.S. Presidency is the most powerful position in the world, and if someone else (or some cabal) is making decisions in his name the people should know who that is.

 

My candidate for puppeteer is former President Barack Obama. In Columbia, Missouri on October 30, 2008, Mr. Obama boldly declared: “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” While he later backed away from that assertion, that is what he said. The National Catholic Register, at the time, referred to the statement as “revolutionary” and “audacious.” 

 

As the son of a white mother and a black father, Mr. Obama had the unique opportunity to bridge the racial divide in the U.S. Instead, racism worsened, and political polarization intensified during his eight years. Perhaps we should not have been surprised. From an early age, Mr. Obama had had mentors who were anti-West and anti-American: Frank Marshall Davis in Hawaii, an anti-white and anti-American former member of the Communist Party; Professor Edward Said of Columbia, a spokesperson for Palestinian terrorists; Professor Derrick Bell of Harvard Law School, an early advocator of Critical Race Theory; Reverend Jeremiah Wright whose church, Trinity United Church of Christ, Mr. Obama attended for twenty years; and Bill Ayers, a domestic terrorist in whose Chicago home Mr. Obama held fundraisers.

 

Some might argue that criticism of Mr. Obama is based solely on racial prejudice. While that certainly is true of some, most of the criticism was (and is) directed at his policies, not at the person. Extremism exists in both parties but has been more prominent on the left. It was in 2013 that #Black Live Matter was formed, in response to the Trayvon Martin murder, and Antifa rose to prominence during the Obama years. Instead of following the example set by Martin Luther King of encouraging character development, Mr. Obama pursued identity politics. In doing so, his statements stood in contrast to those of black economist and scholar, Thomas Sowell: “If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today.”

 

The 2016 election was a surprise. Many people, but particularly Democrats, expected Hillary Clinton would win and further the progressive goals established by Mr. Obama. That was not to be. Four years later they had their chance. Covid derailed the Trump economy, which had lifted economic growth and allowed minority incomes to achieve record levels. The choice of Joe Biden as Democrat nominee was fortuitous for Mr. Obama. Mr. Biden was familiar with his agenda and was portrayed during the campaign as a moderate. However, Newsweek, on December 22, 2020, headlined an article: “Nearly 60% of Biden’s Cabinet Appointments So Far Are Obama Officials.” They include Janet Yellen, John Kerry, Susan Rice, Lloyd Austin, Alejandro Mayorkas, Denis McDonough, Avril Haines and Linda Thomas-Greenfield, among others.

 

What Democrats did not expect was the rapid decline in the Administration’s popularity – with job approval for Mr. Biden in the low 40s and the even lower ones for Vice President Kamala Harris. But how could they have been so blind? Did they not expect a surge of illegal immigrants when they loosened rules at the border? Why did they not anticipate inflation when they kept interest rates low, increased money supply, expanded government spending and tightened regulations regarding fossil fuels? Did they not realize that their calls to defund the police would result in a surge in crime? Did they not consider the consequences of a too-hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan? Did they expect parents to docilely accept the teachings of “woke” ideologies in public schools? With a military more focused on social justice, why were they so surprised at our relative unpreparedness for conflicts with Russia and China?

 

Democrats must realize that the odds favor them losing majorities in the Senate and possibly in the House in the midterms. Prospects for 2024 don’t look great either, putting their progressive agenda further at risk. Mr. Biden will be 82 in January 2025, and his cognitive infirmities will have worsened. Ms. Harris comes across as a cackling incompetent; thus, with her low polling numbers, she seems an unlikely candidate for President in 2024. It is fear that they may lose their soap box that explains the recent creation of the dystopian Disinformation Governance Board, a proposal called for by Mr. Obama that would effectively shut down free speech.

 

The risk of losing our democratic republic has always been there. Freedom is difficult to attain, but easy to lose. Elected officials and unelected bureaucrats must be held accountable. That cannot be if the people don’t know who is in charge. We’re not in Kansas anymore; we should know who is behind the curtain.

"One Damn Thing After Another," William P. Barr - A Review

                                                                  Sydney M. Williams

 

Burrowing into Books

“One Damn Thing After Another,” William P. Barr

May 7, 2022

 

“Getting him to accept good advice was like wrestling

an alligator. Whatever you did, it was never enough – 

his attitude was ‘What have you done for me lately?’”

                                                                                                                          One Damn Thing After Another, 2022

                                                                                                                           On dealing with President Trump

                                                                                                                           William P. Barr (1950-)

 

The French mathematician and physicist Blaise Pascal once wrote: “I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.” That quote came to mind while reading Mr. Barr’s memoirs. It’s not because Mr. Barr bores the reader with long sentences and wordy paragraphs. His writing is straight forward, and his life has been fascinating, having served twice as Attorney General for two quite different Presidents, George H.W. Bush and Donald Trump. But one has the sense the book was rushed.

 

The book is 565 pages, with 400 of those pages devoted to the Trump years. Mr. Barr’s personal story is compelling. A Columbia graduate, he received his law degree from George Washington University in 1977, after taking night classes. Fourteen years later, at age 41, he was confirmed as President Bush’s Attorney General in. Nevertheless, I found the book somewhat light on who and what molded him as a young man; though he does tell us his paternal grandparents were Ashkenazi Jews from Ukraine and that he learned to play the bagpipes in his youth. He devotes most of his time to the two years he was Mr. Trump’s Attorney General, including the ups and downs of his relationship with the President, where I found his reflections dispassionate and truthful, as he praises and condemns Mr. Trump with equal measure.

 

Mr. Barr is a keen observer of the political scene and a conservative in the classic sense. He praises religion for its benign influence in our lives, but he also speaks to the importance of separation of church and state: “It is not the role of government to shape man in its own image. The government has the far more modest purpose of preserving the proper balance of personal freedom and order necessary for a healthy civil society to develop and individual humans to flourish.” In another chapter on tech companies and monopolies, he writes with relevance to today: “What the tech companies control, however, is the marketplace of ideas. They are privatizing the village green – the place where people receive and disseminate information…”

 

He concludes his story by writing of his vision for America:  a “nation founded on ideals…and establishing a distinct ‘People’ in a ‘Union’ with a government, borders and foundational law.” “We need leaders,” he adds, “not only capable of fighting and ‘punching,’ but also persuading and attracting – leaders who can frame, and advocate for, an uplifting vision of what it means to share in American citizenship.”

 

Like most memoirs, this is self-promotional. He tells his side of the story before more critical biographers emerge. That, however, is a caveat with which I can live. But I think his chapters on Russiagate, urban violence, borders, tech companies, religion and capital punishment would have been better presented in a separate book of essays, for their content is invaluable for anyone interested in the major issues of the last two years of the Trump Presidency. And I believe a shorter book, concentrating on his formative years and culminating with his interactions with Mr. Trump, would reach a broader audience who would benefit from his fair and balanced perspective of our controversial 45^th President.

"Hypocrisy on the Left"

  

Sydney M. Williams

swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Hypocrisy of the Left”

May 3, 2022

 

“Hypocrites are those who apply to others the

standards that they refuse to accept for themselves.”

                                                                                             Noam Chomsky (1928-)

                                                                                             Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda, 1991

 

“The best defense is a good offense,” is an adage that has been used by many, from George Washington to Mao Zedong. It has been adopted by the Democrat Party. Elon Musk’s bid for Twitter has Democrats atwitter. Columnist Leonard Pitt wrote that the purchase “will turn one of the world’s leading social-media platforms into an even greater transmitter of disinformation and hate…” Keep in mind, Mr. Pitt’s definition of disinformation includes only that uttered by conservatives.

 

Barack Obama, speaking at a conference organized by The Atlantic called “Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy,” opined: “It’s very difficult to get out of the reality that is constructed for us.” Constructed by whom, one might ask? As the New York Sun editorialized, Obama’s words were an “apt description of what Mr. Obama and the Democrat Press have built. Forget the metaverse. This is an alternative reality.” Speaking at Stanford University, a few days later Mr. Obama added that social media censors don’t go far enough, suggesting the government must step in. Six days later, the Biden Administration announced the establishment of a Disinformation Governance Board (DGB), an Orwellian-like “Ministry of Truth.” Coincidence? The DGB’s mission is to separate fact from fiction for the American people. Its real purpose, I feel certain, is to censor information that does not accord with the Administration’s narrative. The Board will be chaired by Nina Jankowicz who will report to Alejandro Mayorkas, U.S. Secretary for Homeland Security. Ms. Jankowicz seems an odd choice, as she disbelieved the truth of Hunter Biden’s laptop, claiming it was Trump “disinformation.” On the other hand, she did believe Christopher Steele, the discredited purveyor of disinformation about the fake Russian collusion story.

 

Examples of the Left going on the offense abound. The Washington Post claimed that Ketanji Brown Jackson was treated worse in her hearings than was Brett Kavanaugh four years earlier. Really? Was Ms. Jackson queried on her behavior as an 18-year-old? As National Review commented: “This is pure revisionism.” `The information on Hunter Biden’s laptop (the “laptop from hell,” as Nina Jankowicz described it) was reported by the New York Post in October 2020 but was disallowed on Twitter and dismissed as Russian disinformation by mainstream and social media. Following the election, the laptop and its contents were confirmed as legitimate by The New York Times and the Washington Post. No longer able to dismiss its existence, progressives now consider Hunter’s laptop as an “irrelevant distraction.”

 

For years, progressives have indoctrinated public school grade students in critical race theory, gender dysphoria and victimization. They have censured conservative speech on college campuses and banned books in schools that are “hateful,” in their depictions and descriptions of race, gender and sexual orientation, including such classics as Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird. These actions are justified as being in the interest of “the common good.” However, when Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis took steps to ban math textbooks that include references to critical race theory or “social emotional learning,” President Biden, indignantly (and disingenuously), said that Governor DeSantis was banning math textbooks in a bid to keep students ignorant.

 

“Do as I say, not as I do” is a proverb whose roots trace to our Puritan forefathers. It has become an admonitory order from the hypocritical Democrat Party. It was the message of Al Gore and John Kerry uttered regarding anthropomorphic-caused climate change, as they scooted about the world in their private planes. It was the mandates of blue-state governors during the COVID pandemic, as they ignored their own rules. It is what wealthy, white suburbanites do when they call to defund the police, while they hire extra security for their gated communities, and what the same people do when they demand open borders but remain isolated from any infusion of unvaccinated illegal immigrants. 

 

As a conservative, I believe in our natural rights, the freedom to speak and pray; I believe in the governing principles of property rights, rule of law and limited government, I believe in “we the people,” and I believe in personal responsibility, civility, mutual respect, tolerance and honor – that success is predicated on aspiration, merit and hard work. These, along with free-market capitalism, represent the foundation on which our nation was built, and which has allowed it to thrive. 

 

Today, that foundation is showing cracks. An ever-expanding central government – cheered on by their lackeys in media, universities, schools, the entertainment world and social media – has tentacles that reach deep into our personal lives, diminishing our role as individuals. It is those who issue mandates and who empower bureaucracies who claim the threat to democracy stems from those who wish to diminish government’s influence. As a conservative, I am alarmed at attempts to remove us and our ideas from the public square. 

 

As Florida Governor Ron DeSantis rises in the polls, an NBC opinion column by Dennis Aftergut argues that the governor is a “clearer danger than Trump,” and, seemingly unaware of the hypocrisy of his words, he writes, with the sanctimonious arrogance peculiar to the Left, that his (DeSantis’) decision to protect young children from being taught about gender and sexuality represents “Nazi-like thought control.” Republican campaign messaging is labeled “disinformation” and filled with “false narratives,” all of which justifies the decision to create the DGB, a “department of propaganda,” as former Democrat Representative Tulsi Gabbard described it. It is a bureaucracy that should frighten all freedom loving people. Do the initials remind you of something?

 

In terms of political ideologies, most people cluster toward the center; yet extremism persists, and progressives, with their media allies, have a big bullhorn. The fear is that extremists’ numbers and influence are growing, especially among establishment elitists on the left. The fact that Democrats have created this new Orwellian-like department and have accused Republicans of behavior that they themselves have committed is a manifestation of their hypocrisy. It should be a wake-up call. Our democracy depends on it.