"What Do I Want in a President?"

 In 1952, I remember being told that a President should be like us – only a step above. Perhaps it was my innocence (and while my parents were Republicans), but both Governor Adlai Stevenson and General Dwight Eisenhower seemed to satisfy that suggestion. The world seems quite different today. 

 

 

Sydney M. Williams

https://swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“What Do I want in a President?”

July 27, 2023

 

“It is fun running for president if you know you cannot win.”

                                                                                                                Attributed to Governor John H. Sununu

                                                                                                                As quoted by Senator Mitt Romney

                                                                                                                The Wall Street Journal

                                                                                                                July 25, 2023

 

New Hampshire’s former Governor John Sununu had a quality lacking in most candidates today – a sense of humor. It is not that today’s candidates do not enjoy a laugh, but none appear to have the self-deprecating humor of President Reagan, a man whose temperament endeared him to the public. Consider: “I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of emergency – even if I’m in a cabinet meeting.” Heading toward 2024 and another Presidential election, humor is high on my list of desired qualifications. 

 

This essay was suggested by a good friend. It may be something you, too, might want to try – and then see how various candidates (if any) conform to your standards. As I begin to write, I recognize the relevancy of that aphorism that the perfect is the enemy of the good. One can cite qualities and abilities preferred, while recognizing one will have to settle for someone with less than a perfect score.

 

A few of the qualities I deem important:

 

            Character Traits                                               Abilities                                   Knowledge

 

                        Integrity                                 Common sense                                        

                        Humor                                   Willingness to delegate                       Economics

                        Empathy                                Understand feasibility                         Geo-politics

   Diligence                               Good speaker & listener

                        Consideration  

                        

                        

As well, the good candidate should have a love for the U.S. and have had experience outside of politics, preferably in business or the military. They should be able to keep cool when tempers flare, and they should show no favoritism. While George H.W. Bush said he didn’t do “the vision thing,” a President should have a view of the future that he or she can articulate. As for race or gender, those make no difference.

 

The 2024 Presidential race is shaping up to be difficult for those who care about the Republic: Two men out in front; one an egomaniac whose sole purpose seems to be exacting revenge; the other a corrupt politician whose sense of values can be seen in his refusal to meet his granddaughter. The No Labels Party, therefore, with founding political leaders like Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT), Governor Larry Hogan (R-MD), Governor Pat McCrory (R-NC), appears (at first glance) a commonsensical alternative. However, third party candidates in the U.S. do not have a good history, apart from being spoilers. Since 1832, when the Anti-Masonic Party nominated Attorney General William Wirt, only twelve third party candidates have received any electoral votes, and none has been successful. Among the best known are Theodore Roosevelt, of the Bull Moose Party, in 2012; George Wallace of the Reform Party in 1968; and John Anderson (1980) and Ross Perot (1992) of the Independent Party. With the exception of Roosevelt, they will be relegated to footnotes in presidential histories.

 

But could one be successful in 2024? I don’t know. It would be difficult but not impossible. Abraham Lincoln was the first individual to win the Presidency as a Republican, a Party that had been founded six years earlier by forces opposed to the expansion of slavery. In 1860, in a four-way race, he won 40% of the popular vote but 60% of the Electoral College vote. Not surprisingly, four years later he won 55% of the popular vote and almost 90% of the Electoral College vote. Since, the two Parties have dominated presidential politics. 

 

Perhaps today’s two front runners will falter, stumble, or fade away. Perhaps people along both political divides will have more choices than now seems probable. Primaries do not start for seven months; thus, while it is an optimist’s dream, there may be time for other Republican candidates to surge in the polls and for different Democrat candidates to emerge. I pray that will be the case. At any rate, it is worth pondering what traits one prefers in a candidate before the lever is pulled. And don’t fall for the early voting trap – a procedural change designed to book early as many votes as possible; despite exhortations to the contrary, early voting benefits politicians more than voters. The latter should wait as long as possible to send in their absentee ballots, or, better yet, wait until election day to cast their votes.

 

We live in an age when most every word spoken and every action taken are recorded, and today’s communication technology means that blemishes are given as much publicity as virtues. For the voter, separating what is true from what is not has become Herculean. Nevertheless, judgements must be made. As for my criteria, they may seem an impossible dream – and perhaps they are. One would be excused for thinking me a combination of Dr. Pangloss and Walter Mitty, whistling “Over the Rainbow” in La La Land. Yet we must have standards, if only for our sanity. As political speak grows louder we should not be swayed by glad handshakes, fake smiles and promises from insincere politicians. We should look deeper. The Presidency of the United States is the most powerful job on Earth. He or she should be beyond reproach – at least as much as possible. Judgements of the candidates should not be arrived at lightly.

 

G.K. Chesterton, in All Things Considered, wrote: “It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.” Likewise, it is a test of a good political system whether one can poke fun at those who represent us, while honoring their offices. As the 2024 election nears, let us not lean on an ideologically driven media and/or a tech universe. Instead, let us, in good spirits, seek out and support those whose views of government are in accord with ours, but who also have the character to serve as President of all the people. 

"Review: 'The Beach at Summerly,' Beatriz Williams"

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Burrowing into Books

The Beach at Summerly, Beatriz Williams

July 24, 2023

 

Full Disclosure: Beatriz Williams is my daughter-in-law.

 

“One day You’ll thank me for all I’ve done.

One day you’ll realize just how much you owe me…”

                                                                                                                Olive speaking to Emilia, May 1954

 

Beatriz, a New York Times best-selling novelist, has just completed her 15^th novel. As well, she has co-written four other novels with two friends and fellow novelists: Lauren Willig and Karen White.

 

In this, like Our Woman in Moscow, Beatriz uses the Cold War as background, alternating between 1946 and 1954. It is, in part, a love story, especially the love between Emilia Winthrop, the daughter of Summerly’s caretaker and Shep Peabody, son of the estate’s owner. Despite her father working for his father, they have been close friends since childhood summers spent on Winthrop Island. Separated by war for four years, they are in their early 20s when the story opens in 1946. Then separated for eight years, they find each other again, in May 1954. 

 

But it is also a story of espionage, of Soviet spies who have infiltrated the United States. Among them are Olive Rainsford, Mr. Peabody’s sister-in-law, who, after several years of living in Europe has come back to Winthrop Island with her three young children, to live in Summerley’s guest cottage. Emilia gets a job looking after Olive’s children in the evening, while their mother is in her attic “translating” books. Sumner Fox – who played an FBI agent in Our Woman in Moscow and now works for the CIA – appears disguised as a writer interested in colonial history. His agency is suspicious of Olive; he reminds Emilia of the Communist menace: “The Soviets play the game like a chess match, you see. Several moves ahead.”

 

And it is a story about betrayal, loyalty, and redemption, seen through the relationship between Olive and Emilia, different people with different principles. Olive betrayed her country. When confronted about transmitting classified information, she tells Emilia: “I would rather betray my country than my principles. It takes guts to betray your country. To betray your principles is a moral failing.”  As the government’s main witness, Emilia betrayed her friendship with Olive. Emilia’s loyalties are to her family and to Shep. Olive’s loyalties are to her belief in Communism, and the better world she believes it offers. Redemption comes later. 

 

As in many of her books, historical figures have bit roles: An appearance is made by Allen Dulles, and there are references to Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth and to Patricia Highsmith, whose 1950 novel Strangers on a Train had been made into a successful movie by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951. There is much more in this novel – the sense of grief-stricken sadness and euphoric relief in 1946 – the devastation of the Depression and the mourning for those lost in the War, but then the relief felt by survivors, and of how the years had matured and changed those who went off to fight as well as those who stayed home.

 

As in all her books, Beatriz provides characters we will long remember and whom we hope to meet again in future stories.

"Censorship"

 

As for this essay, its importance cannot be overstated. Without the preservation of our past – both good and bad – and without the free-flowing of ideas we will cease to be that “city on the hill.” 

 

 

Sydney M. Williams

https://swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Censorship”

July 21, 2023

 

“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has

only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it

becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.”

                                                                Harry S, Truman (1884-1972)

                                                                Special Message to Congress on the Internal Security of the United States

                                                                August 8, 1950

 

When President Truman spoke to Congress in August 1950, the United States was in the early stages of what became known as the Red Scare. A year earlier (August 29, 1949), the Soviets had tested their first atomic bomb. On February 2, 1950 Klaus Fuchs, a German physicist working at Los Alamos, was arrested for passing atomic secrets to the Soviets. Speaking in Wheeling, West Virginia, later that month, Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) accused some in the U.S. government of harboring Communist-sympathizers.. 

 

Do political leaders in Washington today have that same courage as did President Truman, and in his belief in the rights of citizens to offer opposing opinions? Do school boards and do teachers’ unions? Do colleges and universities? Does the media? Does Disney? Do large banks and big tech? The shutting down of opinions that are at odds with conventional thinking, whether about climate, the origins of COVID, affirmative action, the biology of the sexes, the rights of school parents – they all suggest the answer is no.

 

Much of this objection to free speech is happening in schools and universities. In February of this year, FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Expression) found university faculty support for “investigating faculty for controversial expression and applying social and professional pressure to get professors to take mandatory training they oppose.” The consequence is a “chilling effect which disproportionately strikes political minorities: principally, but not exclusively, faculty with more moderate or conservative viewpoints.”  Leftists were censured in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s; today it is the Right. 

 

Polls suggest this is a concern for the majority of Americans and has been for several years. Six years ago the Cato Institute, in a poll of 2,300 U. S. adults, found “that 71% of Americans believe that political correctness has silenced important discussions our society needs to have…58% of Americans believe the political climate prevents them from sharing their own political beliefs.” The poll showed that Republicans and Independents were particularly affected. Five years later, on March 18, 2022, the editorial board of The New York Times wrote of similar concerns: “For all the tolerance and enlightenment that modern society claims, Americans are losing hold of a fundamental right as citizens of a free country: the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned.” They went on to note that surveys from the Pew Research Center and Knight Foundation revealed a crisis of confidence in one of America’s most basic values – freedom of speech and expression.

 

Free speech has become politicized, with both sides blaming the other. The Left accuses the Right of hate speech and banning books, while the Right blames the Left for removing hateful language from books and the cancellation of ideas. In most cases, the Right does not want to ban books, but to move them to more age-appropriate areas, while accusations of hate speech are vague, as they can include anything at odds with conventional thought. Symptomatic of this debate is a local public library, which in a small town also serves as the schools’ library. A controversy arose over the inclusion of two books in the “Tween/Teen room:” You Know, Sex: Bodies, Gender, Puberty, and Other Things by Cory Silverberg and Fiona Smyth and Let’s Talk About It: The Teen’s Guide to Sex, Relationships, and Being a Human by Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan. The books, which speak to masturbation, anal sex, and other such pleasures, may not meet Justice Potter Stewart’s definition of pornography, but neither do they meet traditional standards of good taste. However, as I do not believe in censorship, the library was right to make the books available. I only hope that parents, teachers, and the library staff promote, as well, such classics as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, and many others by authors whose stories are not only well written but through which readers can witness how we, as a people, have evolved over the years to meet new social standards. Even so, at least two of those books have either been banned or had their language altered by Leftists, thereby masking how values have changed over the decades.

 

Freedom of speech is fundamental to who we are, which includes the right to protest what we do not like. But it does not give universities the right to cancel what they term “hate speech.” It does not give public schools the right to ignore parents. It does not give big tech the right to censor what conservatives write or say. It does not mean one has the right to use violence or intimidation. It means listening, respectfully, to those with whom we disagree. Diversity is also a matter of ideas, philosophies, and values.

 

Censorship has no place in the U.S. The Constitution’s First Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” These words have stood the test of time; they have been a magnet for millions of immigrants, and they should not be forgotten by those fortunate to be born here. President Truman understood them. But do today’s political leaders? Do today’s cultural, media, and educational leaders?

Review - "George: A Magpie Memoir," Frieda Hughes

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Burrowing into Books

George: A Magpie Memoir, Frieda Hughes

July 19, 2023

 

“I had finally found a house I could grow into, develop,

reorganize, paint and write in, garden for and fill with PETS.”

                                                                                                                                Frieda Hughes (1960-)

                                                                                                                                George: A Magpie Memoir, 2023

 

Frieda Hughes, writer, poet, and artist is the only surviving child of American poet Sylvia Plath and British Poet Laurette Ted Hughes. This book is more than a simple memoir of a delightful, intelligent, and spirited magpie (a symbol of good luck); it is told with empathy, humor, and love. And it is about motherhood – that the most important job for a mother (and a father) is to teach offspring to survive on their own – the heart-breaking releasing of one loved and nurtured since infancy, no matter if a baby or a chick.

 

After Hughes’ mother’s death, her father had difficulty settling down. At age thirteen, she wrote, “I had, by my count, been to twelve schools.” Animals and birds, along with plants, became a passion: “I identified with them. I felt I could trust them the way I did not feel I could trust human beings.” 

 

In 2004, Frieda Hughes returned to Britain from Australia, with her husband, identified only as “the Ex.” Childless, they moved to Wales and settled into a “very large, semi-detached ‘fixer-upper.’” Her diary begins three years later, while still working on the house and gardens. A storm had destroyed a nest being built by a pair of magpies, vermin, as they were called by farmers and friends. But one egg survived and hatched. “There is nothing’” she wrote, “so effective in taking one’s mind off the practical concerns of our lives as a living creature that needs immediate care without which it will die…” Her diary begins Saturday, 19 May 2007: “I hoped he would be alive in the morning.” He was and so George entered her life.

 

The magpie gained weight, and with natural curiosity he kept the author amused. After taking a bath in the dogs’ water bowl, “…he clambered out and realized he couldn’t fly, so now he couldn’t escape the dogs. He ran around the floor with his wings sticking out like wet, dripping sticks, with Widget and Snickers after him…their little tongues were hanging out and they lapped at him as they slid over the wet, slippery floorboards behind him.” As George grew and learned to fly he could become destructive, but, as Hughes writes, he made her laugh daily: “George landed on the large, round, varnished kitchen table, skidded off the opposite edge feet first, wings flapping for balance like the flailing arms of a novice skater…”

 

She knew that George one day would return to the wild, and that she had to let him go. Diary entry for Saturday, October 20: “George didn’t come back that night, or the night after, or the night after that…I had truly fallen in love with my little magpie.” Her job was done. George was on his own. But she was not.

 

Other avians needing care came her way – infant crows named Oscar and Oscar 2; one infant duck named Demelza and two others, Samson and Delilah; Arthur, a Bengal eagle owl, and others. They all became, she wrote, “a source of joy and equilibrium…[and] all because of a magpie called George.” The author’s pencil sketches illustrate this short, fun story – a pleasant summer read.

"Select Colleges: Supply/Demand Imbalances & Other Thoughts"

 

Sydney M. Williams

30 Bokum Road – Apartment 314

Essex, CT 06426

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Select Colleges: Supply/Demand Imbalances & Other Thoughts”

July 14, 2023

 

“When supply can’t keep up with demand, the result is bidding wars. And in

bidding wars, there are always winners and there are losers. There are no beneficial

outcomes. So from an economic perspective, this is extremely wasteful.”

                                                                                                                Hendrith Vanlon Smith, Jr. (1989-)

                                                                                                                CEO, Mayflower-Plymouth Capital, LLC.

                                                                                                                Business Essentials, 2022

 

An unsurprising consequence of the recent Supreme Court decision to expunge race-based affirmative action for college admission was the resolve to sue select colleges for an unfair bias toward legacy students, children of wealthy donors, and, as former Harvard President Larry Summers intoned, those colleges that have a preference “for those who excel in ‘aristocrat sports.’”[1] He added, admissions officers should “resist being impressed by those who have benefitted from high-priced coaching through the admissions process.” 

 

While the suits may have some merit, admitting students on the basis of name and legacy peaked in the 1950s, though money still talks. From my perspective, selection should be based on merit, but universities need support from all stakeholders: alumni, donors, faculty, and students. Those needs are matched against the demands of government, which is a major source of funding. As an aside, it is a curious fact that economic underclasses are rarely considered. Writing in The New York Times last week, David Leonhardt wrote: “The skew is so extreme at some colleges that more undergraduates come from the top one percent of income distribution than the entire bottom 60 percent.” Nevertheless, in the quest for a perfect solution, universities must keep in mind the aphorism that the perfect is often the enemy of the good.

 

Laws of economics play a role: What happens when supply fails to keep pace with demand? College, over the past sixty years, has been a growth industry. The number of high school graduates has roughly doubled during that time to 3.9 million, while the percentage of each graduating high school class going to college has increased from 7.7% to 37.5%. Despite that ten-fold increase in demand for a university education, select colleges have not increased student bodies commensurate with increased demand. For example, consider the Ivy League, where demand has been augmented by women who now comprise more than 50% of student bodies and by foreign students who today represent about 11% of their student bodies, yet their total student bodies have increased only about 50% from 1960.

 

The result is a squeeze on supply, especially at elite colleges. Higher demand plus limited supply result in higher prices. In 1960, for example, Harvard received about 5,000 applications for approximately 1,200 spots. Last year, 57,000 applicants applied for about 2,000 seats. A small number of elite colleges have maintained an “aura of exclusivity,” as Allysia Finley put it in last Monday’s The Wall Street Journal, by limiting the supply of seats. Fortunately, others have taken up the slack, but costs are high. Tuition at Harvard rose from $1,520 in 1960 to $52,659 in 2022 (tuition excludes room and board), an increase of 33.6 times, while average household income increased 11.7 times over those same years. Those sixty years roughly coincide with the start of federally funded student loans, a program begun in 1958 and one favored by colleges, as it assures a steady stream of incoming students, with cost being less of a concern to the university. Coincidence or consequence?

 

Most universities are recipients of billions of tax-payer dollars in research grants, a major source of funding. In 2020, the federal government paid out $44.2 billion to colleges and universities. This money comes with strings attached; so, colleges adhere to Washington’s dictates. Harvard, for example, with an endowment of $53 billion, in 2019 received $800 million in research funding, with 70% coming from the federal government – moneys paid by you and me. In fiscal 2022, according to U.S. News & World Report, Harvard had an operating budget of $5.4 billion, with over 10% coming from the federal government. The $5.4 billion amounts to $245,000 for each of its 22,000 students, including graduate students. If that seems like a big number to you, it does to me as well. If 5000 of those Harvard students each carry $50,000 in student loans, that means taxpayers are on the hook for $250 million for Harvard students alone, with the university having no liability. With an endowment of $53 billion, should not Harvard bear some of that risk?

 

What is true for Harvard, is true for other universities. According to insidehighered.com, there were, at the end of 2022, 132 universities in the U.S. with endowments over a billion dollars. Should not they have some skin in the game? Should not they assume some of the risk associated with student loans? Would not they be more concerned with keeping costs lower, and would not they be more cognizant of offering an education that prepares students for the real world? Why should that risk be borne by taxpayers, many of whom never went to college, or who derive no benefit from those that did? It is the university that has responsibility to forge graduates with the means of making a living and repaying loans, not the telephone linesman in Tennessee or the nurse practitioner in Idaho. If individual universities decided to waive student debt that would be their prerogative. The liability would not fall on taxpayers.

 

While we think of elite colleges as representing the best and the brightest, as the epitome of intellectual thought, as places where great issues are debated, too often they have become forums to promote favored ideologies. Too many, in their desire for racial and gender diversification are blind and deaf to contrarian opinions and class diversification. “The evaluation process at elite colleges,” wrote Professor Jeffrey Selingo of Arizona State University in last weekend’s The Wall Street Journal, “was never fair. It wasn’t fair before the Supreme Court’s 1978 decision in Bakke, which said that colleges could consider an applicant’s race as a factor in admissions, or after the 2003 decision, which again upheld the limited use of race to achieve the education benefits of diversity. Nor will it be fair now.”

 

Some relief may be coming. The percentage of the population between the ages of 0 and 19 has been falling. According to the U.S. Census Bureau that group comprised 26.9% of the population in 2010 and 24.8% of the population in 2021. Such demographic shifts, along with an increase in demand for community colleges, vocational schools, and apprenticeships, may cause demand for four-year colleges to abate. 

 

But if private universities would free themselves from the yoke of exclusivity, assume student financial risk, operate more efficiently, and rid themselves of the mantle of federal oversight by forgoing government funding, they could expand their universities to meet demand, lower costs, and be at liberty to determine their own optimum mix of students, and ensure they remain at the forefront of global universities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] Regarding athletics at elite colleges, CNN’s John Macintosh, using information from the Department of Education, reported that in 2021 Harvard had 37 varsity teams, with 1,191 athletes (17% of the student body). In contrast, the University of Michigan, with 32,695 undergraduates, had 27 varsity teams, with 866 student athletes, or 3 percent.

"Fourth of July - A Family Tradition"

 Our Country is young, but it is one of the oldest democracies on Earth, something for which we should all be proud. Its independence from Britain 247 years ago is what we celebrate today – a long tome ago, but time shrinks when we consider generations.

 

Not to go too deep into the weeds of genealogy, but my great-great grandfather’s maternal grandfather fought at Lexington on April 19, 1775. He would be one of my 32 four-greats grandfathers. So whatever genes of his that course through my veins are pretty diluted. But what makes this man who was at Lexington on that fateful day seem closer is that my great-great grandfather (of whom I write below) knew his widow, his maternal grandmother, who died in 1830 when he was twenty. (Her husband died in 1784). And my paternal grandmother, who I knew well, knew her grandfather, as she was twenty-five when he died in 1901. With that in mind, the years seem to melt away.

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

More Essays from Essex

“Fourth of July – A Family Tradition”

July 4, 2023

 

“Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.”

                                                                                                                Attributed to Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)

                                                                                                                Austrian Composer and Conductor

 

In his book Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy, the American author and journalist Matthew Scully wrote: “Sometimes tradition and habit are just that, comfortable excuses to leave things be, even when they are unjust and unworthy.” Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder and Executive Chairman of Amazon, once noted: “The death knell for any enterprise is to glorify the past – no matter how good it was.” 

 

However, the Encyclopedia Britannica defines tradition as doing something that has been done by a group, including a family, for a long time. It is in that sense that I write of a family Fourth-of-July tradition that is in its 134^th year. Living in Massachusetts, my great-great grandfather made this entry in his diary for July 4, 1889: “Children and grandchildren played baseball.” Among those present, was my paternal grandmother who had been born in 1875. For the next eleven years (he died in 1901 at age 91), each Fourth of July entry mentioned the baseball game – one year it was a day late, because the family gathered for a photograph, and one year (1898) it was cancelled because of the heat, but what began in Benjamin Harrison’s first year as President has continued to the current day.

 

I do not remember my first Fourth-of July, but it was likely in the early 1940s, though there is no one now alive who can say if the game was cancelled during those years. For my father, the excuse to return to where he was born and grew up was the draw, so most years we went. Attending the game became an initiation rite for those brave enough to marry into the family. The descendants of my two-great grandparents are numerous, now probably numbering several hundred – my grandchildren meet fifth cousins.

 

There is comfort in the continuing of a tradition, so long as it is not taken too seriously. In Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier wrote of memories of Manderley: “The order never varies. Two slices of bread-and-butter each, and China tea. What a hide-bound couple we must seem, clinging to custom because we did so in England.” I get that same sense when I drive to the house, see chairs and tables set aside for the elderly, while the lawn is covered with people of all ages – pitcher, base runners and outfielders alike. Remarkably, in its previous 133 years, the game has always ended in a tie. Perhaps this year will be different, but I suspect not.

 

In his last Fourth-of-July diary entry, my great-great grandfather wrote (July 4, 1900): “Did our best in glorifying our ancestors who fought for our liberty one hundred and twenty-five years ago[1], though some of us could but doubt of our rulers of the present day were as equally disinterested and governed solely by the best of motives in our recent wars. However, there are too many side issues involved in political matters for all to ever agree, even if we should succeed in civilizing the whole world, according to our notions of what is right and just.” Today, our nation is more diverse, which has made us better and stronger. While acknowledging our differences, we celebrate our commonalities, as citizens of this great nation! Happy 4^th!

 

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[1] My great-great grandfather’s maternal grandfather was at Lexington on April 19, 1775, which is why he celebrated that date rather than 1776 when the Declaration of Independence was signed.

"Equality/Inequality? - Focus on Mobility"

 

There was an item on Reuters last week, published by the New York Daily News, that shows the irony and complexity of our nation. Its headline read: “Trump is only living President whose family didn’t own slaves.” That does not mean he is a descendant of angels, only that his ancestors came to this country after the Civil War. Each of us descends from thousands of ancestors, and the ancient sages of Athens argued that we all descend from slaves and kings. We all have ancestors who have been good people and bad people. We are wiser to focus on our own habits, not worry about the past, and to try to positively influence those of our children and grandchildren.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.bllogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Equality/Inequality? – Focus on Mobility”

July 3, 2023

 

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

                                                                                                                Animal Farm, 1945

                                                                                                                George Orwell (1903-1950)

 

Of all the canards foisted on the American public, one of the lamest is the assertion that outcomes should be equal. Equality of outcomes (something that can never be) should not be confused with the fact that we are all, as Lincoln said at Gettysburg in 1863, created equal (something that we are) – equal in the eyes of God and equal under the laws of the United States, or at least we all have been since the 14^th Amendment was ratified in 1868. Equality of outcomes should also not be confused with the idea that we should all have equal opportunities to succeed in our chosen fields, something we do not have. There are other false tales told the American public: that the Earth will self-destruct if we do not reduce fossil fuel consumption, or the assertion that one’s sex is a social construct, that fairness requires the forgiveness of student loans, and the demeaning implication that affirmative action is necessary for Blacks to achieve parity with whites. 

 

George Orwell’s Animal Farm was published in August 1945, while the Soviet Union was still a World War II ally. It was written as an allegory on how the inequalities of Tsarist Russia became replicated in the inequalities of Stalin’s Communist Soviet Union. In the 1930s and through the early 1950s, many intelligent people responded to the siren call of the “Communist utopian state.” However, the promise of state-directed equal outcomes was a lie. In fact, wealth inequality worsened. In 1900, Russian per capita GDP was roughly 30% of the United States’. Under Putin’s Russia, a hundred and twenty years later, Russian per capita GDP had shrunk to about 17% of that in the U.S. In spite of that discrepancy (or perhaps because of it), Putin is considered to be the richest world leader, with a net worth of $200 billion

 

Here at home, the promise of equal outcomes is, of course, a political ruse, meant to detract from promises unfulfilled. Merit has been subsumed by calls for diversity. While we are all, as the Declaration of Independence states, endowed by our Creator “with certain unalienable rights,” people have never been equal; they are not now, and they never will be. We are unique individuals. Some are tall, others short. Some are artistic, others athletic, and still others musical. Some have a talent for liberal arts; others for mathematics. Some are intellectually brilliant; others must study to keep up. Some are born wealthy; others are born poor. Some are born to two-parent households, others to single mothers. Some are born in small towns, while others are born in cities or suburbs. A few have the benefit of private schools; most rely on public schools. A few are born with physical, mental, or emotional challenges; others live charmed lives. Some are aspirant, others content to be followers. Yet, we are equal under the law. As citizens, we have equal rights to vote. As humans, we should expect to be treated with equal measures of respect and dignity.

 

But we are not equal when it comes to talents or personal goals. After earlier promising equality to all animals, Napoleon (the pig, not the French Emperor) told the other animals: “…some animals are more equal than others.” While Napoleon’s words justified his claim that only pigs had the right to rule, they exposed a truth of the real world: The horse is swifter than the pig; the hen lays eggs and the sheep provides wool, while the pig wallows in mud. What is true for Orwell’s animals is true for man. Universities, businesses, and government bureaucracies should require a merit-based system. It is how they can best compete. How would the New York Knicks or the Yankees fare if management demanded a balance of racial, religious and gender diversity? If in for surgery, do you care what nationality, religion, race, or gender is the doctor who will operate, or do you care about his or her abilities? In every society, there are a limited number of elites. That will never change. 

 

But in a free, fluid, and democratic society, and critical to our survivability and success, elites should be able to rise from obscurity, which leads to the question of equal opportunities. The real world tells us that opportunities are not equal – like children of single parents and those born into poverty. But we can work to mitigate the differences and, therefore, improve opportunities for all. Education is key; however, sadly, our public schools are failing our children, and school choice is being fought by teachers’ unions and the politicians they support. The key for any aspirant young person is access to economic and social ladders. And it is education that best provides the means to climb those ladders. And it is in education where we have failed the talented and aspirant, especially in inner cities.    

 

In May, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reported that 8^th grade U.S. history test scores hit an all-time low – just 13% of eighth graders met proficiency standards. Only 20% of students scored at or above proficiency levels in civics. Scores in math and reading declined by nine and four points respectively. The decline in the math score was the largest ever for this NAEP assessment. For the lowest-performing students, according to The Wall Street Journal, “math scores were the worst since the 1970s, and reading scores were lower than the first data collection in 1971.” Apart from Luxembourg, the United States spends more per student on education than any other country, yet the most recent PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) ranks the U.S. 13^th in reading and 36^th in math, out of 79 countries. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reported last year that absenteeism remains high, and behavior has worsened, particularly in the nation’s cities’ schools.

 

In my opinion, the fault lies with teachers’ unions – not with teachers, but with their unions’ leaders. Their interests are for themselves – not teachers and certainly not students. According to a report by Frederick Hess in the June 12 issue of National Review, between 2000 and 2019 student enrollment grew by 5 percent while the number of teachers grew by 9 percent. But the ranks of principals and assistant principals increased by 37 percent and that of district administrative staff expanded by 88 percent. Real per pupil spending rose 16 percent between 2012 and 2022, yet inflation-adjusted teacher pay fell 4 percent.

 

People are not equal – that is a given – but we are equal in our basic rights, and we should strive to be equal in opportunities for self-improvement. Education is the key. School choice is available to the wealthy; it should be available to all. Charter schools, vouchers for private or parochial schools, home schooling are all options. Yet they are opposed by leaders of teachers’ unions whose goal is to increase membership, and by politicians who support the unions and promise equal outcomes. A focus on gender studies, the promotion of grievances from a false interpretation of our nation’s history, and the division of people into racial and religious castes have detracted from studies of the basics – reading, writing and arithmetic. Lost has been the goal of youths’ achieving personal success. Give them the tools to move up the ladder.