"Choices"

 Given today’s politics, it is easy to become dispirited, at least it is for me. It is why I enjoy reading novels and history – history to remind me that much of what we experience has happened before and to put in context our experiences versus what has happened to those in the past; novels because they allow me to escape to other times, and because good novelists create characters that provide insight into people today, showing that good and evil have always been with us.

 

Attached is another essay – not to convince you of the correctness of my position – but to explain why I think and feel as I do. As an essayist, I find that I write primarily for myself.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swstotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Choices”

January 29, 2024

 

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

                                                                                              Dumbledore, head of Hogwarts, speaking to Harry Potter

                                                                                              Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, 1998

                                                                                              J.K. Rowling (1965-)

 

Free choice, where it does not break the law or infringe on the rights of others, is fundamental to our rights as Americans. We make hundreds of choices every day, some significant, others not so. Next November’s election represents a significant choice. It has been portrayed as critical because, or so we are told, democracy is on the line. Progressives, and their propagandists in mainstream media, would have us believe that the election of Donald Trump would signify the end of democracy. And there is no question he is mean-spirited, has spoken of retribution against those who oppose him, and may go to jail. On the other hand, many of us on the right believe democracy is at risk because current political trends suggest we are, with the degradation of individualism, headed toward group-think, socialism, and central planning. One is reminded of Yeats: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst/ Are full of passionate intensity.”

 

As for Trump, despite his well-publicized flaws, consider what he faced in his first term: the weaponization of the intelligence services; retribution by his political enemies; along with the pursuit of identity politics, the elevation of the group over the individual, the imposition of DEI into many aspects of our lives, and the inflicting of ESG into our investment and financial organizations – the phony feel-good elements of Wokeism. Keep in mind, threats to democracy can come from the left as well as the right. So what does a thoughtful voter do? Colleen Hoover, a writer of romance stories for young teens, wrote in Hopeless: “Sometimes you have to choose between a bunch of wrong choices and no right ones.” Given what our options for President are likely to be in November, voters may face a similar ineluctable conundrum – a “Sophie’s Choice” between two bad options, the rock shoals of Scylla or the whirlpool of Charybdis. However, there are nine months to go until election day and much could happen, especially with two far-from-ideal elderly candidates.

 

In my opinion, it is too early, at least for Republicans, to raise the white flag. This may also be true for Democrats, as Biden’s polls are the lowest for a sitting President since Jimmy Carter. “Forever Trumpers” on the right and the Progressive wing of Democrats, along with their minions in the media, have already decided that Trump will be the Republican nominee and Biden the Democrat. That is what leaders of both Parties want. “Forever Trumpers” care more about the man than the Party, while Democrats see Trump as the Republican candidate easiest to beat. Republicans – the smaller of the two parties – are the Party of the individual, so managing them is like herding cats. Democrats, in contrast (and at least outwardly), remain unified behind an aged, cognitively-impaired man. As President, Mr. Biden has been marching to the beat of Obama-era Progressives – those who believe in big government, that race and gender supersede class distinctions, that racial and gender equity should repudiate merit, and that the imagery of a tossed salad better describes America than the concept of a melting pot. The latter is particularly jarring, as it promotes segregation rather than assimilation.

 

Is it not possible that the wishes of a majority of Americans – Independents along with moderate Republicans and Democrats – are being ignored by Party leaders and mainstream media? 

 

To win the Democratic nomination, the winner must have the votes of 1,969 delegates. While Biden won New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary via write-ins (against the wealthy Minnesota businessman, Representative Dean Phillips), his name was not on the ballot, so, at this point, Biden has no delegates. To win the Republican nomination, the winner must have the support of 1,215 delegates. As of now Trump has 32 and Nikki Haley has 17. While Trump, like Biden, appears to have the advantage, the race for Party nominee is not over. Most polls show Haley as the more formidable candidate against Biden. As for Biden’s competition at this point, Dean Phillips will likely not warrant a footnote in a history of 21^st Century American politics. Third party candidates could cause a change: No Labels may in fact nominate someone, and the impact of Robert Kennedy, Jr’s. run for the White House is unknown. Nevertheless, with two aging white men just out of the gate and hobbling down the track, the race is yet to be run.

 

According to Ballotpedia and as of 2022, Democrats comprise 38.8% of registered voters, Republicans 29.4%, and Independents 28.6%. While extremists now appear to control both Parties, to win a victor must appeal to Independents and to moderates in both Parties, which is why, in my opinion, Nikki Haley would be the better (and more redoubtable) Republican candidate. And it is the reason why mainstream media has been so quick to argue the helplessness of her quest and the inevitability of both Trump and Biden.

 

But even if Biden and Trump are on the ballot in November, the choice then confronting us would be more than personality differences between two aged, flawed men. Who would be their running mates? More important is what the election of either man would mean in terms of the future of the country. Progressive Democrats – the Obama branch of the Party – advocate statism with a larger role for government. Last week in New Hampshire Representative Dean Phillips (D-MN), promised to provide thousand-dollar American Dream Accounts for every baby born in the country, offer free college tuition for all, and guarantee a $15.00 per hour minimum wage.  Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA), who leads the polls to become his state’s next Senator has promised to abolish the Senate filibuster rule, increase the number of justices on the Supreme Court to thirteen from nine, cancel at least $50,000 in student loan debt for every borrower, increase the corporate tax rate from today’s 21% to 35%, legalize the harvesting of votes, and institute a pilot program for a “Universal Basic Income.” And these Democrats claim to be preserving democracy!

 

We live in the greatest democracy the world has ever known. It is not perfect, but it has evolved over time into a fairer system and will continue to evolve. There is no end of history. We face threats from China and Russia, as well as rogue states, and challenges unknown to those who came before us: artificial intelligence and cyber warfare. Thus it is most important not to lose focus on the principles upon which our nation was founded, those embedded in our Constitution and Declaration of Independence, in the “Golden Rule,” and in the moral and ethical lessons from our Judeo-Christian heritage. The voting booth is where we exercise our choice as to who will represent us in government. We do not seek the perfect candidate, but rather the one who best represents our opinions and beliefs. Voting is a privilege, an honor, and a duty. So think carefully; don’t be influenced by slogans, bullied by advocates, or hustled to decide betimes.

 

As Dumbledore said to Harry Potter, the choices we make define who we are. “We are our choices” is a line often ascribed to Existentialist philosopher and novelist Jean-Paul Sartre. And we are all familiar with Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol when Ebenezer Scrooge is confronted with the ghost of his late partner Jacob Marley. “‘You are fettered,’ said Scrooge. ‘Tell me why.’ ‘I wear the chains I forged in life,’ replied the Ghost. ‘I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.’” Come November and no matter whom you vote for, the consequences will not be as dire as they were for Jacob Marley. But in a country that has survived and thrived for almost 250 years voting should be taken seriously. Make sure you exercise the privilege. The choice is yours. The future belongs to our children and grandchildren.

"A Winter Morning"

 This morning is quite different than from the day eight days ago when I awoke to the first snowstorm of the year and was inspired to write this short essay.

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

More Essays from Essex

“A Winter Morning”

January 24, 2024

 

“You can’t get too much winter in the winter.”

                                                                                                                                Robert Frost (1874-1963)

                                                                                                                                “Snow”

                                                                                                                                Mountain Interval, 1916

 

For a New Englander born and raised, Robert Frost’s words ring true. Summer witnesses the smell of fresh flowers, soft breezes and warm temperatures, whose pleasures are enhanced because of winter’s snow, ice, and cold. We are reminded of how changing seasons reflect life’s journey, from spring’s birth through summer’s growth, to fall’s harvest and winters denouement – from nativity to death and resurrection. Or, as Shakespeare put it, through the voice of the ill-fated Gloucester, in Henry VI, Part 2:

 

“And after summer evermore succeeds

Barren winter, with his wrathful nipping cold:

So cares and joys abound, as seasons fleet.”

 

As I roll out of bed – figuratively, not literately – on this morning following winter’s first storm, visions of past winter’s mornings dance through my head: as a child, the prospect of school closure; as a teenager, the anticipation of training with my school’s ski team; as a householder, the chore of shoveling the front steps; as a city-dweller, the necessity of trudging through snow-laden streets to my office.

 

But now in retirement my obligations are few, and I appreciate nature’s bounty. There are few scenes so beautiful as snow falling on a winter’s morning, especially when one knows that he does not have to leave his cozy and well-provisioned apartment. There are books, the internet, and a television that can transport me to distant places and faraway times. There is a fireplace – sadly, electric, but a fireplace just the same – to warm the soul and the room.

 

Winter is a special time, something recognized by poets and artists: “In winter I get up at night/ And dress by yellow candlelight,” wrote Robert Louis Stevenson in his 1885 collection, A Child’s Garden of Verses. Or Christina Rossetti’s 1872 poem “In the Bleak Midwinter,” which begins, “In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan/ Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone.” Visual artists have long used winter scenes to capture and express feelings. In our apartment hang many such paintings, including a 2014 oil by Utah’s Warren Neary, “Winter Solstice.” It shows cattle on a cold snowy morning, with a hint of the rising sun through a snow-laden sky, outside a barn from whose windows warm lights dimly glow.

 

Even with the cold and the ice, we should not rush the days away. Each is special, as are the changing seasons. Winter is, after all, a harbinger of spring.  Hibernating animals, from bears and hedgehogs to turtles and snails, now in mid-slumber, will soon leave their nests as warm days restore the earth. The early 20^thCentury poet Annette Wynne who specialized in children’s poetry wrote: “One, two, winter’s through/ Three, four, spring’s at the door.”

 

But for now, I look through frosty windows at the new-fallen snow and smile.

"Life is Short but Eternity is Forever"

 “Know Thyself” is a maxim inscribed upon the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. They are also words found in Lamentations from the Old Testament. 

 

The quest for self-knowledge is a journey requiring honesty and is key to understanding our purpose in the world. Many of my personal essays, like this one, are short trips along that path of self-discovery. I have found that it is not the destination – which is always elusive – that is the goal, but the journey. 

 

Thank you for allowing me to share them with you.

 

Sydney

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

More Essays from Essex

“Life is Short but Eternity is Forever”[1]

January 20, 2024

 

“A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the 

profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive

forms are accessible to our minds – it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute

true religiosity; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.”

                                                                                                              Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

                                                                                                             “The World as I See It,” An Essay by Einstein

                                                                                                              1931

 

At a recent family dinner, the discussion turned to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its ramifications. A grandson remarked that AI machines have limits. For example, they have been unable to create a living organism, except possibly Xenobots, supposedly self-replicating living robots. Scientists can modify genes to make wheat more durable and blueberries bluer. They can clone sheep and women can freeze eggs. But man reproduces through copulation, a biological function common to most animal species.

 

Life, as we know, is short. In the two thousand years since Jesus’ birth (a small fraction of the time that Homo sapiens have roamed the earth), six thousand generations of people have been born and died. Now, as I age, I think of mysteries of life, for instance that causality requires a first cause – from whence came the first spark of life? Evolution is understandable, how species evolve over millions of years, how they are still evolving, and even why, looking back from a perspective of a million years or more (assuming the planet and our galaxy survive), what we now know as man may seem like an early, primitive creation.

 

But what did create that first form of life? We think of infinity, but it is beyond comprehension. If the universe is finite, what lies behind it? What does eternity really mean? Was the world as we know it, the creation of some power far greater than anything we can imagine? Or is any of this worth worrying about? Should we turn the page of the book we are reading, switch channels, or view another posting on Instagram? 

 

I am not a student of religion. In fact, we rarely go to church. When our children were young we did take them regularly to St. Barnabas in Greenwich where I served on the vestry and they attended Sunday school and became acolytes. When in boarding school, I was required to read the Bible. But I retained little, with my then non-retentive speed-reading skills. Nevertheless, I have found that I am thinking more about such questions. And I keep a copy of the Bible and The Book of Common Prayer within easy reach. In the same book mentioned in the footnote, Tyrrell wrote of reading the 17^th Century French philosopher Blaise Pascal and his wager: If one lives by God’s rules as laid out in the Bible, and believes in God’s existence, God will be satisfied. If God does not exist, one has lost nothing, while living with love and compassion. 

 

Accepting Pascal’s wager appears sensible. And with Einstein admission that there are limits to human knowledge, God’s existence seems a reasonable possibility. I’m getting there.

"Threats to Democracy"

 With the Iowa caucuses now behind us, the 2024 Presidential campaign is officially underway. Let the games begin. For the next ten months, the airwaves will be inundated, as will social media, with each candidate swathed in self-glorification, spouting lies, and bashing his or her opponent.

 

If the consequences weren’t so important, we should laugh at the pretentious political pontification to which we will all be subject, as candidates bluster inanities. My advice is to turn the channel to real comic relief, like watching old movies with the likes of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Danny Kaye, the Marx Brothers, or better yet, one of Mel Brooks’ classic comedies from the ‘70s and ‘80s, or John Landis’ 1978 Animal House. Remember, it was John Belushi’s character “Bluto” Blutarsky who is destined for the U.S. Senate, while it was straight-arrow jerk Douglas Neidermeyer (played by Mark Metcalf) who is shot by his own men in Vietnam.

 

My apologies to subjecting you to one more essay on a time-worn subject.

 

Sydney

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Threats to Democracy”

January 16, 2024

 

“The problem comes when the government is inhibiting 

innovation with overregulation and short-sighted policy.”

                                                                                                                Garry Kasparov (1963-)

                                                                                                                Deep Thinking: – Where Machine Intelligence Ends

                                                               and Human Creativity Begins, 2017

 

On January 6, 2024 near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, President Biden opened his 2024 election campaign: “Whether democracy is still America’s sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time. It is what the 2024 election is all about.” Politico, the left-leaning digital newspaper, reported last month that comparing Mr. Trump to Hitler had become routine for the Biden campaign. Dean Karayanis, in the January 5^th edition of The York Sun, wrote: “When an incumbent president swings that brickbat, though, it raises the stakes to a dangerous level.” And Perry Bacon of The Washington Post, who believes the issue is legitimate, wrote in a recent column that such a focus “sidelines other important issues,” that a “general election is in many ways a national conversation between citizens.” But it also trivializes the horrors inflicted by Hitler and the Nazi regime. And remember, Hitler’s Nazis controlled the press and the universities. Trump and the Republicans do not.

 

Let me state at the outset, if Donald Trump were to be elected next November, which I hope he is not, our democracy would not be at risk. In the January issue of The Spectator, Roger Kimball wrote: “At the center of the totalitarian impulse is the belief that ultimate freedom belongs only to the state.” Trump is a bloviating blowhard, but he would not destroy democracy, even if that were his desire which I don’t believe it is. What would happen is that the mechanics of government would slow, and possibly grind to halt. Even before Trump took office in January 2017, the false Russian collusion hoax had been concocted by the Clinton campaign, which hampered his administration. Millions of dollars were spent on the Mueller investigation that unearthed no collusion, except that between the Clinton campaign and the F.B.I. Two impeachments were attempted; both failed for lack of evidence. Attempts by the Trump Administration to clean up the intelligence communities were stymied. Recall Senator Chuck Schumer’s prescient comments to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on January 3, 2017, when he insisted that Trump was really dumb for attacking the intelligence agencies: “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.” The unarmed rag-tag gang of men and women who entered the capital on January 6 slowed but did not stop the wheels of government. What Biden and his Progressive buddies have done, in reverting to the campaign slogan that democracy is at risk, is to lift a page from Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels who said that if a lie is repeated often enough, people will believe it. 

 

Yet changes in our culture – the re-writing of history, the obviation of standards of decency, a focus on DEI, the proliferation of identity politics, the offering of trigger warnings and the provision of safe places, the abandonment of universal truths, climate adamancy, ignorance of biology, and the willful use of the courts to destroy political opponents – do threaten the values that made this country a beacon to the world’s poor and persecuted. In his recent memoir, How Do We Get Out of Here, R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. wrote that “…culture is more important to politics than politics is to politics…” The late British historian Arnold Toynbee wrote that civilizations begin to decay when they lose their moral fiber. I would add that they also decay when citizens fail to appreciate the long arc of history. In the same issue of The Spectator quoted above, Daniel McCarthy wrote “…an entrenched liberal ideology has made modern life on these shores resemble a few of the worst features of the dystopias envisioned by [George] Orwell and Aldous Huxley.” Following the Battle of Bẽn Tre on the Mekong River in January 1968, an American Army officer is alleged to have said: “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.” Is it not possible that Progressives have adopted that as their motto: We have to destroy American culture in order to save it. 

 

While both Parties have been responsible for the expansion of government, deficit spending, and the increase in federal debt, it has been Democrats who have been most persistent and most effective. It was President Reagan who, at an August 12, 1986 news conference, famously said: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’” It was Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, on November 8, 2023, who mistakenly claimed (deliberately or because of ignorance?) that Reagan had reinforced Democrats’ preference: “We’re from the government. We’re here to help.”

 

The two-party system has, generally, served us well, in that voters can change horses every two years. Over the past seventy-five years Republicans have held the White House forty years and the Democrats thirty-five. But in the House and the Senate, the two-party system has been less rewarding to Republicans. Over those same seventy-five years, Democrats controlled the Senate 56% of the time and the House 70% of the time. But what has really upset the two-party system has been the growth of the administrative state – the vast federal bureaucracy and the regulatory agencies they control. While every two years we elect 435 members of the House of Representatives and one third of the U.S. Senate, there are approximately two million civil servants, of whom only four thousand are presidential appointees. The rest – overwhelmingly Democrats – comprise the permanent (and expanding) federal employment structure. While theoretically non-partisan, those employees are not immune from the sectarianism that has infested our political culture. George Washington worried that partisanship would lead to a “spirit of revenge,” driven by a desire for personal power rather than governing in the people’s interest. His fears seem to have been realized. Extremists from the left and the right have become significant in both parties. Like communists and fascists, they share the same principles and the same methods of dealing with dissidents. A striving for personal power and monetary gain via the public arena has replaced the once common tradition of public service.

 

There is no question that democracy is fragile. It depends on an educated, enlightened electorate, the free flow of ideas, the rule of law, civilized behavior, respect for others, and adherence to the traditions that have allowed this Country to move forward over time. We must weigh humanitarian and social wants against the cost to pay for them through continued economic growth. The size of our national debt and the demand of future entitlements pressure growth. In the mid 1950s, total government spending – federal, state, and local – amounted to about 14% of GDP. In 2022, it amounted to 36.3 percent. In 1974 federal debt, as a percent of GDP, was 32%. In 2022, it was 127%. In 1974, US Debt was rated AAA by all three credit agencies. Today, two of those agencies have downgraded the debt to AA+. According to Trading Economics, in the 1950s and ‘60s the average US GDP growth rate was above 4%. In the 1970s and ‘80s, the growth rate dropped to 3%. For the past ten years, the growth rate has averaged below two percent. Low birth rates and subpar economic growth negatively affect the ability to fund future entitlements.

 

In his memoir mentioned above, Tyrrell quoted the late British philosopher and political theorist Michael Oakeshott: “To be a conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss.” While there is much in that quote that appeals to me, especially humor, I also believe in dreams and curiosity, that we must not be afraid of the unknown, to experiment and innovate, that change is inevitable and that we must be able and willing to adapt. But I believe we run unnecessary risks when we demonize our culture, its teachings, and the evolution of our history. Keep in mind, it was (and is) our culture – of which democracy is a part – and the economic opportunities our nation offers, that attract migrants to these shores. We rightfully complain about our open southern border, but it is instructional that there are no lines of migrants waiting to enter Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Cuba, or Venezuela. 

 

In 1854, William Anderson Scott published Daniel, A Model for Young Men, which included this famous line: “Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.” The United States has become an angry place, and threats to democracy cannot be ignored, whether the source is an individual or whether the threat comes in the form of subtle but insidious changes to the culture that has allowed this country to become the beacon to the world. Care is warranted. 

"How We Walk"

 That haste has been known to produce waste is a two-thousand-year-old axiom, a lesson I neglected in my essay of a few days ago, when two correctible errors blemished what I thought a decent review of a book that deserved better. I have tried to be more careful in this short, light piece, which I hope will bring a smile on this rainy morning in Connecticut.

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

More Essays from Essex

“How We Walk”

January 13, 2024

 

“Always remember that you are absolutely unique, just like everyone else.”

                                                                                                                       Attributed to Margaret Mead (1901-1978)

 

We are told to walk a mile in another’s footsteps before judging them. But that does not always work. “Walk this way,” says Igor (Marty Feldman) to Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) when they first meet at the Transylvania Railroad station in Mel Brooks’ 1974 film, Young Frankenstein. Of course Wilder cannot. He looks ridiculous – and the audience gets a laugh – as he tries to imitate the hunchback’s walk.

 

Apart from the military where one is instructed to march in 30-inch strides, with an arm swing of exactly 9-inches forward and 6-inches back, we each have a unique walking style, often identifiable from the rear.

 

Some of us walk pigeon-toed, others with feet splayed. Some take off briskly, with knees bent slightly, a confident stride; others walk stiff-legged, conscious of hazards, a hesitant stride. There are those who stand straight and walk with arms close to their sides, while others lurch forward and gesticulate as though hailing a taxi, even when walking through snow-covered trails in rural Essex. Some – mostly tall people – take long strides, while others take little steps, reminding one of David Suchet in the role of Hercule Poirot, who claims he simply squeezes his gluteal muscles to mimic the Belgian detective’s walk.

 

Perhaps it is because of too much time on my hands, but I derive pleasure in picking out individuals by the way they walk. Knowing that others may be doing the same should not make us self-conscious, for walking is one of best exercises we can do, especially as we age. And as Margaret Mead is alleged to have said, we are each unique. Once we depart, no one will ever walk exactly as do we.

 

So, keep walking, and worry not if someone is lurking a hundred yards back trying to decide who you are.

Review - "November 1942," Peter Englund

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Burrowing into Books

November 1942, Peter Englund

January 10, 2024

 

“I see those men with maps and talk

Who tell how to go and where and why;

I hear with my ears the words of their mouths,

As they finger with ease the marks on the maps.”

                                                                                                                Experience, 1904

                                                                                                                Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)

 

As Carl Sandburg wrote, battles are fought far from those who direct them. As Mr. Englund explains in his “Note to the Reader,” this book does not describe what war was during the four weeks in November 1942, but tries “to say something about how it was.” 

 

It was the month of November 1942 that saw Germany stymied at Stalingrad, the American invasion of North Africa and the German-Italian defeat at El Alamein; it witnessed the Guadalcanal campaign that ended Japanese expansion in the South Atlantic and the Japanese retreat in New Guinea. At the start of November, it appeared that the Axis might be victorious. By the end of the month, it seemed certain that the Allies, ultimately, would be victors. It was on November 10, following Montgomery’s victory over Rommel at El Alamein that Churchill spoke at the Lord Mayor’s Luncheon in London: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” While he was right, of the estimated 60 to 80 million people who died in World War II most were yet to meet their fate.

 

It is through letters, diaries and memoirs of thirty-nine individuals, and from newspaper accounts, that the Swedish historian and journalist Peter Englund reconstructs the month. With the exception of authors Vera Brittain, Albert Camus, and Ernst Junger, these are ordinary people, innocently caught up in the most devastating war mankind has ever known. We read the letters of a Russian soldier in Stalingrad and the thoughts of an Italian soldier in the North African desert, and those of a Japanese lieutenant on Guadalcanal; we read of an Australian infantry sergeant in New Guinea, the letters and diaries of a Long Island housewife with a son overseas, and the memoirs of an American woman who worked with Enrico Fermi in Chicago on spontaneous nuclear chain reaction. We read the diaries of a young Jewish woman in Paris (who was later imprisoned and beaten to death in Bergen-Belson five days before the camp was liberated in 1945,) the memoirs of an Australian doctor held prisoner on Java, the writings of a German woman journalist in Berlin, the memories of an American sailor in the North Atlantic, the diaries of a teen-age girl, a German-Jewish refuge in Shanghai, the diary of a Korean “comfort woman” in Japanese-occupied Burma, and the letters of a young German woman who will be guillotined in three months for sabotaging the Third Reich.

 

We also read of Casablanca, which premiered that month and whose ending was changed to reflect the American landings in North Africa.  In a brief epilogue, Mr. Englund tells us what happened to the thirty-nine people whose lives during that month comprise his story. 

 

Toward the end of his book, Mr. Englund writes: “How we experience a war is influenced by pictures and mental images acquired in peace, and that often leads to battles playing up to their own myth…” But war is never pins on a map. It is ugly, fought by the brave and the scared, as Peter Englund so vividly describes.

"A House Divided"

 First, I want to thank you for having been a reader in 2023 and to express, in a few words, some of my foundational beliefs. I know not everyone agrees with what I write, nor do I expect that. Most of us grew up and were educated to think independently, which is the only way a democracy can work. My musings are the opinions of one person and, like living organisms, they mutate over time. 

 

What does not change (or should not change) are the moral truths inherited from our Judeo-Christian heritage: fairness and civility, honesty, respect for the opinions of others, humility. I recognize that I do not always adhere to these principles, but I am conscious of them, and I try.

 

There exists in the world both good and evil. Evil is inherent; goodness, in contrast, must be taught. As an amateur student of history, I know that man is not basically good. Morals and behavior must be learned. Apart from preparation against those both domestic and international who would do us harm, governments should be erected, as was ours, not to be efficient, but to serve the people. Separation of powers was designed to protect the rights of individual citizens. A successful Congress should not be measured by the number of laws passed, but whether the content of those laws meet the needs of the people, secure their safety, and comply with the basic moral principles on which this nation was founded.   

 

Second, I wish for you a peaceful, healthy, and happy 2024. Living, as we do, in a world battered by a constant flow of opinions, much disguised as news, it is important to take some moments each day to reflect on what is important and what is not – to gather, as the Bible says, the wheat into the barn and consign the chaff to the “unquenchable fire.”

 

Happy New Year!

 

Sydney Williams

 

January 2, 2024

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“A House Divided”

January 2, 2024

 

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

                                                                                                                Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

                                                                                                                Illinois Republican State Convention

                                                                                                                Springfield, IL, June 16, 1858

 

Newton’s third law of motion states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In the U.S. we are divided between two opposing political forces, described by Lance Morrow in a recent issue of The Wall Street Journal: “The left denounces the evil of what it claims the country has always been: racist, oppressive, toxically male, transphobic. The right rages against the evil of what the country has become: perverse, perverted, Marxist, sniveling, woke.” In Lincoln’s words, we have become “a house divided.”

 

While this division in America is manifested politically, it is also cultural; it has infested institutions – families, schools, and universities; the media, large corporations, and big banks; government and eleemosynary foundations; the entertainment world and libraries. People’s individual identity has been subsumed to the group to which they belong. As David Brooks wrote in the August 23^, 2023 edition of The Atlantic: “A person’s moral character is not based on their conduct, but on their location on the political spectrum.” We cannot continue on this trajectory. Where, when, and how does this divisiveness end?

 

When Lincoln spoke it was slavery – “a nation half slave and half free” – that divided the country. Today’s division is driven by those who promote identity at the expense of character and merit – in schools, colleges and workplaces, and in sports where transwomen compete against biological women. The United States was founded, we are told, on slavery. We live, it is said, in a land divided between oppressors and the oppressed. Today’s definition of equity demands equal outcomes, not opportunities. Diversity and inclusion demands exclude conservatives, who are seen as racists, misogynists, and xenophobes. Ironically, merit remains the determinant in professional sports, like tennis, golf, basketball and football. 

 

While many elite high schools and colleges have a long history of blackballing certain segments of society – women, Jews, and racial minorities, they do (as they have always done) a disservice to those of high merit whom they ignore, as well as to those whom they accept for reasons that have nothing to do with merit and everything to do with whatever is faddish, whether the favored candidate is the minimally-qualified white son of a wealthy donor or an ill-prepared member of a racial minority. To paraphrase Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts: “The way to stop discriminating is to stop discriminating.”  

 

How did we reach this point? The causes are myriad and have been years in the making: Politicians found that addressing the concerns of easily identifiable voting blocs was simpler than describing states’ rights, explaining due process, discussing ideas, or defining liberty. Blacks are placed in one category; Hispanics in another; Asians in a third. Women and the LBGTQ community are treated as distinct entities, with nothing in common apart from their gender or sexual identity. A second factor in our divisiveness has been a mainstream media that found itself losing “eyeballs” to social media platforms. Their business models are at risk, so in hiring extremists, whether on the right or the left, they guarantee a certain audience. Think of Fox News and the New York Post on the right, and MSNBC, PBS, The Washington Post and The New York Times on the left. A third factor are cultural and educational institutions for whom “virtue signaling” is critical to their sense of sanctimony. As Victor Davis Hanson of the Hoover Institute recently wrote: The “cultural left self-identifies as erudite and moral and assume their opponents are irredeemable and deplorable.” One consequence, as Republican pollster Whit Ayres recently suggested, has been “public trust in our political system is in the cellar.” Another is the vitriol we all experience, and the lack of civil communication between the left and right.

 

Given the challenges we face, national unity should be a priority for both sides of the political aisle: tens of thousands of illegals, some of whom are surely enemies, cross the border each week, and spread throughout the country. American students lag foreign competitors. PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) tests fifteen-year-olds. For 2022, the U.S., overall, was 18^th of 81 countries. As expected, we are behind Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea; but we also lag Western countries, like Ireland, Canada, Poland, and Finland. To thrive in a competitive global environment we must improve high school education. Our federal debt risks impairing future economic growth. In 2022, federal debt was 121% of GDP, about where it was at the end of World War II. In the post-War period, it first broached 100% in 2012 and has never looked back. The formation of families, the foundation on which all successful societies are built, has declined. A Pew Research survey showed the percent of Americans aged 25-54 who were married fell from 67% in 1990 to 53% in 2019. Birth rates have been below replacement for most of the past fifty years. Children are best served in two-parent households and a growing economy requires an expanding supply of workers. Overseas, the world is becoming more dangerous, with China’s imperialism, Russia’s revisionism, and Iran as a fomenter of Islamic terrorism. 

 

Perhaps this is Panglossian, but there are some signs that the worst may be behind us. On December 27, The Wall Street Journal editorialized that the DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) bureaucracy, which practices racial favoritism, promotes the false ideal of equal outcomes and is hostile to equal opportunities, is “meeting resistance.” School choice legislation, which includes vouchers, charter schools, education savings accounts, and tax credit scholarship programs, has succeeded in seventeen states. Climate scare-mongers appear to be in retreat, as economic and innovation costs become more apparent. People continue to make the sensible decision to leave high-tax states and move to low-tax states. The robotic responses to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce by the presidents of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, and M.I.T. on anti-Semitism showcased their isolation from the real world. 

 

Will this angst be mollified? I hope so. As we head into a new year, we should resolve – not to settle our differences, for they will always exist (and they should) – to be civil in our disagreements, respectful of the opinions of others, and to recognize, and be thankful for the great good fortune that is ours to live in this country at this time. The U.S. may not be perfect, but where would you rather live? George Washington was never the paragon portrayed by Parson Weems in 1800, but neither was he, or his fellow slave-owning Virginians, as evil as depicted in the 1619 Project or by those pushing Critical Race Theory. History can never be understood by imposing today’s values on those who lived in previous times.  Speaking of Washington, we should all read (or re-read) his 110 rules of behavior. They appear dated, but in fact, with their focus on behavior toward other people, they are timeless. And we should not forget that, as Lincoln said in 1858, a divided house “cannot stand.” Slavery was the match that ignited the conflagration in 1861, but preserving the union was Lincoln’s real goal. It must be ours today. 

 

Happy New Year!