"Two Hundred and Fifty Years!"

 Happy Mothers’ Day!

 

Yesterday was the 81^st Anniversary of the unconditional surrender of Germany. That victory was followed by the re-building of Europe, led by the generosity of the United States through the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine.

 

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I recognize that Independence Day is almost two months in the future, but I don’t believe it is too early to be thinking of the magnitude of what was created in Philadelphia in 1776. 

 

Two hundred and fifty years is a long time. Two hundred and fifty years from now it will be 2276, a future as unimaginable to us as 2026 would have been to the Founders in 1776. Yet here we are, and with luck and forbearance our great-grandchildrens’ great-grandchildren, and their children and grandchildren, may be around to celebrate the quincentenary of the Declaration of Independence.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Two Hundred and Fifty Years!”

May 9, 2026

 

“Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.”

                                                                                                                George Washington (1732-1799)

                                                                                                                Letter to James Madison

                                                                                                                March 2, 1788

 

On July 4 we will celebrate the semiquincentennial (250^th anniversary) of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. This is not a celebration of the start of Revolution, which began more than a year earlier in Lexington and Concord. Nor is it to celebrate the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781. And it is not to commemorate the signing of the Constitution, which occurred in September 1787, nor to mark the ratification of the Bill of Rights by the thirteen states in June 1788. And this year’s festivities are not to memorialize the inauguration of George Washington as the new Nation’s first President in April 1789. 

 

It is the Declaration of Independence we celebrate. It represented the severance of the colonies’ obedience to the British Empire. In a speech at the University of Texas in Austin on April 15, 2026 Justice Clarence Thomas stated: “The Constitution is the means of government; it is the Declaration that announces the ends of government.” Fifty-six delegates from thirteen British colonies put their signatures to a document that terminated the political bonds that had connected them to the British Empire, then the most powerful in the world. In doing so, they pledged to each other “our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.” Had the Revolution failed, it is likely that all fifty-six would have been hung for treason.

 

The Declaration was unique at the time (and is still so today), in that the delegates believed that “Truths” were “self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Recognizing the wisdom of James Madison, “...if men were angels, no government would be necessary,” the Declaration calls for a government to be established to secure those rights, one created by consent of the governed, and one that “...should not be changed for light and transient Causes.” The bulk of the Declaration is a list grievances, and it ends with the declaration “that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, Free and Independent States.” 

 

Of course, given the time and place, all fifty-six delegates were white men of British heritage. Eight were immigrants, but all from the British Isles. They had an average age of forty-four, which seems young, but average life expectancy at the time was under forty. Nevertheless, there was diversity. Among them were lawyers, planters, doctors, merchants and farmers. They included both slave holders and abolitionists. While most were Protestants, their numbers included two Quakers and a Catholic.

 

From the perspective of 250 years, we can find fault with some of the men, but we should judge those who created this document by the standards of their time, and we should be cognizant of change over time. We should recognize regional differences, that travel was primitive by our standards. For example, in 1776 it took anywhere from two to four weeks to travel from Williamsburg, Virginia to Boston, Massachusetts. The Declaration was drafted by five men from five different colonies: Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, John Adams of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Robert Livingston of New York, and Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania. Drafting took weeks and debate was often raucous. 

 

All fifty-six delegates were sons of the Enlightenment, which by the late 18^th Century was in its final innings, with reason and science rejecting blind faith; yet the Founders believed God – not the state – to be guarantor of our unalienable rights. That belief held true for most of our Nation’s existence. In the June 7, 1944 issue of The New York Times (the day after D-Day) the editors wrote of the U.S.: “This nation was born in the only revolution in history made in the name of God.” Belief in a Higher Being persisted over the years. In November 1863, President Abraham Lincoln invoked God in his Gettysburg Address: “...that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.” On June 26, 1876, celebrating the Centennial, President Ulysses Grant spoke in Washington: “...acknowledgement should be made to Almighty God for the protection and the bounties which He has vouchsafed to our beloved country.”  President Calvin Coolidge, in speaking on the Nation’s sesquicentennial on July 5, 1926, spoke of the “miracle of the birth of a new nation.” And President Gerald Ford, on the occasion of the Bicentennial Ceremony on July 4, 1976, said: “The Declaration is the Polaris of our political order – the fixed star of freedom. It is impervious to change because it states moral truths that are eternal.”

 

These men and others conceived of and created a government that still stands. It is a government composed of three separate but equal branches, designed to prevent the concentration of power. It is a nation based on law, not men. It is a government that honors individual liberty, values meritocracy, regardless of gender, skin color, or religion. And it is a government accountable to the people.

 

Today, as we remember our Country’s forefathers, belief in God is waning; there is concern that our democratic institutions are failing. Our politicians have become polarized. Our news outlets no longer report dispassionately but rather speak and write passionately in favor of one side or the other. Identity politics have divided us into victims and victimizers, the oppressed and oppressors. Sixty-two years after the Civil Rights Act was passed there are politicians who wield racism as a political tool. And, frighteningly, anti-Semitism is on the rise. There are threats, from both the left and the right, to the principles that infused the fifty-six men who met in Philadelphia 250 years ago to debate their (and our) future.  

 

Yet the draw of the United States remains strong: It is the preferred destination for migrants. Among the world’s major developed nations, its population ranks at the top in terms of diversity. Its universities are among the best in the world. Capitalism allows innovation to soar, productivity to gain, and standards of living to reach heights unimaginable to our forefathers. There is no country in the world with a population over ten million who ranks as high as the U.S. in terms of GDP per capita. Despite political bickering between Parties, and the cynicism and partisanship that that bickering gives birth to, political power has swung back and forth. In the 126 years since 1900, Republicans have served as President for 66 years and Democrats for 60. Democrats have controlled both the House and the Senate more often than Republicans but not by a large margin. Likewise, the Supreme Court has leant both towards conservatives and progressives. This dynamic indicates a country where political change is, in fact, moderate and welcomed – unlike the situations in countries from where migrants emigrate. 

 

The United States is not perfect. It is (and always has been) a work in progress. The challenge, as James Madison warned, is that men are not angels, neither the governed nor governors. It is why individual liberty and limited government, with separation of powers, have been critical to our success; it is why no branch of government should have superiority over another, and why rule of law has prevailed. Despite constant challenges, the architects of the Declaration of Independence produced a document that has guided our country for two and a half centuries. The Declaration set in motion the birth of a nation that is (and has been) exceptional, one unique in the annals of history. Those of us who live here are truly blessed.

"The Taxman Cometh"

 Calvin Coolidge was a great, though unsung, President. He presided over a roaring economy in the decade following the Great War. He signed the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. He wisely chose not to run again in 1928. And, unlike recent Presidents, he practiced fiscal restraint when it cam to both his and the public’s purse. Thus, he is the ideal person from whom to draw a quote for the epigraph that heads this essay.

 

Taxes are due two weeks from Monday, a date that arrives with assuredness and regularity, as Benjamin Franklin reminded us. 

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

More Essays from Essex

“The Taxman Cometh”

March 30, 2024

 

“The collection of any taxes which are not absolutely required, which do not beyond

reasonable doubt contribute to the public welfare, is only a species of legalized larceny.”

                                                                                                                                Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933)

                                                                                                                                Inaugural Address, March 4, 1925

 

Life, as a child, was simple. There were toys to play with, and a bed for sleeping. Like magic, food arrived on the table. There were woods and fields in which to run and play, and horses on which to gallop away. There were disadvantages of course, like having to go to school, be pleasant to visitors, and say howdy to strangers. And we weren’t supposed to swear or to tease younger siblings. Nevertheless, life was good, devoid of responsibilities, like worrying about taxes.

 

It was only as I got older and went to work that I realized that all things in life are not free. Like rent, clothes and food, schools, roads, police and the military cost money, so taxes must be paid. As a child I never worried about costs and certainly not the taxman. As I got older, he appeared in my imagination, looking like Bela Lugosi, dressed in black broadcloth, sprouting a goatee, hands extended.

 

At this time of year he makes his presence known. Intimidating envelopes, from the IRS, the State of Connecticut, and our accountant, appear in our mailbox. We have sung and we have danced; now the piper must be paid. The envelopes sit unopened for a few days, as I try let the senders know by telepathy that they are unwanted and have incurred my displeasure. Still, I know they must be answered, but my mind wanders: I dive into my cocooned memory. Oh! To be a child again where dreams of ice cream and swimming in the lake kept the future at bay. How nice to disappear down Alice’s rabbit hole and watch the White Queen dispatch the Red Queen. And read again of Dorothy throwing a bucket of water on the Wicked Witch of the West, whose face reminds me of my imagined taxman. Where is that bucket when I need it?

 

It is the complexity of the tax code – somewhere between seven and nine thousand pages – that is not only intimidating but unfathomable. Of course, accountants and tax lawyers thrive on its intricacies. It is, as Laura Saunders wrote recently in The Wall Street Journal, “…a mish-mash of competing policy interests that shift over time and often interact in unexpected ways.” According to Taxpayer Advocate Service, a typical individual spends thirteen hours preparing and filing their federal tax returns. The comparable number for a small business is eighty-two hours. The National Taxpayers Union suggests that the Code’s complexity consumes 6.5 billion hours and costs $260 billion each year. Money well spent?

 

But then reality sets in, and I emerge from my fantasizing. I realize my fate is to deal with things as they are, not as I would like them to be. With a scowl on my face, I put pen to check and pay my fair share, trusting that they have asked only for what was “absolutely required.” And then I smile; for all the troubles we have, living in the United States is worth the cost. I just wish they made it simpler.

"Why Have Politics Become So Hateful?"

 To replace the retiring Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Stephen Breyer, President Biden promised an “historic appointment,” a black woman. Consider how much more powerful his words would have been (and more important to the appointee) if he had promised to nominate the most qualified individual, and then named a black woman.

 

Last Thursday was Holocaust Remembrance Day, something we should all honor in a world with rising anti-Semitism. I recall my father telling me, about a decade after he had returned from combatting the Germans in Italy’s Apennines, to never forget what the Nazis did, in attempting to eliminate the Jewish people.

 

Here in Connecticut, we are getting a full winter blast – low temperatures, a blizzard and high winds. It is beautiful to look at, as long as one can remain indoors.

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Thought of the Day

“Why Have Politics Become So Hateful?”

January 29, 2022

 

“Don’t let anger control you.

Don’t let hate enslave you.

Don’t let negativity overcome you.

Don’t let bitterness conquer you.”

                                                                                                Attributed to Matshona Dhliwayo (1982 -)

                                                                                                Zimbabwean-born Canadian author

 

In a September 2021 Public Agenda/USA Today/Ipsos poll, 72% of Americans thought it would be “good for the country” if there were less political hostility and a greater focus on common ground. Yet only 9% of respondents thought hostilities would decrease in the next decade, while 42% expected them to increase. Why have political differences made us so bitter? Why do we hate those with different opinions so intensely? What does this anger mean for the future of our nation?

 

Political hatred has had a long gestation.  It is easy to blame the crude and narcissistic Donald Trump. But this bitterness preceded him. He made things worse, but he was not its genesis. He reflected the animosity felt by rural and mid-Americans toward coastal elites. He widened and deepened the divide, but he was not its cause. Barack Obama, as the first African American elected President, was one who could have bridged racial dissensions. Instead, he made things worse. It is true that Mr. Obama was despised by a few right-wing racists, but most criticisms of his policies were assumed by his supporters to be race-based. President Joe Biden ran on a platform of unity, yet he has fanned the flames of partisanship; an example – when in Georgia he referred to Republicans as similar to Jefferson Davis, George Wallace and Bull Connor, ironically all Democrats. Political hatefulness has deepened because of social media and cable TV.

I do not presume to know all reasons why we have become so angry. But I suspect three culprits play a role: wokeism, identity politics, and a breakdown of traditional ethical norms. Wokeism is a creed that uses Jacobin tactics to foster economic chaos and property destruction, as it obsesses about climate, race, class and gender. Climate evangelists call opponents deniers – those who suggest adaption and see natural forces as an important cause of climate change. Then we have transgender women allowed to compete in women’s college sports. Wokeism in the classroom and the boardroom has replaced meritocracy with equity, in the belief it will produce equality of outcomes. In their unbridled zeal, these acolytes of wokeism, with their self-righteousness and absence of common sense, remind one of Dickens’ Mrs. Jellyby. 

 

As for identity politics, for years politicians compartmentalized the electorate into addressable groups. Old people care about health and security. Young parents care about schools. Farmers care about vicissitudes of the weather. Coal miners care about loss of jobs, while environmentalists worry about climate change. Immigrants (legal ones) care about citizenship, while Americans who live along borders care about illegal crossings. The wealthy care about tax rates, while the needy care about assistance. Now, promotion of gender and racial politics have aggravated differences. Affirmative action was used to address years of discrimination, and which, while necessary fifty years ago, has had the consequence of again, segregating people by race. Once divided, these groups became difficult to stitch back together.

 

Perhaps it is unsurprising that in a multicultural country, traditional ethical behavior is seen as “too white,” too reflective of western values. Yet it has been those values, along with rule of law, protection of private property and guarantees of free expression, that attracted immigrants to this country. But is the U.S. still that country? Civics and civil behavior are no longer taught. Church attendance has been in decline. since the early 1960s. Family formations have been in decline for forty years. The average age of Americans in 1960 was 29.5. In 2000, it was 35.3 and today it is 38.3. To help fill diminishing state treasury coffers, states like “blue” Connecticut promote gaming, the lottery, and on-line and sports betting, while dismissing the attendant increase in gambling addiction and the regressive nature of such funding. People become disillusioned when sold false promises of riches. An aging and shrinking population hampers economic growth, which leads to impatience that gives birth to stress. 

 

Barring a war or national emergency, unity is difficult in any country. But it is especially so in a multi-racial nation of assorted ethnicities. The government’s handling of COVID created dissension. One would have thought that a Chinese-originated infectious disease – whether from a wet market or a lab – would have unified the U.S. (and the world) against China. Instead, the disease was politicized. Inter-governmental agencies with financial ties to China have impeded investigations as to the pandemic’s origins. “Follow the science” became the mantra, even as the science was changing. Special powers were granted governors. “You are with us or against us” are the words of a tyrant. There was no middle way, no room for debate.

 

One thing that could help restore a sense of unity would be a political leader with the self-deprecating humor of a Lincoln, Coolidge or Reagan. Lincoln, when accused of being two-faced: “If I had another face, do you think I would wear this one?” Coolidge, when asked what it felt like to be President: “Well, you got to be mighty careful.” Reagan, when in debate with Mondale and the subject of age arose: “I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” None of these quips were nasty or injurious. Non-aggressive humor, unlike today’s political cartoons and late-night TV, has a bonding effect. Such humor is missing in today’s partisan swamp.

 

Differences are important in a democracy and debate is critical to understanding. But so is civility. We will never (nor should we) agree on everything. Compromise is not a four-letter word. There is unnecessary nastiness in Democrats claiming that a Republican win in the midterms will put democracy at risk, as Nancy Pelosi declared in her re-election announcement. Keep in mind, it was the Democratic Party that issued mandates, canceled speakers, censored speech, enforced segregation – now against Asians and whites – and jailed without habeas corpus many of those who invaded the Capitol last January 6.  This is not a call for blind patriotic devotion, but neither is it to agree with Samuel Johnson declaration: “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” It is to acknowledge that just as evil exists, so does goodness, in people and in nations. It is to argue that the United States, despite obvious historical and current warts, has been a force for good in this world, more so than any other nation – deserving of pride. And it has been so because it has always put first the freedom of the individual, while combining, as the late conservative political philosopher Roger Scruton noted, a suspicion of government with the acknowledgement of its necessity.

 

Without a reduction in political animosity, how will the U.S. address the real problems we confront: China’s and Russia’s aggression; nuclear weapons in rogue states; the failure of our K-12 public schools? Balancing the budget. Problems at home and in the world are real. Hatefulness will not solve them.

"The Public's Right to Know"

Sydney M. Williams

30 Bokum Road – Apartment 314

Essex, CT 06426

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“The Public’s Right to Know”

October 17, 2020

 

“Wherever despotism abounds, the sources of public information are the first to be
brought under its control. Wherever the cause of liberty is making its way, one of
its highest accomplishments is the guarantee of the freedom of the press.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933)

Address – American Society of Newspaper Editors

Washington, D.C., January 17, 1925

 

For the past ten or more years, I have posted my essays on a blog run by Google. It had always been easy to do; traffic on the Blog was generally slow. It was a way to preserve my essays (besides the paper copies and the ones stored in the cloud and on my hard drive), and as a means to access them by subject through the internet. In recent months, the number of “hits” on my Blog has risen to the range of four to six thousand a month – not a lot in this age we live in, but enough so that Google apparently decided that posting and editing should be more onerous. I have not been blocked, but access for me has become more difficult.

 

A few days ago, Twitter and Facebook blocked access to a story in the New York Post that showed an e-mail from Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings, to Hunter Biden, a new board member. The e-mail, dated April 17, 2015, thanked Hunter Biden for an introduction to his father, indicating a meeting had taken place between Vice President Biden and Mr. Pozharskyi. Mr. Biden has denied such a meeting took place. The Senate Homeland Security Committee, led by Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) is “in the process of validating the information,” as Senator Johnson told the Wall Street Journal. As well, Twitter locked the personal account of White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, because she had linked to the Post’s story.

 

The excuse given by Twitter, with more than a whiff of hypocrisy, was that the story the New York Post published was based on private information about another individual without permission. Twitter had no problem publishing the New York Times leaked (or hacked) tax returns of President Trump, despite no permission. Nor did Twitter or Facebook ever “fact-check” the Trump-Russian collusion story, which went on for three years, and turned out to be fake. One would think that news about Mr. Biden and his family, just as news about Mr. Trump and his family, would be in the public domain. After all, both men are running for President. Why are conservatives not offered the same latitude as progressives? One answer might lie in relations between big tech and the Biden campaign. At least three individuals who have ties to Silicon Valley (and the Obama administration) sit on the Biden campaign committee: Avril Haines who worked for the data mining company Palantir; Antony Blinken, a co-founder and lobbyist for WestExec, where he acted as a go-between between the Department of Defense and Silicon Valley companies like Google; and Cynthia Hogan, former vice president for public policy and government affairs at Apple. 

 

Nevertheless, to keep the public in the dark regarding news of political candidates is censorship. There are only two reasons for suppressing information: one, you don’t trust the public with the data, or, two, you think the public is imbecilic. Fact checking is legitimate, but when “fact checking” means canceling facts or opinions that are at odds with a preferred narrative, we approach the realm of George Orwell’s “Thought Police.” If “big tech” governs what we write or say, what will be the fate of minority opinions? Facebook and Twitter, as Michael Dougherty wrote in National Review are “the most powerful media companies on earth.” Voters have a right to know if, as Vice President, Mr. Biden paved the way for his son Hunter to reap millions of dollars from Ukraine, China and Russia. Is it not possible that such information could be used to blackmail Mr. Biden should he be elected President? As the Wall Street Journal opined on Friday in their lead editorial, “…a free society cannot survive if its people are not committed to it…”  

 

Throughout American history slanted news has been a constant, but with 24-hour news and ubiquitous internet connection, it is important we understand the biases of those we read and to whom we listen. In terms of our rights to know, the risk we face is not a dearth of information but a surfeit of propaganda pretending to be news. We should all listen, watch and read skeptically. It is when we take as gospel the eloquent words on the page or believe without questioning the mellifluous voices on TV, we are likely to be snookered. Arthur Hays Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times from 1935 to 1961, once wrote: “Freedom of the press, or, to be more precise, the benefit of freedom of the press, belongs to everyone – to the citizens as well as the publisher…The crux is not the publisher’s ‘freedom to print’; it is rather the citizen’s ‘right to know’”  If only his heirs felt the same! Unfortunately, opinions on the frontpage of today’s New York Times masquerade as news. And we now have tech executives determining what and what not we read and see. With the left dominating the media, the power they have is overwhelming. When they and politicians march to the same drummer we have cause for alarm, reminding one of Mussolini’s description of fascism: “All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” 

 

A democracy cannot survive without an informed citizenry. Newspapers, radio and television were our sole source of information through the 1980s. The internet changed that. Daily newspaper circulation in 2018 was 28.6 million, down 55% from a peak in 1984 of 63.3 million. In contrast, 87 million people follow President Trump on Twitter. The three broadcast stations and the three main cable networks have a combined evening news audience of about eighteen million. Most people get their news in ways unknown to my parents’ generation. Statista claims there are 275 million smart phones in the U.S. There are about 225 million Americans with Facebook accounts and 48 million with Twitter accounts[1]. A 2019 Pew Research study suggested 43% of Americans get news through Facebook, 21% from YouTube and 12% from Twitter. The power a small number of tech companies have over the dissemination of news is astonishing, not to mention the influence they have on behavior. When they, in concert, favor one candidate or one political Party, we risk becoming a one-Party nation. The Founders created a republic, not a democracy, for the reason they wanted to ensure minority rights were protected.

 

It is disturbing to a commentator like me, with a small following of a couple of thousand, to be harassed if even in a minor way, because of what it says about our society and culture. I don’t expect everyone to agree with me, but I do hope everyone agrees that I have a right to my opinions. “Our liberty,” said Thomas Jefferson, “depends on freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited, without being lost.” Whenever and wherever suppression of the news appears, it should be shouted down. The public has a right to know.