"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!

"Wokeness - An American Cultural Revolution?"

                                                                     Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Wokeness – An American Cultural Revolution?”

August 9, 2020

 

“The problem with wokeness is that it doesn’t inspire action; it freezes it. To be woke is first

 and foremost to put yourself on display. To make a problem seem massively intractable

 is to inspire separation – building a wall between you and the problem – not a solution.”

                                                                                                            David Brooks

                                                                                                            New York Times

                                                                                                            June 7, 2018

 

It may seem hyperbolic and overly provocative to refer to the “wokeness” that has permeated our society as a cultural revolution; for it brings to mind China’s Cultural Revolution that lasted ten years and caused, perhaps, twenty million lives. On the other hand, it may prove to be longer lasting but less deadly, more like the Romanticists of the 19^th Century, who questioned the intellectual foundations of Enlightenment-derived, reason-based western culture. Like then, todays “woke” have abandoned liberalism and objective truth for narratives and stories based on the belief we live in a Marxian world of oppressors and oppressed.

 

Wokeness: noun, a state of being aware, especially of social problems such as racism and inequality. (Definition provided by the Cambridge English Dictionary.) That definition sounds harmless. We should all be concerned about social problems, helping the needy, playing fair, being respectful and applying the Golden Rule. But wokeness steps across the line. It takes its ideology from “critical theory,” a social philosophy that stems from Karl Marx and the 1930s Frankfurt School. Critical theory offers social justice in place of real justice. It challenges traditional power centers; though it does not permit challenges to its own structure. To be woke, in this sense, is to be awake to the concept that what matters is diversity of identities, not ideas – that, for example, all blacks, all gays, all women should express ideas based on identity, not individual thought. Individual opinions are seen as oppressive. Black conservatives are anomalous, in that it is claimed they support white oppression. (I suspect, however, if one asked Condoleezza Rice, Thomas Sowell, Alveda King, Clarence Thomas, Candace Owens, Tim Scott or scores of other Black conservatives if that were true, the accusation would be denied.)

 

Wokeness divides people into victims and victimizers. Black failure, therefore, is due to “systemic” racism, not individual shortcomings. Qualities that lead to success, such as hard work and two-parent households, are said to be examples of a white-dominant culture, not universal truths. Wokeness is a philosophy of denial, in that it shuns individual accomplishments and failures. It is, in fact, a reactionary philosophy. Andrew Sullivan of The Weekly Dish recently described it: “liberalism [classical] can include critical theory as one view of the world worth interrogating. But critical theory cannot include liberalism, because it views liberalism as a mode of white supremacy that acts against the imperative of social and racial justice.” Those who claim “wokeness” say their decisions are based on science, but when facts do not accord to prescribed narratives they are not open to disagreement or debate. For example, in the climate wars, they accuse opponents of ignoring science, yet it is they who shun debate. These same tactics have been resurrected during the current pandemic. “Unfettered dialogue isn’t a liberal-arts luxury,” wrote Vivek Ramaswamy in last Thursday’s Wall Street Journal; “it is a necessity for science and democracy.”

 

What we are witnessing, while discomfiting, is not new. As mentioned above, it has ancestral roots in 19^th Century Romanticism, which was, in part, a backlash against the Enlightenment – against reason, in favor of mysticism and emotion. As well, in his autobiographical book, A Personal Odyssey, Thomas Sowell foresaw in 1969 what we see today: “Where there is little attention paid to reasoned arguments about legitimate problems and a total capitulation to force, ‘moderate’ or ‘rational’ leadership cannot deliver the results that more uninhibited leadership can deliver.” What is new (and scary) is the rapidity with which corporate America, professional sports, Hollywood, the media, the entertainment industries, unions and politicians from both political parties, in a desire to be seen as woke, have jumped on board this illiberal bandwagon.

 

There is hypocrisy in this virtue signaling. Keep in mind, Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors described herself as a “trained Marxist.” In their statement of belief, they say they are “self-reflexive and do the work to dismantle cisgender privilege” and “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure.” Yet our lives have improved because of capitalism, and most of us who are white never realized that being cisgender or being raised in a traditional two-parent family was white privilege. Goldman Sachs, in refusing to take public any company that does not have at least one minority board member, sets itself as the sole arbiter as to who counts as diverse. Nike claims wokeness, yet they employ 600 or so Uighurs working in forced labor camps in China.

 

F. Scott Fitzgerald once said that the test of a first-rate intelligence “is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time.” For example, slavery was a sin of American history, yet it is also true that the 13^th Amendment, ratified on December 6, 1865, abolished “slavery and involuntary servitude.” Over 700,000 Americans died in the Civil War to end slavery. Jim Crow laws ended with the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965 and anti-miscegenation laws in the U.S. have been repealed for over fifty years. Public approval of interracial marriage rose from 5% in the 1950s to 80% in the 2000s. Mixed-race marriages were less than one percent of all marriages in 1960; today they represent over 15 percent. We may have further to go, but progress has been made. Being woke ignores such advances – that no matter historical facts, their claim is we remain a systemically racist nation. Being woke means not allowing opposing ideas. It is a pessimistic view of the future. In the same op-ed quoted in the rubric, David Brooks wrote: “…it’s a blunt fact that most great social reforms have happened in moments of optimism, not moments of pessimism, in moments of encouraging progress, not in moments of perceived threat.”

 

The most striking thing about “wokeness” is how illiberal it is. In its essence, it is Marxist. Like Black Lives Matter, it sets one group of people against another, and it tolerates the violence of Antifa. It requires followers to hew to a preordained narrative, spouting Orwellian truths. It subscribes to “cancel culture,” removing from the historical record that which is not supportive of its aims. It provides the false security of “safe places” and denies politically incorrect speech, for fear that free speech might inspire the curiosity of the inquisitive. It arose in universities and now, within a frightening short time, is consuming our lives, in a bedlam of virtue signaling, letting science and universal truths sink into the abyss of a new dark age. Is this a true cultural revolution? Where will it lead us? Will democracy withstand it? How will it end?

 

 

 

 

 

"A Strategic Mistake?"

Sydney M. Williams

30 Bokum Road – Apartment 314

Essex, CT 06426

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Thought of the Day

“A Strategic Mistake?”

February 27, 2020

“Hope is not a strategy.”

                                                                                    Attributed to Vince Lombardi (1913-1970)

The strategic mistake to which I refer was the one made by Michael Bloomberg to enter the Democrat primary for President, rather than to run as an independent. At least, that is my belief. The error was understandable in that no third-party candidate has won the Presidency, since the current two parties began competing in 1860. But, to use those over-worked and dangerous words, this time is different. The incumbent is a man who has never received more than 50% approval, despite the fact that the economy and employment are doing well. At the same time, Democrats have moved decidedly leftward, leaving their center undefended.

In his recently published book, A Time to Build, Yuval Levin wrote, “…[political] parties have been de-professionalized, cannot control their own internal processes, and are increasingly exposed to the power and pressure of political celebrity culture.” What he wrote is visible to anyone with eyes to see. The 2016 presidential election changed the Republican Party. The old way of doing things no longer applied. The 2018 midterm elections, which brought Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and Ilhan Omar (D-MI) to the House, changed the Democrat Party, swinging it far to the left. Optimism for the future was replaced with hatred of the past. In both cases, the change reflects the fact that elections have become less about policy and enacting bi-partisan legislation, and more about platforms for radical ideas. Traditional party members, on both sides of the aisle, have become as isolated from real concerns of the people, as they are distanced from the victorious radical newbies who joined their party. In part, this has to do with the mathematical fact that our national legislature is less representative of the people than it once was. In 1800, the House of Representatives consisted of 106 members; in 2020, there were 435 House members. So, while the overall population has grown by a factor of 72, the number of Representatives has increased by just over four times. In other words, legislators are less representative – in sheer numbers – than they were two hundred and twenty years ago. But these changes also reflect a cultural shift that demeans family, history and tradition. Both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have taken advantage of the fact that many voters feel that politics as usual no longer applies.

Mr. Bloomberg is a different breed of cat. After a successful career on Wall Street and then founding an enormously successful, eponymous firm that services Wall Street and the world, he began his mayoralty at a difficult time, January 1, 2002. The attack on 9/11 was less than four months in the past. The stock market, which had peaked in March of 2000, would have another year of decline before finding bottom. He weathered the credit collapse of 2008 and a greatly altered financial industry, a mainstay of employment in the City. Despite some nanny-like instincts, like proposing a ban on sweetened drinks of more than 16 ounces and a grandiloquent decision to seek an unprecedented third term, Michael Bloomberg was a successful mayor of New York. The City’s GDP rose about 25% during his tenure, from approximately $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion. He turned a $4.7 billion deficit into a $2.4 billion surplus. New York City’s population declined somewhat after 9/11, but by 2012 was above where it had been when he was sworn in as mayor. Crime rates, which had already fallen in the 1990s, declined further during his tenure: Major felonies were down 40% and murder rates dropped 35% during his tenure. High school graduation rates increased. Mr. Bloomberg, during those years, was more pragmatic than ideological.

His pragmatism could be seen in his party affiliation when he first ran for mayor. Instead of competing in the Democrat primary, he switched parties and ran as a Republican. As Mayor, he expanded the “Stop, Question and Frisk” policy begun by his predecessor Rudy Giuliano. As a consequence, streets were safe and crime rates continued down. He took on the teachers’ unions, especially the United Federation of Teachers, in ending social promotion for students, instituting merit pay for teachers, closing low performing schools, opening more, smaller ones and championing charter schools. He confronted labor unions when policies were harmful to the city’s economy. All of these actions are now an anathema to a Democrat Party that has lurched far to the left; so, he has apologized.

Instead of standing by his record of success, Mr. Bloomberg joined the chorus of leftist progressivism, donning a uniform that ill fits and is unsuitable to a majority of Americans. Theirs is a platform that promotes redistribution over wealth creation. In a column last December, titled, “I Was Once a Socialist. That Changed.”, David Brooks wrote: “Capitalism is really good at doing the one thing socialism is really bad at: creating a learning process to help people figure stuff out.” Capitalism creates a learning process in which the participants – a country’s millions of citizens – make even more millions of decisions every day. Together, we are the system. More than a billion people have been lifted from extreme poverty in the last forty years thanks to capitalism. Socialism, on the other hand, impoverishes the people, while enriching a country’s small band of political leaders. In the best cases, Socialism has had to be modified, to become more capitalist, as those in Scandinavia have discovered. In the worst cases, like Cuba and Venezuela, it leads to tyranny. There is no question about Mr. Bloomberg’s capitalist leanings, but why won’t he defend the system, as Nikki Haley did so well in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed?    Is it because of the rise of political correctness, which has even infected the Business Roundtable who now call for “stake-holder” capitalism? Without profits, companies fail, owners suffer. But, so do employees who lose their jobs, suppliers who lose business and the communities in which they operate forego the benefits of a prosperous business. The message from a moderate Democrat who wants to look after the working poor and the disadvantaged, but who recognizes that capitalism is critical to our country’s survivability, is the one Michael Bloomberg should have run on. He is his own best example.

The opportunity he had, in my opinion, was not to get into the mudhole with myriad Democrat contenders, but to run as a third-party candidate. It is true that third-party candidates have not had success in our two-party system, at least at the top of the ticket. The last to attempt was Ross Perot in 1992. But this year is different, if I may again use those dangerous words. In 1992, George H.W. Bush was running for re-election against a moderate Democrat, the former Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton. Voters felt safe with either man. This year, Democrats have moved far to the left, and the incumbent, Donald Trump, is a polarizing figure whose poll numbers, while now at their highest, have never been above fifty percent. Should Mr. Bloomberg have decided to run on his success as Mayor of New York – and avoided the political correctness that is swamping the Democrat Party – he might well have become the 46^th President of the United States. He would have attracted Republicans who like Mr. Trump’s policies but who are uncomfortable with his character, as well as Democrats who realize that their Party has spun far away from the mainstream.

It could be that I am mistaken (it has happened before!), and that Mr. Bloomberg is motivated by principle, not power. But I doubt it. The Office of the President of the United States is the most powerful in the world, so serves as a magnet. China and India have more people. Russia has more nuclear weapons. But when one lists nations by wealth, GDP, defense spending or simply the most desirable destination for immigrants, the United States stands alone. Further, the Presidency of the United States has been strengthened over recent years by a Congress that has abdicated much of its responsibility to the Executive and Judicial branches, choosing to walk away from contentious issues like abortion, gun laws and immigration. The Presidency of the United States is the ultimate crown of the politically ambitious, and there are few people more ambitious than Michael Bloomberg.

"Dairylandia" by Steve Hannah

Sydney M. Williams

swtotd.blogspot.com

Burrowing into Books

“Dairylandia” by Steve Hannah

November 5, 2019

“Don’t be boring”

                                                                                    Quoting Emma Washa’s rule #2 for writing well      

                                                                                    Dairylandia by Steve Hannah

About forty years ago, Steve Hannah transplanted himself from the “Garden State” that is New Jersey (and his home state) to the “Garden of Eden,” which is Wisconsin and the home of his wife. It is a state where humans outnumber cows, but not by a lot. The state has an estimated 8,000 dairy farms – more than any other state – with the average cow providing 7.7 gallons of milk every day, or roughly fifty times my daily consumption. For seventy-five years the motto “The Dairy State” has adorned license plates. There have been recent attempts to remove the slogan, which I hope will be countered with a bull-headed response.

Steve Hannah, who I count as a friend as he generously wrote blurbs for two of my books (One Man’s Family and Notes from Old Lyme), has had the type of career that makes one envious. He was a reporter, editor, syndicated columnist and for ten years the CEO of The Onion, “America’s finest news source.” Dairylandia is a collection of thirty-odd essays, mostly taken from his column, “State of Mind,” and now brought up to date. They cover all aspects of his adopted state, from an embarrassing meeting with President Jerry Ford to the approximate 20,000 deer-car crashes a year. They incorporate humor, sensitivity, insight and love for the people and the state.

As one would expect from anyone associated with The Onion, humor plays an important – but not exclusive – role. A column written in 2011 about his skidding across “a veritable legion of frogs making a forced march” from one side of the road to the other prompted a reader to compare that incursion to a 1952 “astounding invasion of frogs,” when an estimated 175 million frogs made their appearance. In a follow-up column, he interviewed a man named Art Gering who said he used to “frog” – a word Steve Hannah tells us he had never before seen used as a verb. (Nor had I). Mr. Hannah can be self-effacing, as he describes an interview between a young, long-haired and bearded reporter and a no nonsense, middle-aged, sunburnt farmer on a John Deere tractor. The farmer got the best of the interview, so the young Mr. Hannah slunk back to his car. He is poignant in describing a retired couple whose dream was to travel every U.S., state, county and town highway in Wisconsin – totaling 1.1 million miles, an impossible task. When he asks if they “ever dwell on things and places they may never see,” he quotes Cathryn’s response: “To tell you the truth, I’m not all that eager to finish Iowa County. I’m afraid it will end too soon.” They never did make it but were never disappointed.

In an essay on Jeffrey Dahmer (“The Banality of Evil”) – an essay whose odd title Mr. Hannah explains. I put off reading this one until I had finished the rest of the book, as I found the subject distasteful. But Mr. Hannah writes from the perspective of the defense lawyer, whose sole purpose was to honor and respect the victims, while explaining Dahmer’s mental derangement and the role loneliness might have played. Even Dahmer deserved a defense.

Steve Hannah tells us that one of the catalysts that got him to write the book was reading David Brooks’ book The Road to Character. While David Brooks focused on the values of honesty, integrity, modesty and courage of well-known historical figures, like Dwight Eisenhower, George C. Marshall, Frances Perkins and Saint Augustine, he (Hannah) focused on the same characteristics in not-well-known people of Wisconsin. These were people who had “character,” and who manifested it “not on the world’s great political and social stages but rather quietly around home.” These are people the reader will recognize because we see them every day – in shops, directing traffic, teaching school. In doing so, and in my opinion, he has written a better book than Mr. Brooks’. He selects, from among several, a poet, a Vietnamese refuge and his son’s first-grade teacher.

Having spent a lifetime with words, Steve Hannah knows good writing. In the essay on Emma Washa and her rules for writing, he writes of Harold Evans book Do I Make Myself Clear, “a book about why good writing matters in a world where Donald Trump’s tweets are considered skilled communication.” While I would have used “effective” rather than “skilled,” I have long admired Harold Evans and his book. I keep a copy within easy reach. Number seven of his ten shortcuts to making yourself clear is don’t be a bore.

One doesn’t have to be from Wisconsin to enjoy this book. Mr. Hannah adheres to Mr. Evans rules. He writes clearly and concisely. He uses humor where appropriate and carries the reader along effortlessly. He entertains as he informs. He reveres his subjects – the people of the Badger State. The reader finishes with good feelings about Wisconsin and its people, and, in fact, about the good folks that inhabit the heartland of our country. As he reminds us, we don’t have to look far to find interesting and decent people.

"Murder in the U.S.A."

Sydney M. Williams

swtotd.blogspot.com

Thought of the Day

“Murder in the U.S.A.”

August 12, 2019

“Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind…”

                                                                                    John Donne

                                                                                    “No Man is an Island”

Devotions from Emergent Occasions, 1624

New Hampshire’s White Mountains, with their rugged, natural beauty and the sense of peace that whispers through the Pines, Hemlocks and Spruce that comprise their forests, seemed a long distance from the mass murders in El Paso and Dayton, as well as the never-ending killing of – mostly – young, Black, inner-city males. But this is a big country and it holds people of every ethnicity, nationality and religion – most all who are good, but a few who are evil. When united, we are morally strong; when divided we are vulnerable. 

What unites us is the idea of America. At our core, we love what America represents – the freedom it gives us and the opportunities it provides. Among our freedoms are those that allow us to speak up when we disagree, to protest policies that are at odds with ours. We can, in fact, insult our President. It is this personal freedom and the opportunities for social and economic advancement that attract so many to our shores.

What divides us has been the rise of extremism, driven by a sense of being ignored and by politicians who find compartmentalization of the electorate – by gender, race, religion and sexual orientation – politically opportunistic. The result is a culture that promotes identity politics and victimization; hatred is their progeny. In an August 6 op-ed for the New York Times, David Brooks wrote: “The struggle between pluralism and anti-pluralism is one of the great death struggles of our time, and it is being fought on every front.” What he wrote I believe to be true, but he did not connect anti-pluralism with politics of identity. Pluralism is preferred by those who believe in integration, not just of race, gender and religion but of ideas. It was what drove Martin Luther King, while Anti-pluralism is a consequence of those who thrive on politics of identity – be it white nationalism, Antifa, BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo, LGBTQ, or neo-Nazis. These lead to politics of hate and, thence, to acts of terror. We would be wise to heed David Brooks’ call for pluralism. After all, it is the motto on the Great Seal of the United States – e Pluribus Unum.

Politics, it has been said, is a blood sport. This is particularly true during elections, a cycle that today never ceases. Extremism did not originate with the election of 2016. “Never let a serious crisis go to waste,” said Rahm Emanuel, President Obama’s Chief of Staff in 2009.  Extremism did not originate with President Obama either. Consider how mocked was George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan and how sullied was Bill Clinton. Time white-washes some of the vitriol, but it was there. Politicians claim to abhor the consequence of this hatred, but they fail to take responsibility for the role they have played in its genesis. In dividing us, they have found benefit in addressing specific concerns for specific groups, but they have failed to foresee the unintended consequences of pushing people into segregated compartments. We have become, with their help – and abetted by the media – divided. We are like the Jets and the Sharks in “West Side Story.” We promote victimhood and then wonder at its deadly consequence. 

Democrat candidates were quick to blame President Trump for the murders in El Paso, for his alleged condoning of white nationalists, but were more subdued regarding the Dayton shooter Connor Betts and his support for Elizabeth Warren. The El Paso shooter, Patrick Crusius, has admitted to targeting Mexican immigrants. And, until this past week, President Trump had not singled out white nationalists as carriers of hate, but neither had Democrats condemned Antifa or those in the entertainment world who have called for Mr. Trump’s assassination. The hatred for President Trump exceeds anything our history offers. It is a hatred that knows no bounds. It is not limited to the Left. It has blurred the vision of publications like the National Reviewand individuals like George Will. When President Trump first spoke after the tragedies, he called for unity, but has been given no credit. The headline in the first edition of the New York Timesthe next day read: “Trump Urges Unity vs. Racism.” But that was too much for biased readers. The headline over the same story in the second edition read: “Assailing Hate but not Guns.” In their sanctimonious hypocrisy, the media enflames the division. In an editorial on the causes of the tragedies in El Paso and Dayton, the Times referred to “white nationalists” fourteen times. They also mentioned “white supremacy” and “white extremists.” To ensure their opinion was not muddied, they added: “white nationalism has attained new mainstream legitimacy during Mr. Trump’s time in office.”

There was no mention in the Times editorial of the role played by mental health, identity politics, or the part played by a lack of moral teachings in families and in schools. No mention was made of politicians who have adopted political correctness as their mantra and who bow to union leaders, in a mutually symbiotic relationship. The editorial was not balanced with discussion of violent left-wing extremists like Antifa. There was no mention of those in the entertainment world who have publicly called for Mr. Trump’s assassination. All blame lay on the President and those who support him. While extremist talk is common in elections, we have reached a point that would be unrecognizable to prior generations. Both Patrick Crusius and Connor Betis should have been red-flagged, by parents, teachers and society.

Members of both parties must own up to and condemn extremists in their parties. In a passage attributable to Aristotle, it has been said we cannot change human nature, so a successful governing body must include concepts of virtue and compromise. We are a myriad people, representing different religions and races. We are conservatives and progressives, extremists and moderates. We come from different socio and economic backgrounds. We are not equal, nor can we ever be. Some of us are athletes, others are intellectuals. We range the spectrum in terms of abilities and aspirations. We are men, women, tall, short, heavy and thin. We are individuals, yet we are part of the greatest country the world has ever known. We are blessed, but only if we recognize the redeeming necessity of compromise. Out of many, one. Pluralism, as David Brooks reminded us, had better be our future. 

While mass shootings command our attention, thousands more get gunned down on city streets, with cities like St. Louis and Baltimore leading the way in urban murders. We need to talk about gun ownership, especially the ownership of assault weapons, while recognizing that restrictive gun laws do not prevent gun violence, as can be seen in cities like Hartford, CT. Nevertheless, we need to discuss universal gun registration and intelligent, thorough background checks. We need to do something about the danger represented by extremists, whether on the right like white nationalists or on the left like Antifa. We need to understand the role played by mental health and to red-flag those who might be at risk. We need to address the anti-social consequences of violence in movies and video games. We need to celebrate marriage and reflect on the cultural downside of single-parent families, a decline in church attendance and an abandonment of community memberships, and the loss of virtue mentioned by Aristotle. We need to dowse the heated rhetoric, whether coming from the President’s Tweets, political candidates or members of the media and entertainment communities, recognizing that one unintended consequence of social media is that what you say, do or write will follow you the rest of your days. We need to think of the damage done to the goal of pluralism by identity politics, and the hatred it spawns. We must regain the ability to laugh at ourselves. We are all, conservatives and progressives alike, as John Donne’s words remind us, “involved in mankind.” Every death affects us.

This essay was completed back in Essex, Connecticut, along the estuary of the Connecticut River. On Saturday, following the Connecticut River south from Brattleboro, Vermont, I thought of it as a metaphor for our nation. A river reflects the woods, fields, farms, towns and cities through which it passes.  It carries myriad objects, natural and man-made; and I thought of how man can pollute it, but also of how it provides enjoyment, employment and enriches and cleanses the land through which it and its tributaries pass. Diversity, like that in the river, is our strength. United we rise. Divided we fall.