"Is Political Centrism Possible?"

 The cartoon I took from the internet, with the understanding we should be able to laugh at ourselves. Nevertheless, extremism is a serious concern. As Clint Eastwood, at age 94, said in a February 20, 2025 interview, “And when you go far enough to the right you meet the same idiots coming around from the left.” And I would suggest we have more than our share in Washington (and in many state capitals and large cities) today.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Is Political Centrism Possible?”

April 13, 2026

 

“The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground

exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holders lack of rational conviction. 

Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately.”

                                                                                                                                Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)

                                                                                                                                Skeptical Essays, 1928

 

“They told us they wanted a culture that could tolerate disagreement without treating it as heresy.”

                                                                                                                                Katherine Dee (c.1993-)

                                                                                                                                “Exit Strategy”

                                                                                                                                The Spectator World, March 30, 2026

 

In his 1920 poem, “The Second Coming,” William Butler Yeats included lines that have pertinence to our cultural and political lives today:

 

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,...

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.”

 

Recent polls conducted by Gallup and Pew Research suggest that the number of Americans identifying as political moderates has declined, from 43% in 1992 to 34% in 2024. Not surprisingly, Pew Research notes that far-left and far-right voters contribute more money, attend more political rallies, and have higher turnout rates at elections than their more moderate brethren. In both parties, social media users with moderate views are reluctant to post about political and cultural issues. In 1992, James Carville, strategist for Bill Clinton, coined the phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid!” It helped Mr. Clinton win the election. In 2026, the phrase could be: “It’s the extremists, stupid!” In this environment it is fair to ask: Can the center hold?

 

Ironically, this is happening at a time when more Americans have been doing better financially than at any time in history. In a recent survey conducted by the American Enterprise Institute, reported on by Aimee Picchi of CBS six days ago, the “core” middle class no longer represents the largest group of Americans. Now, for the first time, that honor belongs to the upper-middle class. Yes, there are more people classified as “rich” – 3.7% in 2024, versus 0.3% in 1979 – but those categorized as “poor or near poor” have shrunk from 29.7% to 18.7%. Are things perfect? Of course not, but the trend is in the right direction.

 

Yet extremists continue to play to emotions. Extremism is not a new phenomenon that one can blame on Donald Trump and J.D. Vance or Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. It has been gestating for years. In an article from last October, Johanna Dunaway of Syracuse University’s Institute for Democracy, Journalism and Citizenship, and who sees Americans as more divided today than at any time since the Civil War, wrote: “Much of the polarization that escalated in recent decades was largely driven by misperceptions people have about ordinary partisans on the other side – the everyday people in your neighborhood or office who happen to support the other party.”  She was writing of people like us, Nixon’s “silent majority,” or Trump’s “forgotten man and woman.” Social media has aggravated the situation. While instant communication has benefits, one of its drawbacks is that people react; they don’t think. 

 

Trump-hatred plays a role. Like Andrew Jackson who became President 197 years ago, Mr. Trump elicits emotional responses far in excess of any rational policy differences. Iran is a perfect example. For forty-seven years the Country has been a theocracy run by religious fanatics. Unlike Russia or China, whose governments forbid freedom but whose leaders are conscious of the risks of nuclear annihilation, Iran’s leaders would be unafraid of unleashing a nuclear holocaust, as they seek paths to Paradise, in shahada (martyrdom). Preventing Iran from getting the bomb was (and is) in the interest of all mankind. Yet Presidents from both parties have been ineffective in stopping them, that is until Mr. Trump. Now their nuclear capabilities have been curtailed and most of their ICBMs obliterated, thanks to the President and to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Yet Iran retains the ability to deprive the world of badly needed fossil fuels and fertilizers. The Strait of Hormuz lies in international waters. It is not a toll booth. It needs to be open for trade. 

 

Yet Democrats in the House and Senate will not support any initiative begun by President Trump, no matter whether to do so would be good for us and the free world. For example, listening to Senator Chuck Schumer belittle the President, one could easily conclude that he would prefer to see Mr. Trump humiliated than for the U.S. and Israel to defeat Iran and bring peace to the Middle East.

 

And mainstream media has been no better. Their biases, along with their sanctimonious idiocy, know no bounds. CNN anchor Dana Bash, sounding like Orwell’s O’Brien in 1984, recently said: “Objective reporting now, rightly so, means explaining what someone says when its false or when it’s not right or when it’s misleading.” I understand that Mr. Trump can be coarse and rude to both friend and foe. He is not the leader I would prefer, but no other President has taken on Iran’s leaders. He speaks to them in language they understand. The United States is stronger when its people are not torn apart by self-serving politicians and media-types, but the United States and the West will be safer with Iran neutered. 

 

While I cast more blame on Democrats for this state of affairs, populist politicians in both parties, along with their partisan media allies, play to their choirs, offend their political opponents, and leave the public to make sense of their lunacy. A Rachel Maddow or a Tucker Carlson has no interest in persuading the skeptic; their only interest is in playing to their partisan (and perverted) acolytes. 

 

And yet, most people I speak with are reasonable, despite the fact we have fundamental differences in terms of the role government should play. Most appreciate the beauty of our political system and understand why it has lasted so long – the sovereignty of the people, the three independent branches of government, and the rules of laws that are constructed by Congress through debate. 

 

Is political centrism possible? Perhaps, though it seems unlikely in the near term. Nevertheless, we should keep in mind the wisdom expressed by Dwight Eisenhower at a press conference on November 17, 1963: “The middle of the road is all of the usable surface. The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.” The success of Artemis II is reason to celebrate a unified American. Can we at least do that?

"Integrity"

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Integrity”

May 1, 2023

 

“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.”

                                                                                                                                Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

                                                                                                                                “Self-Reliance”

                                                                                                                                Essays: First Series, 1841

 

This essay was prompted by former deputy director of the CIA (2010-2013) Michael Morrell’s interview with House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) and House Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner (R-OH). In that interview Morell said he had phoned Antony Blinken in October 2020 about the Hunter Biden laptop story, which had appeared in the New York Post on October 14, 2020. A consequence of that call was that a few days before the 2020 election fifty-one former intelligence officers signed a public letter (a letter prepared by Morrell), which claimed that the Hunter Biden laptop story had all the classic earmarks of a Russian disinformation operation. As those officials have since acknowledged, the letter was written without any evidence of Russian involvement; yet those intelligence officers chose to propagate a false story to help Presidential candidate Joe Biden. Reporters from mainstream media were provided an out from having to follow up on the Hunter Biden laptop story. Integrity, where art thou? 

 

Why, I wondered, would someone with Antony Blinken’s pedigree stoop to such a dirty trick?  At the time he was a senior advisor to the Biden campaign, with hopes of a position in a Biden administration. And why would fifty-one former intelligence officers do something that may have affected the outcome of a Presidential election? Is integrity as rare among Washington’s bureaucracy as it is among elected officials?

 

When I first thought of Mr. Blinken, a man raised in privilege – educated at the Dalton School, École Jeannine Manuel, Harvard, and Columbia – abetting the manipulation of an election, my mind went to Eugene Field’s nursery rhyme, “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod,” only with names and words changed:

 

Biden, Blinken, and Harris

Sailed off in the Ship of State;

Sailed onward toward Utopia,

On a sea of deceit.

And what is your goal, voters did ask?

We have come for the power and glory,

And the gold that will follow,

Said Biden, Blinken, and Harris.

 

Politics and honesty have never mixed. One is reminded of Diogenes searching for an honest man. In his 1880 book, A Tramp Abroad (based on a trip to Southern Europe) Mark Twain wrote: “An honest man in politics shines more than he would elsewhere.” Twenty-six years later, Ambrose Bierce published The Devil’s Dictionary. In it he defined politics: “n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.” Written in humor but highlighting a truism.

 

Most politicians, I fear, will never meet Webster’s definition of integrity: “The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles.” This is not to say that there are no honest politicians, but, as a species, they are endangered. You are more likely to see an ivory-billed woodpecker out your window than an honest politician on Pennsylvania Avenue. They fabricate, dissemble, and tell half-truths. Elected politicians are accountable to voters, but they evade responsibility for bad decisions. They are masters of illusion and obfuscation. In his taped message announcing his re-election plans, President Biden said he wanted to “finish the job,” a frightening thought. Consider the examples these people set for our children – they lie, blame the other guy, procrastinate, and never take responsibility for bad outcomes. 

 

How will we disengage from this dank and dismal place? Finding honest politicians or government bureaucrats is a dream unlikely to be realized. Extrication may never be possible but if it is, it must lie with the media and education. The former could report facts and leave opinions to editorial pages. The latter could teach students to think independently. A reporter should be interested in uncovering the truth, regardless of where it leads. Will that happen? In today’s polarized environment, doubtful. The better solution – though also a stretch – lies with schools, colleges, and universities where students should be taught to think independently, to study facts, appreciate nuances, and then form and defend their own opinions. Sy Syms used to say, when hawking off-price clothes, “an educated consumer is our best customer.” Similarly, an educated citizen is the best way to keep democracy from collapsing. The most effective response to social media, biased reporting, and hypocritical politicians, is the ability to think for oneself, to read, listen, and to question. That may be wishful thinking, but it is our only hope.

 

Integrity is a personal trait, difficult to practice when society’s emphasis is on conformity; for example, being asked to put one’s signature on a letter that includes a false statement. Employees are warned about using correct pronouns; conservatives are banned from speaking at universities; universities have substituted social justice for merit. Individuals are subjugated to the state, as mandates are issued regarding gasoline-powered cars and as we are told how much electricity must come from renewable sources. Thrift is penalized; under Fannie Mae’s and Freddy Mac’s new rules, those with higher credit scores will be charged higher interest rates, so that people with lower scores can secure mortgages at lower rates – the socialization of credit risk, as The Wall Street Journal put it. Unnecessary government interferences impede free markets; regulations imposed by the Biden administration have had an estimated cost to the economy of over $200 billion, according to the Washington Examiner. Sensitivity readers are employed by publishers to ensure harmful words are eradicated. But perhaps there is hope? At the Time 100 summit last week in New York, Steven Spielberg spoke out against political correctness in the film industry: “No film should be revised based on the lenses we now are either voluntarily or being forced to peer through.” 

 

Technology is changing our lives, with so many “cultural and political earthquakes testing the cohesion of our society,” as Walter Russell Mead recently wrote in Tablet Magazine, that we need the guidance which fundamental principles provide. Integrity is one of those virtues, along with tolerance, fortitude, diligence, charity, humility, and others. In Emerson’s essay, from which the rubric above was taken, he wrote of the “need for each individual to avoid uniformity and false consistency and follow his own instincts and ideas.” In Hamlet, Polonius offered similar advice to his son Laertes: “To thine own self be true.”

 

Eisenhower is alleged to have once said: “The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity.” It is a characteristic missing in almost all public figures, in the media, large corporations, banks and, perhaps most damaging, in schools, colleges and universities. Without principles to guide us, darkness prevails.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“The Election – A Few More Things to Consider”

October 30, 2020

 

“Extreme intolerance has now replaced the liberal notion of 

negotiated compromise that is the sine quo non of democracy.”

                                                                                                                                Andrew A. Michta

                                                                                                                                Dean, College of International Studies

                                                                                                                                George C. Marshall European Center

                                                                                                                                Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

                                                                                                                                Op-ed, Wall Street Journal, 10-27-20

 

The election will be over in four days, though the results may not be known for a while. This is written to raise questions, which give credence to the importance of this election.

 

The strongest case for Joe Biden is that he will (or so he claims) return the country to normalcy – whatever that is – and bring civility back to the White House. God knows, today’s politics do not appear normal and even Mr. Trump’s most ardent supporters would hesitate to affix the adjective “civil” when describing the 45^th President. Calling Vice President Biden “sleepy Joe,” and referring to the Speaker of the House as “crazy Nancy” would not endear Mr. Trump to Emily Post. But is he alone? Was it polite for Mr. Biden to tell the black radio host Charlamagne, “If you have a problem figuring out if you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black!”? Was it gracious for the Speaker to tear up the President’s State of the Union speech on live TV? Civility is absent in Washington. Should that be blamed on Trump or do its roots extend further back? Could anyone describe Joe Biden’s behavior as civil, when as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the 1980s, he interrogated Robert Bork, claiming his America was “…a land where women are forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors…” or what about his “high-tech lynching” of Clarence Thomas? Was Senate Majority leader Harry Reid deferential (or even wise) to eliminate the filibuster, as it applied to judicial appointments, in November 2013? A decision regretted four years later. 

 

And what is normal behavior? Is it normal to not acknowledge the results of an election, as numerous politicians did in joining the Trump “resistance” in January 2017? Have the looting, riots and killings in cities across the nation, in response to the horrific death of George Lloyd at the hands of a policeman, been normal? Was the refusal to accept the findings of the Mueller investigation, after three years and the expenditure of thirty to forty million taxpayer dollars normal? Was it normal for a sitting U.S. Vice President to allow his son to trade on his name with foreign nationals? Was it normal for the nation’s intelligence agencies to try to sabotage a duly elected President? Was it normal for the New York Times’ writer-at-large, Jim Rutenberg to admit, as he did in August 2016, that they (the Times) could not be “objective” when covering Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump?  Would it be normal, should Democrats take the Senate and the Presidency, to then try to “pack” the Supreme Court and/or attempt to make Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. states? 

 

There are other points to consider: Is the nihilism implicit in cancel culture, and which is rampant in our schools and universities, something average Americans want? Do we want the segregation that stems from identity politics? Are we ready to embrace the Socialism of the far Left? Will the New York Times 1619 Project replace the story of our founding in our public schools? And what about Black Lives Matter? Their lives have long mattered, as have all lives. Are the words expressed in our Declaration of Independence and in the Gettysburg Address to be discarded, along with statues of Jefferson and Lincoln that have already been destroyed? Should we ignore the long path toward racial equality over which our nation has traveled, beginning with Lincoln and furthered by Democrat President Harry Truman when he integrated the Armed Forces in July 1948? It received an assist with the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, which stated that separate schools for whites and blacks are unconstitutional and inherently unequal. And it was abetted by Republican President Dwight Eisenhower when he sent the 101^st Airborne to Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957, to integrate the city’s all-white Central High School. Did not the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 help the cause? 

 

Should we not allow inner-city children and their parents to have choice, as do wealthy elites, when it comes to schools, through vouchers or charters? The Country has achieved energy independence for the first time in decades. Do we want to return to dependence on Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia? Is it healthy when three technology companies, from whom 70% of Americans get their news, genuflect to the same political ideology? I don’t pretend to have an answer, but I am sure if the shoe were on the other foot, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi would be up in arms. 

 

And what about the pandemic. In truth, what would Biden have done differently? Mr. Trump was faced with a novel virus, the first of its kind in a hundred years. On January 30, Mr. Trump declared a national public health emergency. On that same day, he barred entry into the U.S. by foreign nationals who had recently visited China, a decision Mr. Biden said was xenophobic. Four weeks later, on February 24^th, Nancy Pelosi visited San Francisco’s China Town: “Come, because precautions have been taken. The city is on top of the situation.” Because of its novelty, the handling of the Virus was experimental, on-the-job training if you will. Operation Warp Speed has been a success. A partnership between components of HHS, CDC, BARDA (Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority) and the DOD and private companies, it was introduced on May 15, its purpose is to accelerate the development of products and services to combat COVID-19, while maintaining protocols of safety and efficacy. Could the overall situation have been handled better? Perhaps. Monday morning quarterbacks can always find something they would have done differently. but the President had to balance the pandemic with the need to keep the economy alive. Now, we look forward to a bright spring, hopefully not a “dark winter.”     

 

With the prospect for peace in the Middle East more viable than ever, should we abandon Jerusalem and return to regional instability?  Should we permit China to resume its practice of stealing American technology, its unfair trade practices and its building of military bases on man-made islands in the South China Sea? Should we permit Iran to develop a nuclear weapon? Should not Europe be made to pay their fair share for defense? Should we remove the newly-erected missile defense system in Poland?

 

This list does not pretend to cover all areas, and everyone will have different things to considers. But they point to the fact that this election is important, in ways beyond the two men running. What kind of a country do we want for our children, grandchildren and all those yet to be born? Tolerance of intolerance, whether on the left or the right, is never the answer. We need debate and discussion – civilly, if possible. Nor can we forget our heritage that dates back to the earliest settlers, and which was forged in a War for Independence and, seventy-four years later, in a Civil War. It is a heritage of which to be proud and that today includes all races, ethnicities and religions – people who came to these shores and this place on sailing ships, steam ships, planes and on foot. They came for a better future. They came to become Americans, not hyphenated Americans. That is something to celebrate.

"Voting"

                                                                      Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Voting”

August 25, 2020

 

“Our American heritage is threatened as much by our own indifference,

as it is by the most unscrupulous office or the most powerful foreign threat.

The future of this Republic is in the hands of the American voter.”

                                                                                                Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969)

                                                                                                New York Herald Tribune Forum

                                                                                                October 24, 1949

 

The ability to vote is a privilege, as well as a responsibility. It should not be denied any eligible individual, nor should it be granted to any non-citizen. Voters should learn all they can about candidates and their policies. To paraphrase Sy Syms’ ads from the 1980s, democracy depends on an educated electorate. “The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all,” said John F. Kennedy.

 

Many of us live in one-party states. A consequence is that if one is registered with the “out” party, there is a tendency to feel one’s vote will not matter, for example a Democrat in Wyoming or a Republican in San Francisco or New York City. Trends in voter registration suggest dissatisfaction with both parties. Twenty years ago, 30% of all voters were registered as Independents (up from 20% in 1960), today that number is 40%, according to a Gallup Poll conducted in May 2020. Nevertheless, not voting should never be one’s decision. “Nobody will ever deprive the American people the right to vote,” said Franklin D. Roosevelt, “except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting.” And we should vote based on knowledge and reason, not inanity and emotion. Voting should be convenient and simple and should protect against fraud.

 

The presence of COVID-19 has many skeptical of being anyplace where crowds gather, including polling stations. One proposed alternative is to send ballots to every registered voter. There are about 153 million registered voters in the U.S. There are approximately 140,000 polling stations. Tracking legal voters is not easy. Every year, approximately 14% of the population – roughly 21 million voters – moves; another 1.5 million die and a similar number attain voting age. Keeping accurate records is a formidable task, which is why, historically, people have gone to their local polling stations to vote. Three states – Colorado, Oregon and Washington – have instituted a system to vote by mail, and their experience lends credibility to the viability of the process, but all three have been doing so for several years, ten years in the case of Colorado and twenty years for Oregon. Nevertheless, to take the process national will not be easy. “But running a vote-by-mail election is surprisingly complicated, and there’s a lot of room for things to go wrong. Validating and counting a deluge of posted ballots in an open and accountable way presents a major challenge, one that only half a dozen states are fully prepared for,” so ran an article in the August 9^th edition of The Oregonian. In close elections, unintentional errors are viewed with mistrust.

 

Absentee ballots are issued on request in every state, in some states for any reason. (When living in Connecticut but spending the work week in New York, I would go to the town hall in Old Lyme on the Friday before Election Day where, after showing ID, I would be given a ballot. I would fill it out, seal it and hand it back to the registrar.) Some commentators equate universal mail-in-voting and absentee voting, but they are different. In the first instance, ballots are sent to last-known addresses; in the second, ballots are sent by request. The mailing of 153 million ballots, having them filled out accurately and then having them returned and secured by election day eve is bound to encounter obstacles – ballots undelivered by the U.S. Postal Service, errors and confusion among voters and fraud, especially by those who “harvest” ballots. “A potential disaster arises not because of any deficiency at the post office but because of unrealistic ballot deadline and validation standards imposed recklessly by the states,” wrote Holman Jenkins in last Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal. Anyone who thinks the process will be easy, free of error and not lead to recriminations is living in fantasy land.

 

This year’s primaries provided trial runs in states new to universal-mail-in ballots. The results should serve as a warning for national elections on November 3: Two months after the election, the outcome of New York’s 12^th Congressional District remained unknown, as did results from Paterson, New Jersey’s Third Ward City Council elections, where 24.3% of ballots were deemed ineligible. Ballots were left in the foyers of apartment buildings, not delivered to eligible citizens. The Center for Voter Information has said that half a million inaccurate applications for ballots were sent to Virginians two weeks ago. In Florida’s 2018 elections, a state Trump won in 2016 by a margin of 1.8%, 1.2% of mailed in ballots were rejected. Margins of victory in Presidential elections have narrowed over the past two decades, making disputes more likely.

 

The greater concern, in my opinion, is early voting, a separate issue, but also a consequence of universal-write-in voting. Voting early does not accord with an informed electorate. Partisans vote straight Party lines, but as Independents have become the largest segment of voters, time favors those who wait until election day. However, politicians love early voting. Each vote cast is one less to seek. People are encouraged to vote early, especially after boisterous rallies, before enthusiasm dims. Forty states, plus the District of Columbia, offer early voting options, some allowing voters to vote forty-five days in advance. Early voting diminishes, not enhances, democracy.

 

Elections should be free and fair. Results should express the intent of voters. Winners should be magnanimous in victory and losers gracious in defeat. There will always be those unable to get to their designated place to vote, thus a need for absentee ballots. Voters should base decisions on thoughtful considerations of the best and latest information available. The media should put aside bias and be alert to fraud. In the same column by Holman Jenkins quoted above, he wrote: “Elections, in fact, are on the list of things that people like to steal and will steal if opportunities are available.” Problems are fewer when voters go to polling stations on election day. That may not be possible in this season of COVID-19 and with government’s Orwellian response; so be ready for a fight that will make hanging chads in the 2000 election seem like a fond memory.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Maurice Chevalier - Reminder of a More Innocent Time?"

Sydney M. Williams

swstotd.blogspot.com

Thought of the Day

“Maurice Chevalier – Reminder of a More Innocent Time?”

August 28, 2019

“Thank Heaven for little girls;

they grow up in the most delightful way.”

                                                                                    “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” 1957

                                                                                    Sung by Maurice Chevalier (1988-1972)

Today’s emphasis on political correctness and identity politics has me thinking of the words above, written by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Lowe in 1957 and sung by Maurice Chevalier, in his(as described in the New York Times) “…magical Gallic accent.” My concern:In a nation with its focus on politically correct bromides for climate, identity and equality rather than collapsing infrastructure, failing public schools, a lack of control at our borders and entitlements we can no longer afford, would today’s PC Police permit such a song? I doubt it. Yet the PC Police are silent regarding the horrid, ill-mannered comments from Bill Maher on the death of David Koch. Why? Despite the incivility of the Left and the yearning from some on the Right to return to a time gone by, there is much about today’s world that is better than it was sixty-odd years ago:Civil and Women’s Rights especially, but also more comfortable lifestyles that stem from innovation and economic capitalism, like the ubiquity of air conditioning, the internet and cell phones. But there are also things that are worse.

The Left would have us conform to what they deem is correct – the substitution by the Business Roundtable, of “stakeholders” for “shareholders;” the granting of privacy to college students, which supersedes the interests of their parents; the acceptance of multiple layers of genders (New York State identifies thirty-one categories); a theocratic belief that man is solely responsible for climate change; that a ban on guns will eliminate mass shootings; that the answer to the immigration crisis is open borders, and that healthcare and college tuition should be free – it is a world out of “1984” where government dictates what we say and do.

These demands on the part of the Left are bereft of common sense: The owners of a public business are its shareholders. If the business is not profitable, no one benefits, certainly not its shareholders, but also not its employees, customers, suppliers, or the communities in which it operates. Students, at age 18, may be adults in the eyes of the law, but protecting them against “harmful speech” suggests they are children, at least in the minds of university administrators. Not all people are heterosexual, but biologically there are only two genders. To pretend otherwise, in the interest of “inclusion,” is to deny reality. To the extent we lose sight of that, society collapses into a miasma of hedonism. Anyone participating in a mass shooting must be mentally deranged. Can you, the reader, imagine doing such a thing? Also, how many mass shooters have been members of the NRA? According to the Washington Post, none. The climate is in constant flux. It always has been, and it always will be. Man has had an impact, but no one knows to what extent. Rich nations can afford to address the environment, while poor ones must focus on survival. If we want to reduce pollutants, we must help poor nations become wealthy. A country without borders is not a country, and if it has borders should it not defend them? Free healthcare and college tuitions are oxymorons. Apart from liberty in democracies and bad advice everywhere, there is no such thing as “free.” In this Seussian world, commonsense has given way to inanity.

In this race to destroy what has taken the United States 243 years to build (not 400 years, as the New York Timeswould have us believe), there is something else we have lost. And that is a lightness of touch, a sense of humor, the ability to laugh at one’s self and the enjoyment of words and music without fear of offending. People should be naturally considerate of others, just as they should take responsibility for actions they take. Empathy is a positive trait. The Golden Rule is something to which we should all adhere, but it should be learned at home, in kindergarten or in church, not as a policy prescribed by the State.

Yesteryear was not such an innocent time. Since time immemorial, powerful but immoral men have taken advantage of innocent – and a few not-so-innocent – women. Franklin Roosevelt had Lucy Mercer Rutherford; Dwight Eisenhower had Kay Summersby; Jack Kennedy had a number of ladies who shared his bed, among them Judith Exner, Mary Pinchot Meyer and Mimi Beardsley; Lyndon Johnson had Madeleine Duncan Brown; George H.W. Bush had Jennifer Fitzgerald; and Bill Clinton, like his predecessor JFK, engaged in  multiple affairs with a long list of women: Paula Jones, Gennifer Flowers and Monica Lewinsky, to name just a few. The point is not to excuse sexual exploitation of women – Eliot Spitzer, Anthony Weiner, Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein deserve the condemnation society has provided – but to suggest perverts have always been among us, and that includes some of our Presidents who should never be seen as paragons of virtue.  

It is not innocence we have lost, but a moral sense that has gone adrift. It has floated off without an anchor, an anchor chiseled from the institution of family and forged in the furnaces of churches, synagogues and schools. We have lost a sense of right and wrong, honor and dishonor, good and evil, the important versus the frivolous, truth versus lies, respect versus neglect. For most of his existence, man’s life was a struggle to survive, to find water, food and shelter. It has only been in the past hundred or so years that the average Western man has had the leisure to pursue such pleasures as vacations and has had the time to advocate for causes like the environment. But too much free time has given rein to trivial pursuits. We must recognize that to live together peacefully we need be respectful and use good manners. These are the civilities that make life endurable. While women and men have equal rights, we have lost a sense of graciousness that reflect our differences. Doffing one’s hat, opening doors were not expressions of man’s condescension toward women, but acts of deference. Civility and communality go hand-in-hand. As most of us are not hermits or recluses, such acts of decency are integral to our lives. 

So, when you next hear Maurice Chevalier sing about little girls growing up in the most delightful ways, don’t take it as sexist or demeaning, but as it was intended, a song to love, life and distinction. With four sisters, one wife, one daughter and six granddaughters, I can assure you they do – grow up, that is, in the most delightful ways.