"The Rittenhouse Acquittal"

                                                                     Sydney M. Williams

Thought of the Day

“The Rittenhouse Acquittal”

November 21, 2021

 

“He wishes none of this had happened.

But as he said when he testified, he did not start this.”

                                                                                                                                Defense attorney Mark Richards

                                                                                                                                November 19, 2021

 

Supporters of Kyle Rittenhouse were quick to take a victory lap, as news of his acquittal came across the wires – that it validated the right of self-defense. On the other side, Jesse Jackson spoke for the Left who saw Mr. Rittenhouse as a vigilante: “It seems to me that it’s open season on human rights demonstrators.” When did violent rioters, with criminal records, become human rights demonstrators? As a Presidential candidate, and despite both the accused and the victims being white, Mr. Biden referred to Kyle Rittenhouse as a “white supremacist.” After the jury’s decision, and now as President, while he called for calm and acknowledged the jury had spoken, Mr. Biden said the verdict made him angry. Was his expression of anger supposed to subdue a combustible nation, already polarized? 

 

Of course, the young Mr. Rittenhouse is a winner in that he does not have to go to jail, but the heroes of the story are the jury, the judge and Mark Richards, all of whom stood firm despite personal threats. And Mr. Rittenhouse’s acquittal does not condone what he did. Even though legal, the very fact that a seventeen-year-old would carry a loaded AR-15 down a public street into a melee of rioters was crazy. What were his parents thinking? He should not become a poster boy for the Right. He appears an immature, not very bright, kid. The maintenance of civil order is supposed to be the responsibility of the police. If anything, this trial was an indictment of the politicians who ordered the police to stand down. This incident exposed the risk to the public of those who want to “defund the police.” No municipality, state or country can function without the rule of law. And laws must be enforced. In a democracy, if one does not like a particular law there are legitimate means of getting it changed, without taking to the streets in violent protests. 

 

Protests across the nation, following the death of George Floyd on May 25^th, 2020, caused, according to The Hill’s estimate, two billion dollars in damage and 18 deaths. It is as though the Ku Klux Klan lynch mobs of Jim Crow days have returned, only this time under the hateful banners of Antifa and Black Lives Matter. Cities from Seattle to New York, from Minneapolis to Hartford, Connecticut have seen a rise in murders and violent crimes, mostly black-on-black. A refusal by politicians to take responsibility for that rise has meant a loss of life and property by mostly inner-city black families. The idea that “victims” are not responsible for their actions dooms them to a life of subservience. When people are taught that failure is a function of race, not a lack of effort, what incentive do they have to succeed? When a poor, ill-educated young white man is told he is an oppressor, how is he supposed to respond?  He carries a weapon to a demonstration.

 

The entire incident was sad and unnecessary. But it says far more about our politicians than about Mr. Rittenhouse and his unfortunate victims. We live in a remarkable country, one prized by people all over the world, especially in poor, third-world countries., yet despised by the Left’s elites. It is both a privilege and a responsibility to live in this great nation. If our young are not taught our entire history what happened in Kenosha, Wisconsin fifteen months ago will become even more common. No one can want that.

 

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.

"COVID -19 Has Gone to College - Or Has It?"

                                                             Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“COVID-19 Has Gone to College – Or Has It?”

September 11, 2020

 

“Education is the most powerful weapon

you can use to change the world.”

                                                                                                Nelson Mandela (1918-2013)

                                                                                                Speech, July 16, 2003

 

A critical component of democracy is education. The perpetuation of our political institutions, as Abraham Lincoln warned in Springfield, Illinois on a January evening in 1838, is not a given. Passion, he warned, can be our enemy. “Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason must furnish all the materials for our future support and defense.” It is to teach one to reason, to think, to calculate that universities exist.

 

In his 1916 book Democracy and Education, the educational reformer John Dewey argued it is education that allows youth to become productive members of society. Franklin Roosevelt said that “the real safeguard to democracy is education.” It is a sentiment that has been expressed by hundreds of politicians and philosophers over the years. Today, in a risk adverse world, schools, colleges and universities weigh needs of students to learn versus fear of COVID-19 and lawsuits that might ensue. Nevertheless, online learning is no substitute for in-person classrooms.

 

Most would agree that a failure to open schools and colleges is harmful to students. However, there are some administrators and professors (as well as a few students) who are vulnerable, either because of age or comorbidities, so universities should proceed with caution. There are, however, some who want to keep the pandemic alive for political purposes, a view endorsed by mainstream media. A New York Times article last Sunday was headlined: “A New Front in America’s Pandemic: College Towns.” The article, which focused on the University of Iowa, reported there were “about 100 college communities around the country where infections have spiked in recent weeks as students returned for the fall semester” – a self-evident truth, as students did return to campuses. The article did add that “there has been no uptick in deaths in college communities,” but they failed to mention a subsequent decline in instances. For example, in Iowa City, there was a spike on August 27 and 28 (1,467 and 2,632 cases respectively), but, left unmentioned, by September 1 the number was down to 612 and on September 7 at 408, in line with where it had been before students returned to the campus. The headline was provocative and deceptive.

 

My wife and I have five grandchildren in college this fall, two sophomores and three freshmen. Their evidence is anecdotal but none the less, interesting. They attend five different universities in four states. The eldest is a sophomore at Bucknell, where their COVID-19 Dashboard reports three active cases, with 17,521 tests having been administered so far. She reported she was “not sure what percentage of classes are in person but all of mine meet in person.” She added: “We haven’t been able to play squash yet but the gym is open so I can go there which is nice.”  Our oldest grandson is a sophomore at Brandeis. All students are tested twice a week. For the two weeks ended September 6, 4,417 individuals were tested, with one testing positive. Two students are in isolation. As in all colleges, rules and regulations have been imposed. In an article for his student newspaper, he wrote: “This new regulation remains conscientiously observed to its necessary effect, but only to its necessary effect. The spirit of youth will find a method to express itself…” Youth will be youth! His classes are online and in-person.

 

Our third grandchild is a freshman at Notre Dame. Shortly after her arrival, a COVID-19 outbreak occurred, allegedly from an off-campus party. She wrote: “COVID definitely has a big presence on campus this year (we had to go online for two weeks because our numbers were so high), but now we are back in person.” 9,416 tests have been administered, with one positive case reported on Monday, which was down from 82 on August 19. The fourth oldest grandchild is a freshman at Wake Forest. According to their COVID-19 Dashboard, there have been forty-one positive cases since August 26 and only three in the last three days. He wrote: “COVID also has a big presence on how Wake operates. Most people only have one in-person class.” The fifth grandchild – she turned 18 yesterday! – is at Elon. She texted: “Elon only has 5 active cases and 78 people in isolation. All of my classes are in-person or hybrid, but the sports season is cancelled.” All five are doing well, as they adjust to a unique 2020 campus life.

 

As expected, infections rose as colleges and schools re-opened. But, critically, across the country, hospital occupancies declined, as did deaths – the latter peaked in the week ending April 18 at 17,039 and fell to 1,192 for the week ending August 29. (To put that number in perspective, about 55,000 Americans die every week.) As Dr. Scott Atlas, special adviser to the president and member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, wrote this week in The Hill: “We know who is at risk. Only 0.2% of U.S. deaths [from COVID-19] have been people younger than twenty-five, and 80% have been people over sixty-five.” Schools and colleges, exercising caution, should re-open. Michael Barone, in an op-ed in the New York Post on September 7, pointed out that COVID-19 “has been less deadly to those under 65 than flus were.” Who, when in college, did not get sick?

 

With an election looming, the economy was Mr. Trump’s strongest suit as the year began. Unemployment among minorities was the lowest on record. Wages were rising for those at the low end. The middle class was coming back. The Middle East had quieted. China was being challenged. Then the virus appeared; lockdowns were imposed, schools and colleges were closed, commerce came to a halt. Democrats saw a new opening – vilify the President for his handling of the virus and keep enough of the economy shut down, so Mr. Trump loses what advantage he had. Substitute election day in-person voting with ever-earlier, and less safe guarded, voting by mail. Then, another shoe dropped. Protests and riots followed the killing of George Floyd, a black man, by a white Minneapolis policeman. That led to the resurrection of the Marxist Black Lives Matter group and gave new life to the fascist Antifa organization. Riots occurred in more than a dozen blue-run cities. People were killed, cars were burned, and property was destroyed. Democrats stuck by the rioters, referring to them as peaceful protesters. They called for the defunding of police, no matter the damage they had done to the lives and property of law-abiding citizens.

 

It was inevitable that COV ID-19 would be politicized. We will leave it to future historians as to whether the lockdowns and school closings were necessary. While we do not have a vaccine for the disease, we know more than we did six months ago – who is vulnerable, who is not, what medicines work, which do not, the value of sanitizing, masks and social distancing. Nevertheless, incredibly, Democrat Vice President candidate, Kamala Harris warned people not to get vaccinated against COVID-19, if one is developed and approved by the CDC and FDA before the election. So, is science to be ignored when it does not fit the narrative?

 

In answer to the question posed in the title of this essay – yes, COVID-19 has gone to college, a nuisance but not deadly and largely abiding in seclusion. As much as we would like, we cannot live without risk. Colleges should accept what risks exist and open normally. To not do so is to deprive the roughly twenty million college students from opportunities they have earned, and which they deserve.

 

 

"More Statues, Not Fewer"

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Thought of the Day

“More Statues, Not Fewer”

June 28, 2020

“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny

and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”

                                                                                                George Orwell (1903-1950)

                                                                                                1984, 1949

Statues and monuments are erected not just to honor an individual but as reminders we did not just appear, that we descend not just from our parents and grandparents but from a past and a culture that gave rise to the country in which we live. Despite nihilist messages from Black Lives Matter (BLM), we in America are fortunate. Most nations are not as free as this and none have seen so many “rags to riches” stories. Much of the world lives under totalitarian regimes, and the fact that global poverty has shrunk is (largely) due to the creative genius, entrepreneurial spirit and generosity of Americans. As Ayaan Hirsi Ali recently Tweeted, “America is the best place on the planet to be black, female, gay, trans or what have you.”   

Evolution is a slow process. Life, according to most scientists, began about four billion years ago, primates about a hundred million years ago and humanoids perhaps twenty million years ago. Over the millennia, evolution provided natural selection that allowed our ancestors to survive and gave us inherited traits that permitted us to develop as individuals. It took millions of years for man to live communally and even longer to reach the age of Enlightenment, when concepts of self-government, rule of law, equal justice and individual liberty emerged. Throughout most of history, man fought – generally over land or religion. Today, we are indebted, in terms of liberty, democracy and markets to men like Thomas Hobbes, Isaac Newton, Rene Descartes, Galileo, Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin, David Hume and Adam Smith. Their ideas, many based on the writings of ancient Greeks and Romans, developed in the 17^th and 18^th Centuries. The United States Constitution, when adopted in 1788, served as their laboratory. We are still being tested.

Civilizations in other places have materialized and dissipated: Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, India, Mexico and Peru. All collapsed. None offered the universal freedom and respect for the individual’s rights embedded in Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence in 1776. One can find fault in the Declaration, as its soaring rhetoric did not include women, and slavery was still a fact of life. Nevertheless, it was a revolutionary document. And it should be judged against customs and standards of the time. How free were women in England, Germany, China or Japan at that time? Slavery, then, existed most everywhere, including Africa, and it still does in parts of Asia and the Middle East. Context counts when passing judgement on past lives and customs.

A genius of the Founding Fathers was their creation of a government with limited power, a concept necessary for liberty, but one fragile, as it conflicts with man’s instinct for power. They gave us a government that permits free speech, the right to assemble and to protest. We have the freedom to worship as we may. In terms of behavior, we have rights to march, but we also have property rights and the right to defend what is ours. We have a government based on the rule of law, not men, and that relies on civility, tolerance and mutual respect, designed to hear diverse opinions. It has worked for almost 250 years. We must keep it. Its strength is not its military; it is not a powerful executive or a wise judicial branch. Its strength is its people, whose collective wisdom is gained through independent thinking, not propaganda that stems from “group think,” where illiberal ideas today are nurtured in universities, promoted by the media, supported by the entertainment and sports world and executed by government bureaucrats.

We live in a frightening time. In the name of inclusion and diversity, we exclude those whose opinions differ from what has been sanctioned by the “thought police.” In seeking diversity of skin color and sex, we get conformity of ideas that demand allegiance to the “Party.” We have fomented a culture that “cancels” history and divides people into victims and oppressors. Through BLM and terrorist groups like Antifa, and our willing acceptance of their demands, we are led away from liberty into the darkness of totalitarianism. What is happening is manifested in mobs that desecrate and tear down remnants of our past. Writing in The Times of London last week, Gerard Baker noted: “It’s still surprisingly little understood that BLM wants a revolution: defunding the police, dismantling the institutions of capitalism and white supremacy.” We see elected officials, who forego responsibility to public safety and bow to mob demands. Recently, we witnessed the Speaker of the House and other congressional Democrats don Ghanian Kente cloth scarfs and kneel on the Capitol steps, in eight minutes and forty-six seconds of hypocritical silence to a man who should not have died as he did. This desire to be “woke” extended to the Head of my old school. In a recent e-mail, he called for inclusion and an end to hate speech and racism, while saying nothing of the need for excellence in scholarship, or the right of free speech, including diversity of opinion.  “The racial divide,” as Victor Davis Hanson wrote two weeks ago, “will not be healed by black separatist tribalism.”

Of course, Black lives matter, including that of George Floyd, but also the 97% of Black murder victims who, according to the Washington Post, were killed by other Blacks in 2015. As well, we pray that the lives of the 70% of Black children born every year into father-less families will matter. In truth, all lives matter, just as all voices need to be heard, not just those in fashion. But those who tear down monuments and destroy history remove any sense of how man has changed over time. Ours is a troubled era. We need voices to call out: Slow down and think about what is being said and done! In a speech at the Young Men’s Lyceum in Springfield, Illinois in 1838, a twenty-eight-year-old Abraham Lincoln spoke: “If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.” Evil needs to be suppressed, even when done by those who profess to be doing good.

What is needed is a positive message of universal affirmation, that acknowledges imperfections but is not ashamed of who we are and what has been accomplished. We need more monuments and statues, not fewer. We need them of recent heroes, like Thurgood Marshall and Edward Brooke, to add to those erected yesterday. It allows our descendants to see how we evolve toward a fairer, freer and more equitable society.

And we must keep in mind that every sculpture and monument is a work of art. Michelangelo once said: “Every block of stone has a statue inside it, and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.” Whether the four faces on Mount Rushmore represent the four greatest Americans who ever lived is a matter of personal opinion. But we can all admire the talent and effort of Gutzon Borglum in producing that monument. My parents were sculptors. They worked in marble, granite and clay. They produced what they thought was (and is) beautiful. Politics never entered the equation. Most of what they produced was small – busts of children and statuettes of horses. My father did, however, carve a Madonna and Child from a granite rock. It now sits outside my brother’s bookstore, the Toadstool, in Peterborough, New Hampshire, a symbol of serenity and love – something missing in today’s fractured world.

"It's the Culture, Stupid - Part II"

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Thought of the Day

“It’s the Culture, Stupid – Part II”

June 13, 2020

“Nothing in the entire world is more dangerous

than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

                                                                                                Martin Luther King (1929-1968)

                                                                                                Strength to Love, 1963

                                                                                                collection of sermons

Ignorance is the bane of civilized society. It is inexcusable in a country with free high schools. In a manifestation of cancel culture, mobs tear down statues of yesteryear’s heroes. I wonder: what is gained by destroying historical artifacts? Where is the curiosity expressed by Washington Irving in Sketchbook almost two hundred years ago? “I longed to wander over the scenes of renowned achievements.”[1] Should we rename army bases in a moment of exuberant zeal, or would it be wiser to debate the issue when heads are cooler? Are past wrongs righted when relegated to the ash heap of ignorance? Can we assume we have reached perfection where our descendants will find nothing wrong in today’s actions? Would those whose bravery stems from being part of a mob tearing down statues of Christopher Columbus have had the courage of the Italian navigator to sail across an infinite sea to an unknown land?

History must be considered in context and with perspective. It is impossible for us to judge the behavior of our forefathers based on today’s moral standards, just as it will be unfair to us for our descendants to mock our actions today based on values a hundred years hence. Should we ignore Columbus because he is now pilloried as a racist, more than five hundred years after his voyage of discovery? Should we disregard Thomas Jefferson, and the words he wrote about self-evident truths and of how all men were created equal with unalienable rights, because he kept slaves? Cannot we admire the former and criticize the latter?

The cultural war is perhaps most pronounced in the Washington D.C. environs, where 283,000 federal bureaucrats work. They are joined by about 14,000 staffers for the 535 Congressmen and Senators. Lobbyists comprise another 11,600 people. Added to the mix are thousands who work in media. In all, they make up almost 20% of the metro areas workforce. These are highly paid people who live in four of the nation’s five wealthiest counties – Howard (MD) and Loudon, Fairfax, and Arlington, all in Virginia. It is a self-contained culture where most jobs are based on who you know. Once hired, they are ensconced, moving from agency to lobbyist firm to agency. But as Richard Grenell, former U.S. Ambassador to Germany and ex-acting Director of National Intelligence, recently noted, the D.C. culture is autonomous, where there is “no outside thought, there’s no perspective.” While forty million Americans lost their jobs due to a state-mandated shut-down of the economy, these people kept theirs, even when told to stay home – most paid from our tax dollars. The contrast to the rest of the country is startling. It was this narcissistic cocoon that Donald Trump threatened to dismantle in 2016 when he pledged to “drain the swamp.”

So, is it a surprise that this mixture of conventional bureaucrats, lobbyists and media worked hard to defeat Mr. Trump in the 2016 election? Should we be stunned to learn that the Obama Administration and the intelligence services interfered with the peaceful transition of power post-election and pre-inauguration? Was it startling that seventy members of Congress refused to attend the inauguration, or that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tore up her copy of Mr. Trump’s State of the Union speech in front of 37 million viewers? With the Durham report pending, should we be shocked that 1,500 Justice Department retirees have spoken out against Attorney General William Barr, or that so many have attacked the President and his Administration? Has any previous President been treated with such hypocritical condescension?

And why is it that racism is most prevalent in bastions of progressivism like New York, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Baltimore and Philadelphia? Have policies that provide uncompetitive schools, a failure to support two-parent traditional families and a culture of victimization failed the very people they were supposed to help? For Democrats, a year that began with a strong economy and record levels of employment for Black workers, the killing of George Floyd was a godsend, to complement the shuttering of the economy to counter COVID-19. Just as scare stories regarding the pandemic proliferate, the murder of Mr. Floyd has been exploited as systemic racism. Why do so many now want to defund the police? In a review of Stacy Abrams new book, Our Time is Now, Barton Swaim provides one answer: “Because, for overeducated white liberals…blaming the cops is easier than blaming themselves.” Certainly, there are bad cops who should be fired. But these same liberals ignore inconvenient facts like bad cops get protected by unions, that police shootings have declined dramatically in the past twenty years and that racism is most prominent in Blue-run cities and states. The legitimate protests gave activists like George Soros the opportunity to unleash Black Lives Matter, an organization he helps fund through Open Society Foundation. BLM draws attention to alleged racism and inequalities but does little to address root causes – education, family and personal responsibility – and did little to curtail the riots and looting, abetted by radical groups like Antifa. As Candice Owens says in a video viewed over six million times, a divided nation is fundamental to the success of progressive politics.

Nevertheless, great harm was done to African-Americans. First slavery and then a century of “Jim Crow” laws that prevented Blacks from achieving the promises of America. The 1964 and 1965 Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act largely corrected past wrongs, though implementation was slow and sometimes painful. To help atone for centuries of ill treatment, affirmative action was introduced in 1965 by President Lyndon Johnson in Executive Order 11246. It was a necessary program at the time. But implicit in that policy is that it gives birth to victimization – that without help from government, success is impossible. It is patronizing and racist. No one race is intellectually or morally inferior to another.

Politicians choose to compartmentalize the electorate. When the goal is votes, it is more efficient to address the concerns of a group than to consider the fears and desires of an individual. Like everyone, Blacks need tools to succeed – strong family ties, a good education where choice is an option, and an environment that encourages personal responsibility and accountability. Millions of Blacks have made successes of their lives in fields ranging from the military, music, literature, law, sports, politics, medicine, science and hundreds of others. They have done so as individuals – as Democrats and as Republicans, as liberals and as conservatives. But when they do so as conservatives, they are disparaged by white liberals; they are told they are traitors to their class, that they are “Uncle Toms,” that “they ain’t Black.”

Ignorance of our past is no excuse. Platitudes do not provide answers. Political polarization is not uncommon. America has always been splintered by policy differences. It is only in time of war that we become truly unified. However, a culture that emphasizes diversity of race, sex and religion, but not thought is negative for freedom and independence. It is when opinions are censored, as they have been in our universities in recent years, amplified in the press and social media and promoted by politicians that we risk authoritarianism. We move forward as individuals, not as Christians, Jews, Blacks, Whites, gays, women or men. That is how we should be weighed, by the “measure of our character.” But politics is about garnering votes; it is about power, something we all need to keep in mind, especially in an election year. 

---

[1] As quoted by Nicholas Basbanes in his biography of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Cross of Snow.

"It's the Culture, Stupid"

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Thought of the Day

“It’s the Culture, Stupid”

June 8, 2020

“The life history of the individual is first and foremost an accommodation

to the patterns and standards traditionally handed down in his community. From the moment

 of his birth the customs into which he is born shape his experience and behavior.”

                                                                                                Ruth Benedict (1887-1948)

                                                                                                Anthropologist

                                                                                                Patterns of Culture, 1934

The framework of a civil society is comprised of multiple threads, representing common traits like etiquette, respect for one another, accountability, deference to one’s parents and teachers. These customs are woven, along with art, music and literature, to form a nation’s cultural fabric. Culture includes traditions, knowledge of one’s own history and the history of one’s country – the good and the bad. It is what allows a civil society composed of those from myriad backgrounds, races, religions and opinions to amicably live together. Without the ability to civilly debate, darkness falls.

In the political world, there have always been extremists who refuse to comply with rules of civility that bind us. Those generally represent fringes of society. But extremism has become more mainstream, as political correctness, victimization and safe places have proliferated on our nation’s campuses. We have lost a moral sense of universal values. For example, the permitting of protesters in the wake of George Floyd’s killing was right. The failure to condemn and confront violent rioters and looters was wrong.

Gerard Baker, in last weekend’s Wall Street Journal wrote about the old liberal order being under siege: “A basic tenet of the old liberal order is the toleration of views we find detestable.”  Today, illiberal Leftism compels submission to identity politics. How else to explain Joe Biden’s contemptuous outburst: “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”

Blame must be found for the killing of George Floyd and what better target than the persistence of “systemic, institutionalized racism.” The irony, of course, is that Mr. Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, a city that has been run by Democrats for forty-two years, with an African-American Police Chief, Medaria Arradondo. Where were the Democrat-controlled police review boards and unions? The five most crime-ridden cities in the United States, according to an August 19, 2019 report in USA Today, are Democrat-controlled cities: St. Louis, Detroit, Baltimore, Memphis and Kansas City, Mo. A list of the top cities for murder rates, according to Rapid City Journal: St. Louis, Baltimore, Detroit, New Orleans and Birmingham, Alabama – again, all cities run by Democrat mayors. Yet they look for someone else to blame.

Diversity is a worthy goal and has been aggressively sought in schools, colleges, eleemosynary institutions and businesses. But diversity has been defined only in racial, sexual, religious and ethnic terms, never in terms of freedom of opinion. A few days ago, the New York Times abandoned any sense of impartiality when its publisher and editors gave in to staffers who have no concept of freedom of thought. They revolted over the paper’s running of an op-ed by United States Senator Thomas Cotton (R-AZ), a U.S. Army veteran. In the op-ed he condoned the use of military force to bring peace to cities under mob rule. One can disagree with Senator Cotton’s argument, while still allowing it to be vented. The English biographer of Voltaire, Evelyn Beatrice Hall (1868-1956), once wrote, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” How far we have fallen since those words were penned!

Protests are a legitimate means for citizens to demonstrate against disliked policies. But when peaceful protests become destructive riots, the welfare of people and property become at risk. Rightful protests against the murder of George Floyd by policeman Derek Chauvin morphed into violent acts of vandalism, killing the innocent, wounding dozens, burning police vehicles, looting and destroying stores. In response, some mayors refused to confront the rioters, allowing them free rein to rob some of their livelihoods and others of their lives. Martin Luther King famously said: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Regardless of skin color, what sort of character willfully destroys private property? Mob justice is untenable in a civil society. It is associated with the untamed west of the late 19^th Century and the Ku Klux Klan of the early 20th. The Klan wore white hoods. Antifa wears black masks.

This murder has added fuel to the false narrative that the United States is a racist nation. Certainly, there are racists. We are a nation of 330 million people, some of whom are racists, mostly ignorant underachievers whose egos inflate as they belittle others. But, as Heather MacDonald contributing editor of the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal, wrote in the Wall Street Journal last week: “A solid body of evidence finds no structural bias in the criminal-justice system with regard to arrests, prosecution or sentencing.”  A Washington Post data base noted that in 2019 the police shot dead nine unarmed Blacks and nineteen unarmed Whites. While the percentage of unarmed Blacks killed exceeds their percent of the population (34% versus 13%), FBI reports for 2018 show that 39% of murders in the U.S. and 54% of robberies were committed by African-Americans. In 2016, 2,870 Blacks were murdered in the U.S., 90% (2,570) by other Blacks. It is the “why” of these statistics that should concern us.

“The customs and practices of life in society sweep us along,” wrote Michel de Montaigne more than three hundred years ago. Fundamental to our culture are family life and education. Too often we have failed on both. We de-emphasize the importance of married, two-parent families, and we do not permit school choice for impoverished, inner-city families. Charter schools and voucher programs, desired by aspirant parents, have been shot down by politicians who are financially dependent on teachers’ unions who see any competition as a threat. As well, youth must be taught right from wrong. And they must disabuse themselves of the concept of victimhood, which allows one to disavow personal responsibility. And the definition of diversity must be expanded to include opinions.

The horrific murder of George Floyd convinced many politicians and most of the media that the United States remains a racist nation, which justifies the looting and rioting that followed the protests. However, “without order,” as Andrew McCarthy recently wrote, “our liberties are just parchment promises.” Democrats seek someone to blame for the sorry state of cities they have run for decades. But when something is wrong – and something is – it makes sense to first look in the mirror. Failed, well-intentioned policies should be reviewed. The biggest risks we face are not “authoritarian impulses” of President Trump. (After all, no authoritarian would reduce the role of government by cutting regulations and lowering taxes). The biggest risk is the denunciation by supercilious Leftists of those who do not conform to their prevailing orthodoxies, which were forged in universities, distributed through the media and given expression via left-wing government bureaucrats. Theirs is the way of fascists and communists, not a free people. It is a culture of arrogance that has created this sad state of affairs that must be addressed.

"Truth or Consequences"

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Thought of the Day

“Truth or Consequences?”

June 1, 2020

“Who ya gonna believe? Me or your own eyes?”

                                                                                    Chico Marx (1887-1961)

                                                                                    “Duck Soup,” 1933

Truth or Consequences was a long-running American game show, originally hosted by Ralph Edwards. If the contestant could not complete the “truth” portion there would be “consequences,” generally an embarrassing stunt. In 1950, Ralph Edwards announced he would host a show from the first town that changed its name to Truth and Consequences. On April Fool’s Day 1950, the town of Hot Spring, New Mexico voted to become Truth and Consequences.

“Quid est veritas?”, asked Pilate of Jesus. To Christians, truth is the word of God, for whom His son Jesus bore witness. For Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the “central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society,” while the “central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.”

The United States is a multi-racial and multi-ethnic country. We are White, Black, Native American, Asian, Hispanic and Pacific Islanders. According to the U.S. Census, 350 languages are spoken in the U.S. We identify as Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and multiple other religions. We come (or came) from most every country in the world. Yet, despite those differences in heritage, as Americans we have fundamental interests in common. We live under a Constitution that consumes only forty-one pages, at least in my copy – a Constitution that restrains rather than enables government. We live in a country where liberty is prized above all else; where fundamental rights are guaranteed. under the rule of law. We have a government comprised of three co-equal branches, and a military to safeguard us from foreign enemies. We have police forces to carry out our state and local laws. And we have a judicial system to assure laws are adjudicated fairly and equitably, and to protect us from those in government, be they politicians, bureaucrats or police who use power for their own purposes.

It is a fundamental right that permits people to demonstrate. Protestors and rioters have responded to the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police. Videos of the arrest are difficult to watch and show excessive force by the police. The four officers involved were fired, and Derek Chauvin was arrested for murder. But we live in a nation of laws, not of men or mobs. Dozens of buildings in Minneapolis were destroyed. Riots broke out across the United States, calling for an end to police brutality. People have been killed. Stores have been vandalized. Police vehicles have been burned. This has happened before, usually with the help of imported professionals:  In 2012, George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin, a young black man in Sanford, Florida. Two and a half years later Eric Garner died in a chokehold by a New York policeman. A month later Michael Brown, an eighteen-year-old Black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri was killed by a White police officer, Darren Wilson. One year later, in Baltimore, Freddie Gray, a young black man, died of back injuries while being transported in a police van, accompanied by six police officers. Destructive riots ensued. Hundreds of small businesses were looted and destroyed, many of them minority owned. It is understandable why members of the Black community are outraged and feel the system is rigged against them. Yet, with all its flaws, our system of justice, over time, generally reveals truth.  Burning one’s neighbor’s place of business or employment will not bring back Mr. Floyd, but justice, when properly applied, can help right wrongs.

Police brutality exists; that is reality and needs to be corrected when and where it exists. Yet it is also true that without laws and their enforcement no society can survive. How many members of the press would willingly swap jobs with an inner-city policeman or policewoman? Inequality will never disappear. There will always be wealth and privilege, and there will also always be an underclass. The important thing, in a liberal society, is social and economic mobility – an up-escalator that carries the aspirant, those dedicated to education and work. On the down-escalator are the dependent and morally corrupt, with no sense of self-worth or appreciation of the dignity a job provides.

Truths about COVID-19 are evasive. In part, because it is a novel virus, which means it is new and little about it is known, and in part because facts and science change. Yet the mantra has been: “Follow the science,” accompanied by a knowing smirk. Fatality rates are debated, as are practices like wearing masks. Of the latter, the highly praised Dr. Anthony Fauci has been ambivalent. On May 26, in an interview with America Magazine, he said they “absolutely” should be worn in church. Two days later, in an interview on CNN, he referred to masks as a symbolic gesture.

The shut-down of the economy was based on imperfect knowledge – an absence of truth – yet with severe consequences: unemployment at Depression-era levels; bankruptcies that have included oil drillers, retail outlets, restaurants, theater chains, hospitals, meatpackers, dairy farms, gyms, airlines and tens of thousands of small businesses, with more to come. Despair and loneliness have increased, as have suicides and drug usage. Despite knowing the truth of who was most vulnerable (the elderly and those with comorbidity issues), politicians in a few states like New York allowed the hospital-released, COVID-19 infected into nursing homes, where a third of all deaths have occurred. Politicians in all states shuttered schools, affecting 56 million school age children who were at little risk. Doing so has hurt their educational prospects and endangered those who rely on school meals. And everything done was “approved” by so-called experts. Absent a vaccine, COVID-19 will not be eradicated and it cannot be contained; it must be managed.

In the midst of riots and a pandemic, we should not forget how far we have come as a nation and a people. To most, a hundred years is a long time, but in the life span of mankind it is a short period. The discovery of penicillin in 1928 by Sir Alexander Fleming was the beginning of the antibiotic revolution. It was in 1953 that Dr. Jonas Salk produced a vaccine against polio, a year after 3,000 children died from the disease. The U.S. Armed Forces were segregated during World War II. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark piece of legislation that outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. My generation was the first to raise children without fear of diseases like smallpox, tuberculosis and polio. My generation was the first to serve in an integrated Armed Forces. Real GDP per capita has increased three-fold over the past seventy years, while life expectancy has risen by ten years. While we are not perfect and there are those who are evil, we are a compassionate people. As a percent of GDP, Americans give four times what Europeans do to charities.  As a nation, the success we have had is due to the government our Founding Father’s bequeathed us, the capitalist system which promoted the innovation that enriched us, and a culture of self-reliance, liberty, respect for personal property and the rule of law and an intolerance for racism. We owe it to ourselves and to one another to encourage a culture that is gender and colorblind as regards justice, but also one that promotes respect, decency and civility. Vincit omnia veritas.

In last weekend’s edition of The Wall Street Journal, Holman Jenkins wrote: “The vision of a people marching in the same direction, the same song in their hearts, is a fascist vision. It’s the societal ideal of North Korea.” That is not America. The American people can accept truth, and they can take the consequences when dealt with honestly, whether the subject is police brutality or a pandemic.