"Polarization - Political Theater?"

 

 

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Polarization – Political Theater?”

June 14, 2026

 

“Let me now take a more comprehensive view and warn you in the

most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party,

generally...of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge.”

                                                                             George Washington (1732-1799)

                                                                             Farewell Address, September 19, 1796

 

In his 1983 book Modern Times, Paul Johnson wrote that Otto von Bismarck, who led the unification of Germany in the 1870s, was, like George Washington, concerned about the negative influences of political parties – that they would prove divisive, that it would mean that political parties would never produce “...a leader who appealed beyond the narrow limits of his own following.”

 

But has that been the case in the United States? Republican President Ronald Reagan worked closely with Democrat Speaker of the House Thomas “Tip” O’Neill, and Democrat President Bill Clinton was able to find common ground with Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Despite the partisanship that has spread so widely and dug so deeply into our politics today, would having a dozen political parties better serve our 174 million registered voters? And would a consensus be found to govern Congress with multiple parties represented? Politics is not about finding perfection, but about getting the most of what one wants. As President Reagan once said: “Politics is the art of the possible.” 

 

It is not uncommon to believe we live through the worst of times. Yet we get up every day, go to work or school, and life goes on. When one looks back at our history and compares our lives today with that of those who lived earlier, the vast majority live well. While we complain, most of us are happily resigned to the government we have. Of course, whether it is the mercurial President Trump, the cognitively-challenged President Biden, or the ethically-challenged Ken Paxton in Texas or Graham Platner in Maine, we don’t always elevate the most desirable candidates. But we never have. Thieves, scoundrels, racists, misogynists and homophobes have sat in Congress, representing both parties. Yet, despite these challenges the United States has progressed, demonstrating that the wisdom of the Founders was far greater than the inanities offered by TV commentators, or “influencers,” especially as it is possible for any nut to use the bullhorn of social media to promote any cause no matter how extreme. A government “of the people” is superior to a government of “elites.”

 

Nevertheless, polarization is real. Egged on by social media, we see our neighbors as either “Woke” or “MAGA” – we believe the center as gone. Yet, a Washington Post survey in January found that 86% of the population does not fall into the category of “extreme right” or “extreme left.” Politicians in Washington and in many state capitals and large cities put party interests above what is good or right for the country. And the media feeds the partisan divide. For example, TV news is either anti-Trump or adoring of him. 

 

But, while these blowhards appeal to a small – albeit noisy – percentage of the population, the typical voter appears more settled. According to Gallup, over the past fifty years, Independents have been increasing their share of registered voters, from 28% in 1977 to 45% today, reflecting dissatisfaction with the two parties. That number, in my opinion, would be higher if states like Connecticut and fifteen others, allowed registered Independents to participate in either Congressional or Presidential primaries.

 

In 2016 Paul Taylor and Pew Research Center published a book, The Next America. In it, Mr. Taylor wrote: “There’s no evidence from decades of Pew Research surveys that public opinion, in the aggregate, is more extreme than in the past.” Certainly, sectional partisanship was far more extreme in 1860, and even in the late 19^th Century when “free silver” advocates battled monied easterners, and during the Civil Rights and Vietnam War era. Partisanship certainly exists today, but among the bulk of American voters it seems limited to extremists. Nevertheless, in the interest of party unity – of maintaining or taking control of Congress, many “mainstream” politicians ignore the frailties of their party’s candidates – to win at any cost. 

 

Like many Americans, over the past sixty-four years, I have been a Democrat, a Republican and an Independent. While I like to think I have always been guided by a north star of conservative principles, favoring limited government, free markets, rule of law and individual freedom, in my youth – heavy on idealism and light on common sense – I was a Democrat. I felt that government should play a bigger hand in promoting equality of outcomes and dispensing social justice. While I am now registered as a Republican, I would prefer to be Unaffiliated, but registering as such would deny me participating in primaries.

 

Simply put, the most significant difference between the two parties is that Republicans favor smaller government and Democrats prefer larger government. But there are gradations, both in the beliefs of voters and in the policies preferred by politicians, which is why the willingness to compromise is important. 

 

I don’t pretend to have an answer to this pressing problem of polarization. Sadly, it is more than simply political theater. Identity politics has worsened the situation. But a good education would help – familiarity with the history of our country, in contrast to that of other nations; knowledge of different political systems, from monarchies and fascism to socialism and communism; and a basic understanding of economics, including comparisons of Karl Marx and Adam Smith. In the absence of a better educated electorate, I fear that political partisanship – pervasive among the political and media classes – will spread, leading to worsening times. 

 

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What is a problem, but one ignored by politicians on both ends of the political spectrum (and a subject for another day), is the looming debt crisis.

"Two Hundred and Fifty Years!"

 Happy Mothers’ Day!

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Two Hundred and Fifty Years!”

May 9, 2026

 

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

                                                                                                                George Washington (1732-1799)

                                                                                                                Letter to James Madison

                                                                                                                March 2, 1788

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

"Hatred - Unifier, Divider and Destroyer"

 In an essay on hatred, it is perhaps unfair to lions to attach this photo. Nevertheless, I have done so. Lions may get angry, but I doubt that they hate. However, the expression on the lion’s face reminded me of extremists in Washington – politicians, news commentators and pod-casters. 

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Hatred – Unifier, Divider and Destroyer” 

April 26, 2026

 

“Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life;

love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illumines it.”

                                                                                                                Martin Luther King (1929-1968)

                                                                                                                Strength to Love, 1963

 

Hatred has become pervasive. It has been around for decades but sprouted anew during the Obama Administration when ‘identity politics’ divided people into ‘oppressors’ and ‘oppressed.’  It accelerated with the hyperbole of President Trump’s postings on Truth Social. It has been fertilized by members of Congress like Chuck Schumer, Chris Murphy, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Marjory Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, encouraged by podcasters like Nikole Hannah-Jones and Nick Fuentes, and abetted by those from main-stream news like Sean Hannity and Rachel Maddow.  

 

It is true that hatred can be unifying. Hatred for Hitler’s Nazis and Tojo’s Japanese military helped solidify Americans in their defense of democracy. In his 1962 travelogue, Travels with Charlie: In Search of America, John Steinbeck wrote: “‘I didn’t think that at all, sir, but I bet I’m going to. Why, I remember when people took everything out on Mr. Roosevelt. Andy Larson got red in the face about Roosevelt one time when his hens got the croup. Yes, sir,’ he said with growing enthusiasm, ‘those Russians got quite a load to carry. Man has a fight with his wife, he belts the Russians.’ Maybe everybody needs Russians. I’ll bet even in Russia they need Russians. Maybe they call it Americans.’” 

 

Steinbeck wrote this during the Cold War. Five years earlier, the Soviets had launched Sputnik1, marking the start of the Space Age. Dislike and distrust of the USSR served as a unifier, as something on which to place blame, something to hate. Most of us knew no Russians. Like Andy Larson, we didn’t hate individual Russians; we hated the Soviet system that denied the dignity that stems from personal freedom and the potential for reward that comes with free-market capitalism. The Soviets had put down the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, stomped out the Prague spring in 1968 and beat back Polish “Solidarity” in 1980. In the United States, even with vocal political differences, that hatred of the repressive Soviet system served as a social glue that bound our nation – and the democratic, freedom-loving West – against the totalitarianism of Communism. 

 

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, we lost that common enemy, but hatred did not disappear. Hatred provides a ready-made, intense sense of self and purpose. It has engulfed our politics, and it has become personal. It is most obvious today in “Trump Hatred Syndrome.” Certainly, Mr. Trump is an easy man to hate. He is vulgar, boastful and inconsiderate. Nevertheless, if a policy emanates from Mr. Trump, Democrats are against it, regardless of its value to the American people. His opponents stoop lower than him. Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist, in an interview on CNN regarding Iran, spoke honestly about the dilemma he faces: “The problem is I really don’t want to see Bibi Netanyahu or Donald Trump politically strengthened by this war, because they are two awful human beings.” His brethren in the media industry are not that candid. Hatred is responsible for the rise in anti-Semitism, which has swept across Western Europe and the United States. Especially obnoxious is when anti-Zionism becomes an euphemism for anti-Semitism. 

 

While extremists, I am sure, represent a minority of the American people, this spread of hatred forces us to pick sides. Democrats claim to be on the side of the good guys – aiding the oppressed, the down-trodden, the poor, those unable to help themselves. But there is hypocrisy in their virtue-signaling. They have more money and spend more on elections – $4.5 billion in 2024 versus $3.5 billion by Republicans, according to Axios. They live in the nation’s wealthiest states – Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland, California and Connecticut. In contrast and ironically, Republicans, “oppressors” according to Democrat pooh-bahs, live in the nation’s poorest states, states that lean Republican – Mississippi, West Virginia, Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee. In the minds of those on the far-left, I am Simon Legree to their Little Eva.

 

Today, there are over 160 million registered voters in the United States. Yet fitting them neatly into two main parties is more difficult than the task given Sisyphus. It is one reason why the percentage of voters registered as either Democrat or Republican have declined over the past forty years, while those registered as Independents have increased. Nevertheless, extremists in both parties have seized control; so that the interests of the American people are subordinate to the interests of Party leaders. What would our first President think of the gerrymandering efforts in Virginia, North Caroline, Illinois and Florida? Or consider where I live – New England, home to 15.4 million people and about 11 million registered voters. Thirty-five percent are registered as Democrats; twenty-one percent as Republicans, and forty-four percent as Independents. Yet, of the twenty-one House seats, Democrats occupy them all. Of the twelve U.S. Senate seats, Democrats have eleven. Are our Representatives truly representative?

 

This spread of hatred threatens to destroy our country. In his Farewell Address (September 17, 1796), George Washington warned against political parties, that while they “...now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

 

With the notable exception of the Supreme Court, and despite Washington’s admonition, unprincipled men and women have found their way to Washington, as well as to many state capitals and large cities. Nevertheless, I believe that most public servants are still devoted to their jobs and work for the public good. Moderates comprise the majority of the military and even, I would guess, most federal employees. Many are in Congress. But the number of extremists is expanding. What is needed are civility and respect toward all people, tolerance for differing opinions, and humility regarding our own. 

 

An anonymous quote has pertinence: “We may fight against what is wrong (or what we believe to be wrong), but if we allow ourselves to hate that is to ensure our spiritual defeat and our likeness to what we hate.” It reminds me of counsel once offered me by my father: “Never argue with a fool, for a passer-by would be unable to tell who is the fool.” His words apply equally to one who spits out hatred. An eye for an eye does not solve problems.

"Tariffs and Other Thoughts"

 

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Tariffs and Other Thoughts”

April 9, 2025

 

“So set aside the folk memory of the Great Depression, and try to look

at tariffs in a non-hysterical way, as a policy with rational political aims.”

                                                                                                                                David Frost (1965-)

                                                                                                                                Former British diplomat & politician

                                                                                                                                The Spectator, 3 April, 2025

 

President Trump bears responsibility for the rout in the world’s equity markets. His tariffs, if used to raise revenues, as he claims, will cause a global recession, or worse. If they are used to negotiate lower tariffs on U.S. exports, which he also claims, they will strengthen the economy and may lead to global free trade. He is right, however, in his complaint that there is much in our politics and culture that has gone wrong over the past several years. We are a country, like much of the West, with a spending problem. Federal debt, as a percent of GDP, is higher than it was in 1945 (121% in 2024 versus 112% in 1945). Both political parties are at fault for excessive spending. As well, there has been a rise in anti-Semitism, fueled, in my opinion, by dislike for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and often masked as anti-Zionism. And, of course, our border was open throughout President Biden’s term in office.

 

In this age of technology, we must focus on ensuring access to needed raw materials. Over the past several years, we have let defense spending lapse, while permitting China unchallenged access to commodities and markets across Africa and South America. We have allowed unfettered (and illegal) migration into our country, and not just for those seeking political refuge from despotic governments, but for criminals and gang members, some of whom brought in fentanyl, a drug that has killed an estimated quarter of a million Americans since 2018. We have seen the Democratic Party take a sharp turn to the left, as it became increasingly patronizing in tone – do as I say, not as I do. The Party has focused on equity, not equal opportunity. In the name of diversity, it has encouraged racial division and allowed identity policies, rather than ability and diligence, to become the standard for admissions into colleges and businesses; it has let universities become beacons of “social justice,” rather than pinnacles of learning where students debate controversial subjects in a respectful and tolerant manner; it has encouraged sports venues to allow males to compete against females. Just last year, the Party knowingly nominated a man for President who was mentally unfit, and now we have a Supreme Court Justice who is unable to define a woman. In all of this, mainstream media has been complicit. 

 

None of us want to return to the past. Each generation builds on the previous. Much of manufacturing, in the 21^st Century, will be done by robots, so bringing industries back to the U.S. will not necessarily bring back jobs. Three hundred years ago, and thousands of years before that, the principal source of wealth was land, and the crops grown and the minerals mined. Wealth gaps were enormous and slaves and serfs who worked the land had little or no freedom. The Industrial Revolution, which began almost two hundred years ago, gave rise to a new group of capitalists – those who were innovative, creative, aspirant and diligent. Income and wealth gaps were still enormous; but new products, from railroads to plumbing, improved lives. And that period saw trade expand beyond borders. Industries, to stay competitive moved production facilities. After World War II, in my home state of New Hampshire, textile mills relocated to southern States, to take advantage of cheaper labor and other economic incentives. While those moves hurt New Hampshire’s economy, lower prices of finished goods benefitted consumers across the nation. 

 

More recently, finance and technology have provided sources of wealth. Life is never fair, and there will always be those who have more than others. But definitions of poverty have been defined upwards. Capitalism has improved lives. Keep in mind, the role of government is not to redistribute wealth or equalize outcomes, but to set rules and regulations, enact and ensure adherence to laws, provide a system of equal justice, and offer access to ladders that lead to opportunities for success, recognizing that the rungs on a ladder go down as well as up. And education represents the first and most important step on that ladder. So, education should be a principal concern of government. Yet, because of the power of teachers’ unions – major supporters of the Democrat Party – education has been neglected, as test scores show.  

 

Mr. Trump’s flaws are legion; they include an over-sized ego (a characteristic common to all politicians) and his preference to surround himself with sycophants (another characteristic common to most politicians). And just as his enemies are blinded with hatred, his acolytes are blinded by devotion. Nevertheless, tariffs, as proposed, are not the answer the Administration claims. In fact, left standing, they will cause more damage to markets and the economy. So, the question is: Will they remain as they are? I don’t know.

 

I want to end, however, on a positive note. The people of the United States recognize the extraordinary luck they have to live in this country. This is the only country in the world founded on the principle that men and women are born free, with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And, yes, I recognize our history has not always been just, that injustice is part of our past. But I also recognize the great strides we have made over the years and the acknowledgment of those injustices by leaders in politics, education and business. Overseas, the United States must continue to practice and project the moral standards that have defined our nation for the past 250 years. 

 

Volatility in the stock market is a concern, but it is worth repeating Benjamin Graham’s quote: …that the market, in the short term, can be seen as a “voting machine,” influenced by investor sentiment and emotions, but in the long run it acts as a “weighing machine,” reflecting the value of companies based on their fundamentals. Current volatility, while putting at risk traders with short time horizons, offers opportunity to long term investors seeking value.

 

As for our nation, Martin Luther King, Jr. reminded us: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” It is true that Founders like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison owned slaves, but it is also true that they provided the framework, in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, that permitted America’s moral universe to bend toward a fairer and more inclusive society. And that arc is still bending. History is a continuum. 

 

So, stay positive and stay focused. There is good and bad in all people. We have not yet seen the final act in this play about tariffs. Applause or catcalls should wait.

"A Common Culture?"

 We are less than two weeks from the Inauguration. Like some of you, I look forward to a change in leadership, not only because I am conservative, but, more important, because we will know who is in the driver’s seat. I should not be surprised – though I will not be around to witness their assessments – that when historians consider the last four years from the vantage of a few decades the focus will be, who was in charge? President Biden’s sad cognitive decline was obvious from the beginning. But what was really wrong was that his advisors and the press did their best to keep the public ignorant of his deteriorating condition. Living with an Administration with which we disagree is part of democracy. But having a government run by those we don’t know violates the very essence of a democracy.

 

Sydney M. Williams

https://swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“A Common Culture?”

January 8, 2025

 

“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their

Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

                                                                                                                                The Declaration of Independence

                                                                                                                                July 4, 1776

 

Many Americans bemoan a decline in culture. But what do we mean by culture? Are we speaking of the arts, religion, traditions, or a shared history? Are we referring to behavior? In a review of Eliot Stein’s Custodians of Wonder, Brandy Schillace wrote in The Wall Street Journal: “Our lives are connected to the land and the animals. Yet we are also threads in the tapestry that stretches back into prehistory, a part of a superorganism that is culture itself.”

 

So, what is culture? Definitions have changed. Noah Webster, in his 1828 dictionary, defined the word according to its etymological roots: “The act of tilling and preparing the earth for crops.” Forty-three years later, Edward Burnett Tyler, in Primitive Culture, defined the term in words we better understand today: “Culture…is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” From the Oxford English Dictionary: “Culture –The arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively.” In 1952, U.S. anthropologists A.L. Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn, in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions, cited 164 definitions of culture. I think of culture, first as a system of shared beliefs, values, behavior and practices – based on our Judeo-Christian heritage and embedded in our founding documents – and second as works of art, literature and music. 

 

For most of our nation’s history differences ruled. Rural and immigrant communities were often distinct entities. Until the mid-19^th Century, most Americans never ventured far from their homes. But from the mid 19^th Century on, technological advances unified us in a way unknown to earlier Americans. First we had steam ships, trains and then, later, the automobile, which allowed people to experience the size of our country. Radio then television brought other parts of the country and the world into our lives. The number of newspapers began to shrink. So that by my generation, people read the same news, listened to the same music, watched the same TV shows, saw the same movies, and heard the same nightly newscasts. In 1956 (in a country half the size it is today), Elvis Presley sold 10 million copies of a single song, “Hound Dog.” According to Pew Research, every evening during the 1960s between 27 and 29 million people listened to Walter Cronkite’s news on CBS, an audience greater than today’s combined daily audiences for ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News and MSNBC.

 

While we had differences back then – the McCarthy era of the early 1950s, the Civil Rights movement of the late 1950s and early ‘60s and the anti-War protests of the late 1960s and early ‘70s – the country was, generally, unified, at least in terms of what we read, listened to, and watched. That has changed. The expansion of social media posts, podcasts, YouTube and other platforms have meant we listen to and watch entertainment and news that fits our biases.  A Pew research study from last September suggests 91% of Americans aged 18-49 get their news, “at least some of the time,” from digital devices.

 

While it is estimated that more than 350 languages are spoken in the U.S. today, English is our common language. To be successful, one must adopt it. Even in colonial America a variety of languages and dialects were spoken, including German, Dutch, French, Spanish, Swedish, Hebrew, Irish and Welch, along with myriad variations. The roughly 450,000 African slaves then in America spoke numerous languages. As well, the estimated 250,000 Native Americans spoke approximately 300 different languages. Because of an anti-British sense, a few founding fathers preferred adopting German as the new nation’s language. But English prevailed and Webster’s Speller was published in 1783. In The Forgotten Founding Father, Joshua Kendall quoted Noah Webster: “Our political harmony is therefore concerned in the uniformity of language.”

 

We will not return to a time when we all listened to the same music, read the same newspapers, and watched the same television programs. As Americans we are not hindered by a class system that is integral to Europe’s and many other societies’ history and traditions. We are a nation of immigrants, born of multicultural parents. We are beneficiaries of a unique government and society, birthed during the Enlightenment, one that cares more about the individual than who her or his parents were. In his 1931 history, The Epic of America, historian James Truslow Adams wrote of what we all yearn: “The American dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.” In August 1790 President George Washington visited Newport, Rhode Island. Afterwards he wrote a letter to Newport’s Hebrew Congregation, founded in 1763: “For happily the government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean[1] themselves as good citizens.” 

 

In my opinion, the answer to the question posed in the title is yes, the United States does have a common culture. Besides our Judeo-Christian heritage, we have a common language, rooted in the words so eloquently expressed in The Declaration of Independence; it is fostered by a government elected by the people, which secures those rights, and operates under the rule of law. It is reflected in a society that promotes tolerance and respect for others, and that allows for the accommodation of differences. It is a culture that depends on personal responsibility and accountability, a culture built on individual freedom.

 

Our culture requires we be governed by our peers, with a government, as Lincoln said at Gettysburg, of, by and for the people. Our culture does not shy from dissent but reflects an undefinable something that draws us together in time of strife when commonalities rise above differences. It is a culture that is, however, always at risk of being lost; so it cannot be abandoned to self-serving, ephemeral policies like DEI, identity politics, or promoting a lifestyle that permits men to compete against women in sports or encourages gender alteration among prepubescent children and teenagers.

 

In 1919, Henry Cabot Lodge wrote President Woodrow Wilson words that echo today: “I can never be anything else but an American, and I must think of the United States first, and when I think of the United States first…I am thinking of what is best for the world, for if the United States fails, the best hopes of mankind fail with it.” Does anyone believe that if China were to become the global hegemon the world would be better off? We cherish this unique culture that is ours. It is not transient. It is embedded in our unique origins. It is our culture that draws to these shores the industrious and aspirant, because they know that it offers an environment in which they will be free to thrive. 

 

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[1] The word demean was defined then as “to behave; to carry, to conduct.”

"Freedom"

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Freedom”

August 28, 2024

 

“Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person

who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.”

                                                                                                Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)

                                                                                                You learn by Living: Eleven Keys to a More Fulfilling Life, 1960

 

The word freedom is inherent to our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. It is ingrained in what it means to be an American: “And so let freedom ring,” spoke Martin Luther King on August 28, 1963, “from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire…” The Oxford English Dictionarydefines the word: “The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint,” which is not too different from the definition Noah Webster assigned the word in his 1828 Webster’s Dictionary: “A state of exemption from the power or control of another.” Freedom from fear and freedom from want (two of FDR’s “Four Freedoms”) are offerings of the state, but they do not meet the classical definition of freedom.

 

Democrats see the state as providing the conditions, through rules, laws, and regulations, that allow individuals opportunities – what are now called “positive” freedoms. The Swiss-French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau believed that men are born free but “everywhere he is in chains.” So the state exists to guarantee his liberty and freedom from the restraints of society. Without the state, he believed, there is no freedom. Voltaire disagreed. The state can be a trap: “It is difficult to free fools from chains they revere.” 

 

Republicans define freedom, in accordance with John Locke and Thomas Jefferson, as natural rights, characterized by the absence of external (the state) constraints on individual freedoms. These freedoms are now referred to as “negative” freedoms. Locke, two generations earlier than Rousseau, had argued that people are naturally free and equal, and have a right to life, liberty and property that are independent of society’s laws, ideas borrowed by Thomas Jefferson in 1776: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” The Bill of Rights, adopted in December 1791, exemplified individual freedom. The colonists had lived under a tyrannical king. Fearful of autocracy that could stem from a strong central government, they desired a limited, federalist government, one composed, as Lincoln later said, “of, by and for the people.”  In a September 25^th, 1961 address to the United Nations’ General Assembly, President Kennedy warned: “Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.” 

 

No matter one’s definition, we should all agree that the freedoms to think, to pray, to write and to speak as one chooses are natural rights – gifts to us from God, inherent to us as Americans. We should also all agree that living in a community means that we must respect the rights and freedoms of others, that one person’s freedom to walk where he pleases may violate another’s right to privacy, so that government is necessary to adjudicate differences. The Constitution may give a person the right “to bear arms,” but that does not give that individual the right to kill his neighbor. Some freedoms, such as the right to abortion, are complex, as it contradicts the right to life. The decision to have an abortion, in my opinion, is best decided between the mother, the father, her doctor, her parents and perhaps a spiritual advisor. President Clinton came closest to my own belief: abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.” While we all know that government is necessary for society to function, we should also realize that rules, regulations and taxes, while imperative to civil society, are inhibitors to free expression. Arriving at a consensus means that, individually, we forego some freedoms in the interest of the greater good. We are fortunate to live in a country in which our democratic form of government allows for differences to be debated so as to find common solutions. Even so, as government swells in size, individual freedoms shrink.

 

There will always be areas of conflict between your freedom and mine. Taxpayers pay the salaries of public-school teachers. Teachers should have the freedom to unionize, but that should not prevent parent’s from having the freedom to choose which education system best fits their children – traditional schools, vouchers, or non-unionized charter schools. University professors and high school teachers have the freedom to think and speak as they wish, but they also have a responsibility to instruct students to think independently, to perhaps come to conclusions different from their own. Censorship, “harmful words” and “safe places” are antithetical to the concept of free expression. In a March 15, 1783 address to the officers of the Continental Army, George Washington spoke: “If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to slaughter.”

 

Democrats, at their Chicago convention, adopted freedom (along with “joy”) as their theme. According to a New York Times word-count, the word “freedom” was used 227 times in speeches over their four-day convention. I was happy that they did. But there is irony, hypocrisy and perhaps a touch of deviousness in a Party that talks up freedom but which defenestrated its sitting President, nominated Vice President Harris without a single primary delegate vote, wants to mandate EVs, prohibit gas stoves, limit school choice, and that weaponized federal agencies. This is the Party that uses the excuse of “disinformation” to censor political speech, that has done away with the concept of separation of powers by embracing the administrative state; it is the Party which would like to have the Supreme Court come under the purview of Congress. Yet they waved a banner of freedom at their convention. As a skeptic one is forced to ask: What freedom do they mean? Freedom for the state to do as it pleases? Freedom for me, or freedom for thou?

 

As the United States’ government grows larger and more complex, individual freedom, definitionally, lessens. According to the Office of the Federal Register, the number of final rules published each year ranges between 3,000 and 4,500. Wikipedia claims that approximately 200 new federal statutes are enacted each year. Most of these rules and laws are designed to benefit the people. But we should never ignore the fact that every new law and each new regulation has an impact – perhaps minor – on individual freedoms. Freedom is more than a slogan for conventioneers. It is why migrants come to these shores, even as most of us take freedom for granted. Freedom is not dependent on forgiveness of student debt, or dollars spent on entitlements. It comes with responsibilities, as Eleanor Roosevelt reminded us sixty-four years ago. It is an attitude, a belief. It is a gift from God. “Freedom isn’t free,” as the song goes.  It is rare, must be defended and should be treated as endangered. Fifty-seven years ago, in his first inaugural address as California’s new governor, Ronald Reagan said: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the blood stream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.” Amen.

"Salad Bowl or Melting Pot?"

Memorial Day was first celebrated as Decoration Day on May 30, 1868. It was celebrated as a day of remembrance for those who died in the Civil War. On that first day 20,000 graves in Arlington Cemetery were decorated with flowers. Over the years the day came to be celebrated as one of remembrance for all those who fell, defending our liberties, in all the Nation’s wars. 

In 1971, Memorial Day was moved to the last Monday of the month. Growing up in Peterborough, New Hampshire, I remember the parade in which marched veterans of both world wars, with most from the Second World War still in their 20s. On our bikes we followed the parade to Pine Hill Cemetery where wreaths were laid on the graves of veterans, a three-volley salute was fired, and Taps were played, with its haunting echo wafting through the White Pines. Pine Hill Cemetery is where my parents – my father a veteran of World War II – now lie, along with my brother Stuart.

 

Today, we watch the parade in Old Lyme where we lived for a quarter of a century. It is a parade with far fewer soldiers, but one that embodies the community’s patriotic spirit. As in my childhood, we follow the marchers, now to the Duck River Cemetery, where we listen to the three-volley salute to the fallen, then doff our hats and place our hands over our hearts as Taps reverberates across the graves, marshes and out to the Connecticut River.

 

Memorial Day is a reminder that we are all Americans, no matter our ethnic and racial heritage, and of how lucky we are to be here, to be living in this great nation at this time.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Salad Bowl or Melting Pot?”

May 24, 2024

 

“One of the things I admire most about America is they have created a

genuine melting pot society, a country of opportunity; you can be of any

religion, colour, ethnicity, persuasion and make it to the top of your chosen

field. And that’s something I admire about America and hope they continue with.”

                                                                                                                                David Cameron (1966-)

Speech at Foreign Policy Centre, London

August 24, 2005 

 

In The Forgotten Founding Father Joshua Kendall wrote: “Recognizing [Noah] Webster’s knack for getting Americans to think of themselves as Americans, [George] Washington relied time and time again on his trusted policy advisor.” We tend to think of colonial Americans as being solely of British heritage, and certainly they dominated. But languages spoken in the American colonies in 1775 included German, Dutch, French, Swedish, Polish and Hebrew, along with numerous dialects and myriad languages of indigenous Americans. From its beginning America was diverse, unlike the more homogenous countries from which immigrants had come. The Founding Fathers wanted the people to become a melting pot.

 

Noah Webster[1] understood the value of developing the unique character of an American. His spelling books were designed to help people read, write and speak a common language. In the June 29, 2019 issue of the San Diego Union-Tribune, Richard Lederer noted that Webster’s dictionaries had “an array of shiny new American words, among them bullfrog, chowder, handy, hickory, succotash, tomahawk…” Today, in this English-speaking country, those not fluent are disadvantaged, yet not all are encouraged to learn English.

 

Integration, in this nation of immigrants, was slow, as could be seen in many New York City neighborhoods that remained distinctive into the 20^th Century: Little Italy; China Town; Yorkville (for Germans); Spanish Harlem; Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant and Manhattan’s Harlem, home for black Americans, and Lapskaus Boulevard in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn where many Norwegians settled. But assimilation became increasingly common in the first and second halves of the 20^thCentury, first through inter-ethnic marriages and later through interracial marriages.

 

Change is always slower than we would like. For example, until the 1967 unanimous Supreme Court decision of Loving versus Virginia, interracial marriages were forbidden by law in thirty-one states. According to Pew Research, in 1960 only 3% of marriages in the U.S. were between persons of different races. Yet by 2022, such unions represented 19% of all marriages. Public approval of interracial marriages, according to Wikipedia, was 5% in 1950, but had risen to 94% in 2021.  Ancestry.com and 23andMe have increased people’s interest in their ancestry, and many are amazed at the diversity of their heritage – something more common in the United States than in other parts of the world.

 

 

The melting pot ideal remains the preferred metaphor for most Americans. We recognize the uniqueness of this country, that it values individual freedom, yet with a government that operates under the rule of law, not men. It stands, most of us believe, as “a shining city on a hill,” as a beacon to the rest of the world. But not all Americans see us that way, including many who consider themselves part of “the elite.” In a recent essay in National Review, British historian Andrew Roberts wrote about D-Day, and its 80^th Anniversary to be celebrated in a couple of weeks. He wrote of how yesterday’s heroes might not meet the tests of “today’s masters of inclusivity and sensitivity.” He suggested that there is not today, among the nation’s elites, a sense of “…the superiority of democracy and liberty and the benefits of Western civilization…” He asks if those ideals, “something noble,” are something we now choose to discard? Roberts concludes: Eighty years ago “they knew what was worth fighting and dying for, whereas today we seem to be unsure of everything, even down to the pronouns we should use for one another.”

 

Washington politicians and their supporters in the media today find it easier to compartmentalize people by identity, including gender, sexual preference, race and ethnicity, rather than embrace the compromises that come from opposing ideas. They divide people into victims and oppressors – if you are of the former you can never succeed without help, and if you are one of the latter you will always have an unfair advantage. For those who practice identity politics, initiative does not count; merit is out, and personal responsibility plays no role. For example, Title IX has been re-written, so that preference is given to all women, transwomen as well as biological women. The consequences, including use of bathrooms and sports competition, cannot be what the authors of the original Title IX intended.

 

Dividing people into identifiable groups is destructive to the concept of a unified people, as Roberts noted. It breeds distrust and hatred. Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) – the Austrian free-market economist, born of Jewish parents and who left Vienna in 1934 to avoid Nazi influence (and who well understood the risk of identity politics) – called out in his Theory and History what he termed “the pernicious doctrine of polylogism,” the belief that different groups of people reason in fundamentally different ways – the path down which identity politics leads. Such beliefs result in anarchy, a society with no moral code, no rules as to right or wrong – that there is no one logic or one truth. A society of such “unconstrained imagination[2]” would not have been able to have written our Constitution in 1787.

 

Of course, a “melting pot” achieved through coercion is antidemocratic, as is one that denies people the right to stay in touch with their heritage. As well, a “melting pot” should never be confused with unity of opinions. Diversity of ideas is essential to democracy. It is why independent thought should be encouraged. It is why we debate issues – to find a consensus. On the other hand, a preference for the “salad bowl” approach where the radishes clash with the tomatoes and the peppers stand aloof of the cucumbers, ignores the need for the people of this nation to discover that consensus and to think of themselves as Americans. 

 

The metaphor of the melting pot best reflects the natural course of a free and open society. It suggests that there are things more important than race or ethnicity. It suggests that opportunity, as David Cameron implied, is available to all, and that individual success is dependent on individual initiative, aspiration and ability. The beauty and uniqueness of America is that the opinions of its citizens – people of all races and nationalities – are reflected in the voting booths. According to the website PoliEngine there are more than 100,000 governments in the United States, employing 519,682 politicians – 96% of those governments are local.  So long as Washington’s efforts to divide us fail, those myriad ideas and decisions will reflect the diversity of an increasingly complex melting pot, where the ingredients become inseparable. Let the pot grow in size. But as for diversity of ideas, let the salad bowl flourish.

 

                                                                                

 

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[1] Noah Webster was one of my 32 four-great grandfathers. His wisdom, though, has been diluted by my 31 less illustrious male ancestors; though buttressed by my 32 four-great grandmothers.

[2] Jeffrey Tucker’s term in the May 15-21, 2024 issue of The Epoch Times.