"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.

"Are Things as Bad as They Seem?"

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Thought of the Day

“Are Things as Bad as They Seem?”

March 11, 2024

 

“Just when you thought that things couldn’t get any worse, you find out that they’ve

always been a lot worse than you thought they were. And then they get worse.”

                                                                                                                                Philip Kerr (1956-2018)

                                                                                                                                The Pale Criminal, 1990

 

Debt, including unfunded liabilities, threatens to bankrupt us. The southern border has become a porous venue for a record number of illegals and the drugs many bring into this country. An epidemic of crime has transformed our cities. Democrats have weaponized the criminal justice department to go after political opponents. Republicans, in a rush to isolationism, have abandoned global responsibilities – underestimating threats to democratic institutions posed by Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, and Iran’s Mullahs. Color-blind meritocracy and biological sex have given way to harmful fantasies, with preferential treatment for some groups and favored pronouns for others. A desire for clean energy is countered by demand for clean-technology factories and electricity-hungry data centers, “leaving,” as Evan Halper wrote last week in The Washington Post, “utilities and regulators grasping for credible plans to expand the nation’s creaking power grid.” Biden’s mandate that two thirds of all new cars be electric by 2032 will increase the demand for electricity. One asks: is the country witnessing the death of common sense and entering a death spiral? 

 

I suspect everyone, no matter their political preferences, agrees that we live in contentious times – politically, technologically, and culturally. Of the two Presidential candidates, one is visibly senescent and the other is “the crudest trash-talker in politics,” as Barton Swaim wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed. AI threatens to disrupt our lives in unknown ways. DEI, CRT, gender neutral bathrooms and gendered-altered athletes have turned high schools and universities into places alien to parents and alumni.

 

Perhaps we should step back. “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes” is an aphorism usually attributed to Mark Twain. It suggests that while each era is different, there are recurring themes. And as George Santayana observed, we are disadvantaged regarding the present and the future when we ignore the past. And, while our current situation is unique, the United States has survived bigger schisms – the biggest being the Civil War when eleven southern states seceded from the Union to form the Confederate States of America. That Lincoln was able to prevent England and France from recognizing the Confederacy and keep the Union intact, while abolishing slavery, is something for which every American should be grateful. 

 

While the Civil War created chaos, the two-and-a-half decades leading up to it were unsettled, and not just because of slavery. In the twenty-four years before Abraham Lincoln was elected in a four-way race in 1860, eight men served as President. The three decades leading to the Civil War saw the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution, an event that raised living standards, but that also created winners and losers: Railroads and steamships disrupted traditional means of travel, and the telegraph radicalized the way people communicated. The McCormack reaper increased the value of large Pennsylvania and Ohio farms, while lowering the value of smaller New England farms. The Singer sewing machine revolutionized the clothing industry. All were examples of Joseph Schumpeter’s “creative disruption.” More than a third of the nation’s population increase over the thirty years prior to the Civil War was due to immigrants, mostly from Ireland and Germany. Growth spurts are usually accompanied by hiccups. 

 

Turbulent times continued: Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, and over the next thirty-six years two more Presidents would be assassinated – James Garfield in 1861 and William McKinley in 1901. Native Americans continued to be attacked, captured, and placed on reservations. Black Americans continued to experience bigotry and segregation, and the late 19^th Century saw the birth of the Ku Klux Klan. The Industrial Revolution continued, with electricity, autos, and telephones being introduced, creating dislocations for carriage makers and purveyors of gas lamps, but positively affecting living standards.

 

Once again, we live in politically rancorous times, with cultural appropriation in schools, universities, and businesses and disruptive technologies like social media and artificial intelligence. Democrats have what they want in Donald Trump as the presumptive Republican nominee, and Republicans have what they want with Democrats sticking with Joe Biden. Both parties are more interested in attacking their opponent than in promoting their candidate. Neither candidate shows any interest in reconciliation. Trump, in a statement that showed how unhinged he is from reality, claimed to have no need of Nikki Haley’s supporters, Independents, or disgruntled Democrats. In his State of the Union, Biden made no effort to appease Republicans unhappy with Trump. Instead, the speech was, as Ben Domenech wrote in The Spectator, “unhinged…spewing invective at half the country.” – the campaign speech of an angry old man, which served as a preview of the road to November.

 

Unless, unless something changes. Last Friday, No Labels held a virtual 800-delegate meeting, and the members voted, “near unanimously” as NBC put it, to move forward with the process of forming a presidential ticket to run in the 2024 election against Joe Biden and Donald Trump. An official ticket was not put forward, but one is expected. Regardless, given the ages of Biden and Trump and should Robert Kennedy, Jr. and Harvard professor and civil rights activist Cornel West persist in their presidential bids, conventions this summer may be wide-open affairs. 

 

And yet, are things as bad as they seem? No one can see into the future. Classicists remind us that empires end, and so might the United States, a nation that has stood as a defender of freedom for the world’s democracies, and a country that provides hope for the world’s oppressed. But is now that moment? I recall the late 1960s and ‘70s when society was frayed and politics were in disarray, yet we survived. It is possible that the last stanza of Edgar Guest’s (1881-1959) poem published in the March 4, 1921 issue of the Detroit Free Press will prove prescient for today’s over-whelmed American voter:

 

“And you never can tell how close you are,

It may be near when it seems so far,

So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit – 

It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.”

"Time for a Third Party?"

                                                                     Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Time for a Third Party?”

February 16, 2024

 

“Third parties are like bees: once they have stung, they die.”

                                                                                                                                Richard Hofstadter (1916-1970)

                                                                                                                                The Age of Reform, 1955

 

As Professor Hofstadter wrote almost seventy years ago, third parties do not have an encouraging history in American politics. In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive “Bull Moose” Party handed the election to Woodrow Wilson. In 1924, Robert LaFollette’s Progressive Party garnered 16.6% of the popular vote, but probably did not affect the election’s outcome. As well, Strom Thurmond in 1948 and George Wallace in 1968 ran effective campaigns but did not affect elections in those years. However, Ross Perot’s Independent Party in 1992 probably cost George H.W. Bush his re-election.

 

John Templeton once said that the four most dangerous words in investing are “this time it’s different.” Those words are ordinarily applicable to third party candidacies. However, this year does seem different. Assuming that the two lead candidates stay the course – not a sure bet – November’s election will be between two of the widely unliked (and least qualified) candidates in American history[1].

 

With Robert Kennedy, Jr. already in the race and with No Labels standing in the wings, perhaps the most comparable election would be that of 1860, which fielded four candidates: Lincoln was the Republican candidate, Stephen Douglas the Democrat, John Breckinridge ran as a Lecompton Democratic candidate, and John Bell from the Constitutional Union Party. When the smoke cleared on November 6, 1860, Lincoln had won just under 40% of the popular vote, Douglas 29.5%, Breckinridge 18.2% and Bell 12.6%. However, in terms of Electoral College votes, Lincoln was the clear winner, with 180 votes out of 303 cast.

 

Voters are often told that a vote for a third party means a vote for the opposition. In other words, Democrat leaders today tell voters that a vote for Robert Kennedy, Jr. is in fact a vote for Donald Trump. History suggests their warnings are justified, as no third party candidate has ever won the White House. In Shakespeare’s The Tempest Antonio speaks to Sebastian: “What’s past is prologue.” 

 

But the past is not always prologue? Humans have advanced, driven by those who dared to experiment, to try something new. Consider the telegraph, railroads, telephones, cars, airplanes, space travel, computers, the integrated circuit, and artificial intelligence. Our Founders, in 1789, chose a new form of government. They looked to the past but created something new – a representative, republican democracy, in which the individual was paramount and government limited. Three equal and independent branches were devised to help prevent any one person or branch from taking control. The government born in Philadelphia was, as Lincoln proclaimed at Gettysburg eighty-seven years later, a new concept in human history, a “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

 

Today’s two political parties did not exist in 1789. It was not until 1828 that the Democratic Party was formed, as a vehicle to help elect Andrew Jackson. The Republican Party was formed in 1854 by forces opposed to the expansion of slavery. Today, neither party is what it was a generation or two ago. The country club crowd of the northeast, once solidly Republican, has become decidedly Democratic. Internationalists of the 1950s, once solidly Republican, have become, under Mr. Trump, anti-globalists. 

 

Today, two aging men (though younger than me) – one with obvious declining cognitive powers and the other a tactless, uncouth individual who threatens to dismantle NATO – head both parties. Is it not time to seek a third way? Or, if not a third way, is it not time for leaders of both parties to recognize their flawed choices and nominate someone who can move the country forward in a manner acceptable to the majority of voters? I recall once having lunch in the Senate dining room in the early 1970s. I remember the sense of camaraderie that permeated the room – Republicans and Democrats dining together. Famously, President Reagan and House Speaker Thomas (“Tip”) O’Neil, while poles apart politically, enjoyed a mutually respectful and affectionate relationship. And similarly, Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich had a mutually beneficial meeting of the minds. But I cannot imagine President Biden enjoying a drink with Speaker Mike Johnson any more than I could have imagined former President Trump sitting down to exchange stories with former Speaker Nancy Pelosi. That loss of political camaraderie has become the people’s loss.

 

No Labels was launched ten years ago, initially among House members, as fault lines between the parties widened and deepened. Today, fifty House members, split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, meet regularly. The House effort is led by Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA). Five years ago, No Labels began an effort to organize a similar group in the Senate. Today, their leaders include Joe Manchin (D-WV), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Krysten Sinema (I-AZ). Their goal is to find common ground, at a time when extremists from both sides dominate their parties, along with news and social media platforms. 

 

Will a Third Party, like the mythical Phoenix arise from the ashes of today’s political conflagration? I am unsure. My hope is that both parties recognize that their current preferences for President will lead to more division at home and to a more dangerous world abroad. Ironically, Democrats hope Trump is Republicans’ choice, just as Republicans hope Biden heads the Democratic slate. 

 

As I have written before, the Democratic Party, being more disciplined, is more likely to drop the Biden-Harris ticket than Republicans to dump Trump. However, as a conservative, it is my hope that Republicans recognize the futility of sticking with the flawed and (nationally) unelectable Donald Trump. They have an opportunity with Nikki Haley who polls well against Mr. Biden. But will she gain the necessary votes in the upcoming primaries? She does not generate the fanaticism of Trump followers, but she appeals to a broader array of voters. If both parties stick with today’s leaders, a Third Party candidate seems, to this observer, a likely alternative.  

 

 

 

 

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[1] To be clear, in my opinion, it is not age that is the problem; it is the mental condition of one and the character of the other. Both, in varying degrees, are corrupt and neither seems to appreciate history. As to who is most corrupt, I leave that for you to decide. There is no doubt that Mr. Biden is cognitively impaired and we, the public, have no idea who is the puppeteer pulling the strings in his administration.  There is no debate about Mr. Trump being a boorish, loose cannon in a complex and multi-cultural world when tolerance and grasp are needed. Worse, he has become an isolationist just as the world is turning more dangerous. However, Trump’s appeal, we should not forget, is to those millions of forgotten men and women ignored by identity politics, elitism, and political correctness.

"Life is Short but Eternity is Forever"

 “Know Thyself” is a maxim inscribed upon the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. They are also words found in Lamentations from the Old Testament. 

 

The quest for self-knowledge is a journey requiring honesty and is key to understanding our purpose in the world. Many of my personal essays, like this one, are short trips along that path of self-discovery. I have found that it is not the destination – which is always elusive – that is the goal, but the journey. 

 

Thank you for allowing me to share them with you.

 

Sydney

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

More Essays from Essex

“Life is Short but Eternity is Forever”[1]

January 20, 2024

 

“A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the 

profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive

forms are accessible to our minds – it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute

true religiosity; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.”

                                                                                                              Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

                                                                                                             “The World as I See It,” An Essay by Einstein

                                                                                                              1931

 

At a recent family dinner, the discussion turned to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its ramifications. A grandson remarked that AI machines have limits. For example, they have been unable to create a living organism, except possibly Xenobots, supposedly self-replicating living robots. Scientists can modify genes to make wheat more durable and blueberries bluer. They can clone sheep and women can freeze eggs. But man reproduces through copulation, a biological function common to most animal species.

 

Life, as we know, is short. In the two thousand years since Jesus’ birth (a small fraction of the time that Homo sapiens have roamed the earth), six thousand generations of people have been born and died. Now, as I age, I think of mysteries of life, for instance that causality requires a first cause – from whence came the first spark of life? Evolution is understandable, how species evolve over millions of years, how they are still evolving, and even why, looking back from a perspective of a million years or more (assuming the planet and our galaxy survive), what we now know as man may seem like an early, primitive creation.

 

But what did create that first form of life? We think of infinity, but it is beyond comprehension. If the universe is finite, what lies behind it? What does eternity really mean? Was the world as we know it, the creation of some power far greater than anything we can imagine? Or is any of this worth worrying about? Should we turn the page of the book we are reading, switch channels, or view another posting on Instagram? 

 

I am not a student of religion. In fact, we rarely go to church. When our children were young we did take them regularly to St. Barnabas in Greenwich where I served on the vestry and they attended Sunday school and became acolytes. When in boarding school, I was required to read the Bible. But I retained little, with my then non-retentive speed-reading skills. Nevertheless, I have found that I am thinking more about such questions. And I keep a copy of the Bible and The Book of Common Prayer within easy reach. In the same book mentioned in the footnote, Tyrrell wrote of reading the 17^th Century French philosopher Blaise Pascal and his wager: If one lives by God’s rules as laid out in the Bible, and believes in God’s existence, God will be satisfied. If God does not exist, one has lost nothing, while living with love and compassion. 

 

Accepting Pascal’s wager appears sensible. And with Einstein admission that there are limits to human knowledge, God’s existence seems a reasonable possibility. I’m getting there.

"Threats to Democracy"

 With the Iowa caucuses now behind us, the 2024 Presidential campaign is officially underway. Let the games begin. For the next ten months, the airwaves will be inundated, as will social media, with each candidate swathed in self-glorification, spouting lies, and bashing his or her opponent.

 

If the consequences weren’t so important, we should laugh at the pretentious political pontification to which we will all be subject, as candidates bluster inanities. My advice is to turn the channel to real comic relief, like watching old movies with the likes of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Danny Kaye, the Marx Brothers, or better yet, one of Mel Brooks’ classic comedies from the ‘70s and ‘80s, or John Landis’ 1978 Animal House. Remember, it was John Belushi’s character “Bluto” Blutarsky who is destined for the U.S. Senate, while it was straight-arrow jerk Douglas Neidermeyer (played by Mark Metcalf) who is shot by his own men in Vietnam.

 

My apologies to subjecting you to one more essay on a time-worn subject.

 

Sydney

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Threats to Democracy”

January 16, 2024

 

“The problem comes when the government is inhibiting 

innovation with overregulation and short-sighted policy.”

                                                                                                                Garry Kasparov (1963-)

                                                                                                                Deep Thinking: – Where Machine Intelligence Ends

                                                               and Human Creativity Begins, 2017

 

On January 6, 2024 near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, President Biden opened his 2024 election campaign: “Whether democracy is still America’s sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time. It is what the 2024 election is all about.” Politico, the left-leaning digital newspaper, reported last month that comparing Mr. Trump to Hitler had become routine for the Biden campaign. Dean Karayanis, in the January 5^th edition of The York Sun, wrote: “When an incumbent president swings that brickbat, though, it raises the stakes to a dangerous level.” And Perry Bacon of The Washington Post, who believes the issue is legitimate, wrote in a recent column that such a focus “sidelines other important issues,” that a “general election is in many ways a national conversation between citizens.” But it also trivializes the horrors inflicted by Hitler and the Nazi regime. And remember, Hitler’s Nazis controlled the press and the universities. Trump and the Republicans do not.

 

Let me state at the outset, if Donald Trump were to be elected next November, which I hope he is not, our democracy would not be at risk. In the January issue of The Spectator, Roger Kimball wrote: “At the center of the totalitarian impulse is the belief that ultimate freedom belongs only to the state.” Trump is a bloviating blowhard, but he would not destroy democracy, even if that were his desire which I don’t believe it is. What would happen is that the mechanics of government would slow, and possibly grind to halt. Even before Trump took office in January 2017, the false Russian collusion hoax had been concocted by the Clinton campaign, which hampered his administration. Millions of dollars were spent on the Mueller investigation that unearthed no collusion, except that between the Clinton campaign and the F.B.I. Two impeachments were attempted; both failed for lack of evidence. Attempts by the Trump Administration to clean up the intelligence communities were stymied. Recall Senator Chuck Schumer’s prescient comments to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on January 3, 2017, when he insisted that Trump was really dumb for attacking the intelligence agencies: “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.” The unarmed rag-tag gang of men and women who entered the capital on January 6 slowed but did not stop the wheels of government. What Biden and his Progressive buddies have done, in reverting to the campaign slogan that democracy is at risk, is to lift a page from Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels who said that if a lie is repeated often enough, people will believe it. 

 

Yet changes in our culture – the re-writing of history, the obviation of standards of decency, a focus on DEI, the proliferation of identity politics, the offering of trigger warnings and the provision of safe places, the abandonment of universal truths, climate adamancy, ignorance of biology, and the willful use of the courts to destroy political opponents – do threaten the values that made this country a beacon to the world’s poor and persecuted. In his recent memoir, How Do We Get Out of Here, R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. wrote that “…culture is more important to politics than politics is to politics…” The late British historian Arnold Toynbee wrote that civilizations begin to decay when they lose their moral fiber. I would add that they also decay when citizens fail to appreciate the long arc of history. In the same issue of The Spectator quoted above, Daniel McCarthy wrote “…an entrenched liberal ideology has made modern life on these shores resemble a few of the worst features of the dystopias envisioned by [George] Orwell and Aldous Huxley.” Following the Battle of Bẽn Tre on the Mekong River in January 1968, an American Army officer is alleged to have said: “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.” Is it not possible that Progressives have adopted that as their motto: We have to destroy American culture in order to save it. 

 

While both Parties have been responsible for the expansion of government, deficit spending, and the increase in federal debt, it has been Democrats who have been most persistent and most effective. It was President Reagan who, at an August 12, 1986 news conference, famously said: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’” It was Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, on November 8, 2023, who mistakenly claimed (deliberately or because of ignorance?) that Reagan had reinforced Democrats’ preference: “We’re from the government. We’re here to help.”

 

The two-party system has, generally, served us well, in that voters can change horses every two years. Over the past seventy-five years Republicans have held the White House forty years and the Democrats thirty-five. But in the House and the Senate, the two-party system has been less rewarding to Republicans. Over those same seventy-five years, Democrats controlled the Senate 56% of the time and the House 70% of the time. But what has really upset the two-party system has been the growth of the administrative state – the vast federal bureaucracy and the regulatory agencies they control. While every two years we elect 435 members of the House of Representatives and one third of the U.S. Senate, there are approximately two million civil servants, of whom only four thousand are presidential appointees. The rest – overwhelmingly Democrats – comprise the permanent (and expanding) federal employment structure. While theoretically non-partisan, those employees are not immune from the sectarianism that has infested our political culture. George Washington worried that partisanship would lead to a “spirit of revenge,” driven by a desire for personal power rather than governing in the people’s interest. His fears seem to have been realized. Extremists from the left and the right have become significant in both parties. Like communists and fascists, they share the same principles and the same methods of dealing with dissidents. A striving for personal power and monetary gain via the public arena has replaced the once common tradition of public service.

 

There is no question that democracy is fragile. It depends on an educated, enlightened electorate, the free flow of ideas, the rule of law, civilized behavior, respect for others, and adherence to the traditions that have allowed this Country to move forward over time. We must weigh humanitarian and social wants against the cost to pay for them through continued economic growth. The size of our national debt and the demand of future entitlements pressure growth. In the mid 1950s, total government spending – federal, state, and local – amounted to about 14% of GDP. In 2022, it amounted to 36.3 percent. In 1974 federal debt, as a percent of GDP, was 32%. In 2022, it was 127%. In 1974, US Debt was rated AAA by all three credit agencies. Today, two of those agencies have downgraded the debt to AA+. According to Trading Economics, in the 1950s and ‘60s the average US GDP growth rate was above 4%. In the 1970s and ‘80s, the growth rate dropped to 3%. For the past ten years, the growth rate has averaged below two percent. Low birth rates and subpar economic growth negatively affect the ability to fund future entitlements.

 

In his memoir mentioned above, Tyrrell quoted the late British philosopher and political theorist Michael Oakeshott: “To be a conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss.” While there is much in that quote that appeals to me, especially humor, I also believe in dreams and curiosity, that we must not be afraid of the unknown, to experiment and innovate, that change is inevitable and that we must be able and willing to adapt. But I believe we run unnecessary risks when we demonize our culture, its teachings, and the evolution of our history. Keep in mind, it was (and is) our culture – of which democracy is a part – and the economic opportunities our nation offers, that attract migrants to these shores. We rightfully complain about our open southern border, but it is instructional that there are no lines of migrants waiting to enter Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Cuba, or Venezuela. 

 

In 1854, William Anderson Scott published Daniel, A Model for Young Men, which included this famous line: “Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.” The United States has become an angry place, and threats to democracy cannot be ignored, whether the source is an individual or whether the threat comes in the form of subtle but insidious changes to the culture that has allowed this country to become the beacon to the world. Care is warranted. 

"Moral Clarity"

 I hope this essay does not come across as narcissistic or sanctimonious. Certainly, no one should read into this essay that I am an example of moral righteousness, for I am not. But it is a subject which many of us think about, especially now with both political parties being held hostage by extremists, with neither side listening to the other and with both deliberately misinterpreting what is being proposed; with hatred pervading our elite universities, as seen in a rise of anti-Semitism; and with both presumed presidential candidates lacking a moral spine. Given our time and place, some thoughts on moral clarity seemed timely.

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Thought of the Day

“Moral Clarity”

November 13, 2023

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

“Over the years, I have come to understand a critical difference between the world of fear

and the world of freedom. In the former, the primary challenge is finding the strength to

confront evil. In the latter, the primary challenge is finding the moral clarity to see evil.”

                                           Natan Sharansky (1948-)

   Soviet dissident and Israeli politician

                                          The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror, 2004

 

Critics of “moral clarity” claim the world cannot be divided into good and evil, that there are too many nuances. As well, these critics tell us that the words “moral clarity” suggest exclusionary views, such as that expressed in the phrase, “My country, right or wrong.”

 

In my opinion they misunderstand the words, as they assign a moral equivalence based on claimed beliefs. The fact that Nazis justified the extermination of the Jewish people as a means to achieve a pure, Aryan race was an act of pure evil, as was their concept of lebensraum. It was evil that drove Hamas terrorists to parachute in and slaughter Jewish civilians, including children, in the most horrific manner. None of what they did could be compared to Israelis giving Palestinians two weeks to leave northern Gaza before sending in armed forces to ferret out terrorists in tunnels beneath Gaza City’s civilian population. Moral clarity is the ability to think clearly about good and evil, of what is right and what is wrong. There are times when wars are fought for good causes. Moral clarity implies the existence and ubiquity of evil.

 

However, among the extreme Left, the words have become pejorative, as they associate them with American conservatives. They link them to Ronald Reagan, whose popularity has never sat well with the progressive wing of the Democrat Party, and they were popularized by William Bennett in Why We Fight: Moral Clarity and the War on Terrorism, a book that highlighted the tension between good and evil. Moral clarity demands the United States has a strong defense, the ability to confront enemies and support allies.  

 

As Natan Sharansky wrote in the rubric above, the challenge for western democracies is to acknowledge that evil exists. Those living under dictatorships, victims of Ku Klux Klan marauders in the early part of the 20^thCentury, and Jews subject to anti-Semitism today understand how evil infests individuals. In his 1973 book The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) wrote: “Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties – but right through the human heart. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years…It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person.” That each individual, regardless of race or religion, is capable of evil (as well as of goodness) has long been understood by the clergy. When Jesus was asked by His disciples how to pray, He responded with the Lord’s Prayer, a prayer rooted in the Torah and that includes the line “but deliver us from evil.” Yet there are and always have been nations that use evil to motivate their people, like the Nazis in World War II, and China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea today. They claim some group is intent on denigrating their lives so they must be destroyed, as Nazis said of Jews in the 1930s, and that today the Chinese say of the Uyghurs, Russians say of the Ukrainians, and as Iran’s proxies – Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthis – say of Israelis. Evil may arise in individuals’ hearts, but it can be manifested in government actions. 

 

In his 1794 book Interesting Anecdotes, Memoirs, Allegories, Essays, and Poetical Fragments, Joseph Addison wrote: “No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.” It was with that in mind that on November 11, 1997, Justice Antonin Scalia spoke of the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust, not just about what Germans did to Jews, but of how it happened in a nation noted for its civilization – a country that had been a world leader in art, music, science, and the intellect. “To fully grasp the horror of the Holocaust,” he said, “you must imagine (for it probably happened) that the commandant of Auschwitz or Dachau, when he had finished his day’s work, retired to his apartment to eat a meal that was in the finest good taste, and then to listen, perhaps, to some tender and poignant lieder of Franz Schubert.” Evil can appear swathed in clothes of the benevolent. Sinclair Lewis’ dystopian novel It Can’t Happen Here comes to mind. Because it can.

 

Our Founding Fathers recognized the presence of evil, which is why they designed a government with checks and balances and judicial restraints. It was not designed to be efficient – efficiency was left to the private sector – but to be deliberative, with decisions and laws based on compromise, arrived at through consensus. The nation they created had many imperfections – the existence and persistence of slavery being the most notable. But they also created a country where justice was allowed, albeit slowly, to rise. Martin Luther King, Jr. reminded us: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” That has been true in democracies, where the people have a say in the government under which they live, but it has not been true in much of the world, where rule of law, property rights, free markets, and equal justice do not exist. And even in western democracies, the move toward justice can be uneven.

 

We hear complaints of the wrongs America has committed, and no one can deny that slavery existed, that native populations were killed and/or mistreated, and that limits were placed on who could vote. Those wrongs existed but were corrected. Time and history must be considered, and credit must be granted for adaption to change. Man was not created pure and good, and neither were nations, but both should be measured on how they adapt over time. Man first appeared perhaps 300,000 years ago. For most of that time he was tribal. It took thousands of years for him to begin living in communities and cities. Survival meant constant wars, and the defeated were often enslaved. Progress was slow and uneven, as we know from earlier civilizations that flourished and disappeared. We who are alive today are fortunate to live where and when we do. Are not Americans better off today than a hundred years ago? And were not most Americans better off in 1923 than in 1823. And were not Americans in 1823 better off than colonialists in 1723? It is not just standards of living that have improved over time, it is that freedom, gradually, was extended to more people – at first to those of non-European heritage, to non-property owners, and then to blacks and women.

 

But we cannot be complacent. As Ronald Reagan once said: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on for them to do the same…” We should respect this exceptional nation that has lived more closely to dictates of moral clarity than most others. But we should not boast of our fortune. Like religion, we do not have to carry patriotism on our sleeves, but we should not forget that we are an example for the oppressed and dispossessed across the world. We should never be ashamed of who we are.

 

Rape, murder, incest, torture, and robbery are evil in every culture. They and the seven cardinal sins – pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth – are the antithesis of moral clarity. We must restrain the evil that is present in each of us and promote the good, which is also within us. Yes Virginia, there is such a thing as moral clarity. It is not a catch phrase or a figment of the imagination. The path toward moral clarity is not always clear. It may be disguised and hard to distinguish; it may be elusive. But, as Justice Potter Stewart once said about pornography, we know it when we see it. Most important, it is a code to live by. 

"Our Political State"

 Given the Hamas-led attack on Israel yesterday, it seems unseemly to write of anything else, especially when many in the morally challenged West have abandoned the Middle East’s sole democracy, but the below was largely written earlier.

 

It is hard not to become cynical when one looks at the U.S. today, to feel we have fallen so far that recovery is nigh impossible. But I am reminded of that song from Annie, “The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow.” I am reminded of Warren Buffett’s telling us to never bet against America. And I am reminded of newly elected Ronald Reagan’s confidence, sunny disposition, and humor in 1981 when the Country was in the midst of inflation and despair…And I feel better.

 

Sydney M. Williams

30 Bokum Road – Apartment 314

Essex, CT 06426

 

Thought of the Day

“Our Political State”

October 8, 2023

 

“The Rule of Law is the principle that all persons will be treated equally and justly in a

civilized society. No one is above the law. The highest aspirations of the rule of law are

established in the Constitution of the United States and the Constitutions of the various states.”

                                                                                                                             Paul G. Summers

                                                                                                                             Former Attorney General, Tennessee

                                                                                                                             The Tennessean

                                                                                                                              November 2, 2022

 

Yes, Virginia, some people are above the law. They are known as politicians, asses and pachyderms; they can be found in barns, zoos, but also in the circus that is Washington. Exhibit ‘A’ includes both the current President and his immediate predecessor. Unlike spider monkeys or black-footed ferrets, politicians are not endangered. In fact, they rank with nematode worms as one of the more prolific animal species on earth.

 

And, yes Virginia, if one had to classify into one word our two main political parties it would be that Republicans are dysfunctional and Democrats mean-spirited. Two episodes this past week provide examples: Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and his group of eight self-serving, dissident Republicans colluded with Democrats to remove Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House. A day or so earlier, as Congress was trying to pass legislation to extend government funding for forty-five days, Congressman Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) pulled a fire alarm, so as to delay the vote. Incredulously, he had the temerity to claim he mistook the bright red alarm for an automatic door opener, a mistake impossible to believe of anyone, least of all of a former middle school principal.  

 

In the wake of the French Revolution (1789-1794), the philosopher and monarchist Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821) is alleged to have written, “Every nation has the government it deserves.” Has that become our fate? Is it our fault that we have a cognitively-challenged President, an ego-centric ex-President as his main challenger, a Democratic U.S. Senator who dresses like a slob, and eight Republican Congressmen willing to sacrifice their Party for purposes of self-aggrandizement. Our Founders included Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison, giants by today’s standards. Like all humans, they were imperfect, but their positive qualities outweighed their negative ones. After 250 years, can we say our politics have evolved in Darwinian fashion? Or is our current state of political affairs an example of dysgenics – a decrease in the prevalence of traits deemed to be socially desirable?

 

Consider: We have a border that is not a border. We have mobs rampaging through urban stores. We have a Justice on the Supreme Court unable to define a woman. We have political, media, educational, and business leaders telling us that our four-billion-year-old planet will become uninhabitable in a few dozen years if we continue to use fossil fuels. We have schools that focus on gender identity and our racial past, while standards in math, science, and English have languished. We have universities that cancel conservative speakers. We have politicians unable to distinguish between debt and deficits, and who are unconcerned that borrowed money must one day be re-paid. We have a collapse of the nuclear family, and an aging population with birth rates falling below replacement rates. We have social justice warriors who claim that inequality in outcomes is a deliberate decision and has nothing to do with differences in aspiration or physical and mental abilities. Political extremism, on both sides, has divided families and friends. The title of R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr’s new memoir comes to mind: How Do We Get Out of here?

 

In an interview this weekend in The Wall Street Journal, Jason Riley quoted the 93-year-old Thomas Sowell: “The fatal danger of our times today is a growing intolerance and suppression of opinions and evidence that differ from prevailing ideologies that dominate institutions, ranging from the academic world to the corporate world, the media and government institutions.” One would hope that political evolution would have seen rising civility in the debating of ideas. That is not the case. Amidst this chaos, in a recent interview with Kelly Hanlon of the Witherspoon Institute, George Nash, historical scholar and author of Reappraising the Right: The Past and Future of American Conservativism, rhetorically asked: “What do conservatives want?...most would say: We want to be free. We want to be able to live lives, and have our families’ live lives, that are decent and well-ordered and virtuous. And we want to be safe from external and internal threats.” Wise words in a disordered time.

 

But sadly, that is not where we are. We live in a time of dysfunctional and mean-spirited politics, when many politicians, isolated from those they represent, consider themselves above the law. There is a reason Oliver Anthony’s song “Rich Men North of Richmond” has been a hit. Money flows freely, corruption is rampant, and the self-interest of many Representatives supersedes that of the nation. Think of George Santos (R-NY) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ), among others. In the same issue of the Journal quoted above, Peggy Noonan wrote of the idiocy of the Gaetz episode. She ended her column, though, on a hopeful note: “Something has to come along and break through this stasis. Something will, but I don’t know what.” From her pen to God’s eyes.