"Do Ends Justify Means?"

The attached I expect to be my last TOTD of 2022. It is my 34^th of the year (along with 12 More Essays from Essex and 11 book reviews). Keeping busy, for a retiree, is like aging for cheese and wine; it brings out the best…or so I hope, at least in my essays.

 

As I grow older, my mind wanders back, unsurprising for an octogenarian, as the past is far larger than the future. However, with ten grandchildren I care deeply about the kind of world they will inherit, not that there is much I can do about it. At heart. I am an optimist, but as a realist as well, I know we will never achieve perfection and that events beyond our control can overwhelm. I sometimes think of those born around 1890 who faced the trenches of World War I and then, twenty years later, sent their sons into the jaws of World War II. What a time to have been born! I think of Gandalf’s advice to Frodo: “All we have to decide is what to do with the time given us.” (J.R.R. Tolkien was born in 1892.)

 

I believe that freedom is the natural state of mankind – free to think, speak, write, and pray as one chooses. But I also believe in community, especially of the family, but also that, individually, we are but one cog in the machinery that comprises our towns, cities, states, and nation – that we should all get along, obedient to our laws, diligent in our work, respectful of our differences, and joyful in our similarities.

 

May the year ahead bring peace to all people.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Do Ends Justify Means?”

December 12, 2022

 

“The principle that the end justifies the means is in individual ethics regarded as the

denial of all morals. In collectivist ethics it becomes necessarily the supreme rule.”

                                                                                                                                The Road to Serfdom, 1944

                                                                                                                                Friedrich von Hayek (1899-1992)

 

 

In a 1928 dissenting opinion, in Olmstead v. the United States, Justice Louis D. Brandeis wrote: “Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites everyman to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means – to declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal – would bring terrible retributions.”

 

In 1928, Roy Olmstead was a suspected bootlegger. Without judicial approval, federal agents wiretapped his home. He was convicted based on those wiretaps. In 2016, Donald Trump was a successful real estate investor and entertainer. Politically, he was a novice. He was disruptive to establishment politicians, and to federal bureaucrats whose careers depend upon an ever-expanding government. Following his election, but before his inauguration, Senator Chuck Schumer spoke about Mr. Trump’s taunting the intelligence agencies: “He’s being really dumb…Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community and they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.” A truth Mr. Trump was to discover. Those who used unlawful means to marginalize Mr. Trump did so because they felt that the end – the destruction of his political career – justified any means employed. However, as Theodore Roosevelt said in a speech in Chicago on April 10, 1899: “No man is justified in doing evil on the grounds of expediency.” 

 

Over six years have elapsed since Mr. Trump won the Presidency. And we now know that senior executives in the FBI and the Justice Department were culpable in the “Russian collusion” story, as well as four years later being responsible for suppressing the authenticity of what was found on Hunter Biden’s laptop. Ten years ago, Lois Lerner, then IRS Director, Exempt Organizations, singled out conservative organizations. These federal bureaucrats used illicit means to achieve a preferred political end. What they did was despicable. Will they be punished? Probably not, as long as mainstream media sees their role as propagandizers, rather than seekers of truth and disseminators of news.

 

It is true that in times of crises, our government adopted undemocratic means toward what it felt was a noble and necessary end: During the Civil War, Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus, to silence dissenters and rebels. The Sedition Act of 1918 curtailed free speech during World War I. Franklin Roosevelt interned Japanese Americans in camps. Were any of those actions justifiable? I suspect not.

 

One consequence of this illiberal behavior has been a decline in the public’s confidence in government. A Pew Research Center survey reported on June 6, 2022: “Only two-in-ten Americans say they trust the government in Washington to do what is right ‘just about always’ (2%), or ‘most of the time’ (19%). In 1958, three-quarters of the American public trusted government to do what was right, always or most of the time. The decline has been steady, except for a bump during the Reagan years and in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. There are many factors that have led to this decline, including the quality of candidates, political corruption, and an abundance of politicians and bureaucrats interested in using public office as a stepping-stone to private wealth. 

 

Are there times when an end justifies any means? Yes. Henry David Thoreau wrote of civil disobedience – the disruption of custom and law for an honorable cause. Martin Luther King, in advocating for civil rights, violated existing, though unjust, laws. He was assassinated for his beliefs. Anti-war protestors in the late 1960s were jailed, but their efforts helped bring an end to the Vietnam War.  In all cases, individuals were willing to suffer the consequences of doing what they thought was right. Those who fought for freedom in late 1760s and early 1770s Boston used means that were illegal under British rule. A few Germans, with the goal of ending Nazi rule, engaged in activities in the 1930s that were forbidden by the Third Reich. In both cases – the eventual success of the American Revolution and the ultimate defeat of the Nazis – the perpetrators put themselves at personal risk. Had the United States failed in its bid for independence, its leaders would have been hung as traitors. Most of those who tried to sabotage Hitler’s Nazis were tortured and shot. On the other hand, government bureaucrats who worked to derail Mr. Trump’s Presidential campaign (unsuccessively in 2016 and successively in 2020) did not take personal risk. Most operated anonymously. Many of those exposed have left government service and have, for the most part, retired with full pension benefits, paid for by taxpayers.

 

This is not written in support of Donald Trump, whose well-publicized character flaws have magnified since he left office. While I voted for him twice, I could not vote for him now. This is written because of my fear of non-elected bureaucrats, convinced of their superior knowledge, who assume extralegal powers. They are not, as one would expect in a democracy, kept in check by the media. The powers of the state are awesome and must be thwarted. History tells of democracies degrading into autocracies. Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, in an interview with German novelist Georg Klein on December 10, 2004, compared Nazism to Communism, that in both their philosophies “the end justifies the means.” That cannot happen to us.

 

As many have written, from both sides of the political divide, democracy is fragile. The French author Georges Bernanos (1888-1948) is quoted in his posthumous book Why Freedom?: “The first sign of corruption, in a society that is still alive, is that the end justifies the means.” Once shredded, democracy is not easily repaired. The means government uses to accomplish its goals must be forthright; they must reflect respect for the individual and the standards of civil behavior. Regardless of one’s political leanings, I trust the issue of accountability and integrity in government is something about which we all remain vigilant.

 

……………………………………………………………………..

 

In the meantime, I thank you for your patience with my rantings over the past year; I wish for all the happiest of holidays and the healthiest of New Years. 

"The Wacky World of Politics"

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“The Wacky World of Politics”

July 20, 2021

 

“All the problems we face today can be traced to an 

unenlightened immigration policy on the part of the American Indians.”

                                                                                                                                Pat Paulsen (1927-1997)

                                                                                                                                American comedian and satirist

 

Napoleon, allegedly, once said: “In politics, absurdity is not a handicap.” What he said about politicians applies equally to reporters, teachers, Hollywood and sports figures, social media influencers and commentators, me included. A good friend, though admittedly a misguided Democrat, recently e-mailed me: “I believe we are at the end of a long pendulum swing to the right [that] started with Goldwater’s loss.” Goldwater lost to Johnson in 1964. At that time, the federal budget deficit was about 5% of the federal budget, and total federal debt was less than 50% of GDP. Today, the federal deficit is approximately 60% of the federal budget and total federal debt is roughly 122% of GDP. With debt piling up, political correctness ubiquitous, open borders, censorship on the rise and people fearful of using the wrong pronoun, God help us, if the pendulum is just now swinging to the left.

 

In 2009, Sega introduced the video game, “Wacky World of Sports,” featuring unconventional sports like tuna tossing, cheese wheel rolling, furniture racing and mud sliding. A creative video game aficionado today might make millions introducing similar games for close followers of the political/cultural scene. She (or he) might offer Woke Warriors, Campus Censors, Climate Cozeners, Facetious Facts, Illiberal Liberals, Reprehensible Representatives, Senile Senators and Plagiarizing Presidents. Rather than a Quest for the Holy Grail, we might have “Pursuit of the Principled Politician.”

 

Politics have become unstrung. We have a Constitution that protects freedom of speech, yet White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki recently said: “We’re flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation.” We have legislators who send their children to private schools, then, deny school choice to low-income parents. We have politicians that want to “defund” the police in inner-city neighborhoods, but who hire private security guards for their own homes in gated communities. We have legislators who preach “tax the rich,” but who want a multi-page tax code filled with loopholes, including reinstatement of SALT deductions. We have a Secretary of State who invited members of the UN Human Rights Council, which includes such bastions of freedom as Cuba, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Russia and Venezuela, to review our civil rights record.

 

And it is not just politicians who have gone mad. We have a culture that seeks diversity in gender, skin color and religion, yet demands conformity in ideas. We have Progressives who call mothers “birthing people,” while allowing transwomen to compete in high school sports against biological women. We have educators who condemn “cultural appropriation” by “privileged” white males, which means removing Shakespeare and Dickens from high school’s curricula. We have coastal elites who believe that if everyone owns a Tesla and heats their homes with solar panels, climate change can be kept at bay, yet who purchase beach-front mansions and then complain of rising seas. We have Black conservatives who are dubbed “white supremacists,” while wealthy, progressive White suburbanites become honorary members of Black Lives Matter. We have sententious media types who claim that stricter gun legislation will reduce gun-related crime, ignoring the fact that New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Baltimore – scenes of some of the worst gun violence in the nation – already have the strictest gun laws in the country. We have $60,000-a-year private primary schools that recognize non-binary genders like androgyne, genderfluid and pangender. We have $75,000-a-year universities that do not allow conservatives to speak on campus. And we have a Navy more interested in bathrooms for transgenders than in adding ships of the line.

 

In his 1914 collection of essays, Other People’s Money and How the Bankers Use It, former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote: “Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best disinfectant; electric light the most efficient policeman.” Yet we have a President today who has decided that secrecy is proper when it comes to his son Hunter’s sale of artworks at prices most artists can only dream about. And this despite public knowledge that the son has previously used his father’s connections to make money from foreign individuals and companies.

 

Politics have been wacky for years. Will Rogers (1879-1935), humorist and vaudeville performer once said: “If you ever injected truth into politics, you’d have no politics.” But I look at the past few years, and suspect things have become nuttier: What has any of the craziness we witness today have to do with making our lives freer and richer, making our nation more secure, competitive and prosperous, or improving tolerance and civility? Unlike my friend, I don’t know in which direction politics will trend; though I suspect the average American believes in his God-given rights and the rule of law, and that individual success is predicated on aspiration, talent, hard work and the acceptance of personal responsibility. But this I know and know full well, our politics and culture have become wackier and not in a healthy way.

"Cult of Personality v. Suppression of Voices"

                                                                     Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Cult of Personality v. Suppression of Voices”

May 25, 2021

 

“The cure for evil and disorder is more liberty, not suppression.”

                                                                                                                                Alexander Berkman (1870-1936)

                                                                                                                                Author, The Bolshevik Myth, 1925

 

Olawale Daniel, founder of TechAtLast International, once said: “The most dangerous and powerful people in the world do not carry guns or shoot missiles; they write code to surveil and suppress opposing views.” There is no question that a commanding personality can become demagogic, especially when emotion supplants reason, and the goal is nefarious. But a demagogue only becomes dangerous when accompanied by a willing state, a compliant media and a culture of conformity that does not permit dissenting voices. So long as people are free to exercise their natural rights to speak, write, assemble and pray, people will remain the master and politicians the servants.

 

For four years the Left ranted about the risk to democracy, with a “demagogic” Donald Trump in the White House. They spoke of his coarseness, exaggerations, and his non-PC speech. Ignored were the facts he diminished government’s impact on individuals through deregulation and reduced government’s resources through lower taxes. A charismatic personality can camouflage a bad leader, as the world learned in the last century, with Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin and Mao, but it can also magnify a good leader, like Churchill, FDR or Ronald Reagan.  

 

It is the suppression of voices that should concern lovers of freedom. In 1950, when the United States was experiencing a “Red Scare” and Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) was starting his infamous hearings, President Truman sent a special message to Congress on August 8: “…we must be eternally vigilant against those who would undermine freedom in the name of security.” Three years later, in the March 1953 issue of the Vassar Alumnae Magazine, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas wrote: “Restrictions of free thought is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one Un-American act that could most easily defeat us.” Over the years, free expression allowed man to grow and expand his horizons. Freedom, progress and wealth are its progeny. It is a never-ending process, which will continue so long as man is able to think, speak and act freely.

 

In his concurrence in Whitney v. California (1927), Justice Louis Brandies wrote: “Man feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.” When universities ban books for fear of hurtful language, they do damage to those they purport to protect. When politicians repress opposing views with threats of investigations and inquiries, they do irreparable harm to our Constitution. When tech companies shut down social media accounts for those they dislike, they set precedents that affect all mankind. When mainstream media reports only the news that fit their narrative, they promote ignorance rather than knowledge. During the Trump years, the response of the Left was far more dangerous than anything Mr. Trump said or did, for they blocked dissent and suppressed speech. It is not just Mr. Trump who was treated in this manner, but those who supported him. This was done under a hypocritical flag of moral righteousness, abetted by mainstream media and a cultural environment that celebrated wokeness, and which canceled history and opinions when they did not conform to a predetermined narrative.  

 

Who is responsible for this state of affairs? Politicians? The media? Schools and universities? Churches? Wall Street and large corporations? TV personalities? Cultural institutions? Hollywood? Publishers? Eleemosynary organizations? All bear some responsibility. In a political environment inundated with conflicting opinions and no one to sort them out other than ourselves, we must, like Diogenes, conduct the search for truth alone, whether it is asking about the unpublished Durham Report, learning exactly what happened on January 6, or uncovering the origins of COVID-19. In an undated video, Carl Sagan (1934-1996), the astronomer and planetary scientist, spoke: “The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and politics, but it is not the path to knowledge.”

 

While Sagan was speaking about science, his words reflect the current environment of enforced conformity to woke ideas regarding equity, diversity, inclusion, victimization, race and gender. Roger Kimball, writing in the May issue of The Spectator, noted that at one time colleges and universities were dedicated to the “pursuit of truth and the transmission of the highest values of our civilization.” Today, the “mantra is ‘diversity.’ The reality is strictly enforced conformity about any ideas that might disturb the heavy moral slumber of wokeness.” The story of our past is cancelled, for fear it celebrates the whiteness of our European ancestors, thus denying today’s youth the history of man’s progress over the centuries. Today, some of the United States’ most successful individuals emigrated from Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. It was here, within our culture and customs and under our government and our laws, that they flourished. Is not that something to recognize and celebrate?

 

History moves across a continuum, reflecting events and ideas, along with changing and unchanging values. We cannot know who we are without learning of our past, the good and the bad. Critical Race Theory and Black Lives Matter, under the banner of equity, would have us fall backward into a discriminatory and divisive past, when we should be moving forward toward a mutually respectful and tolerant future. In a recent column in The Epoch Times, Victor Davis Hanson wrote: “When an arrogant present dismisses the wisdom of the past, then an all-too predictable future becomes terrifying.” Staying silent, when an enormous cloud of fairy dust is sprinkled on the people by woke elites, is not the answer.

 

While there is, at present, no mesmerizing politician on the Left capable of lassoing the current cultural environment of wokeness and suppressed speech, the landscape has been prepared and the gate is open. I am reminded of how the ground in Germany was furrowed and seeded in the half dozen years leading to Hitler’s Chancellorship in 1933. We must be vigilant. For, it is when the charismatic politician enters an arena with uncritical support from the media, universities, woke corporations and cultural institutions that we have to fear.