"Our Revolutionary Origins & Today's Paternalism"

The photo – ‘Old Glory’ flying over the Old Lyme Beach Club on the evening of July 17, 2025.

 

Sydney M. Williams

https://swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Our Revolutionary Origins & Today’s Paternalism”

July 21, 2025

 

“But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution

was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people;

a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations… This radical change in the

principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.”

                                                                                                                  Letter from John Adams to Hezekiah Niles

                                                                                                                  February 13, 1818

 

In this year of the semiquincentennial of our Declaration of Independence, have we swapped individual independence for dependence on government paternalism? 

 

Threats to democracy, a current rallying cry of the Left, have been a constant since our founding. They have come from both the right and the left. They fade, however, when exposed to unfettered free debate, and an unbiased study of the classics and our history. Today, supported by main-stream media, the Left puts the blame for such threats square on Republicans, especially those of the MAGA variety. Disallowing dissension, they wave their hands, and with crocodile tears flowing and with Republicans in control of both Houses of Congress they cite the deportation of illegal migrants, including those with criminal records, piggish billionaires, corrupt corporations and cuts to government services. It is ironic that Mr. Trump is accused of being authoritarian, when his attempts to reduce the size of government are at odds with Democrats who prefer a larger, more paternal government.

 

Beginning with Franklin Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ ninety years ago, through Lyndon Johnson’s ‘Great Society’ in the 1960s, to Barack Obama’s ‘Cradle to Grave Care’ thirteen years ago, the United States has moved irrevocably toward a more paternalistic state. My point is not to argue that all federal welfare programs are wrong and should be abolished, but to point out that major entitlement programs consumed about 50% of the 2023 federal budget and are growing faster than all other programs. With total federal debt at $36.6 trillion and rising, interest expense already consumes over 13% of the federal budget, entitlement programs will be unaffordable for future generations. As well, some programs discourage aspiration, hard work, self-sufficiency and independence. Welfare reform is badly needed.    

 

While I keep a skeptical eye on MAGA Republicans, Democrats should look in the mirror as regards threats to democracy. Their demand for conformity can be seen in the expanding interest in Socialism, the ultimate in paternalism. From Bernie Sanders in the Senate to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the House, Democrat Socialists of America (DSA) rose from the ashes of the early 20th Century Socialist Party of America. Today it has 90,000 members, including an aspiring candidate for mayor of New York City, a young man who followed a privileged path to power. Socialists oppose capitalism and the personal freedom that allowed the talented and aspirant, regardless of economic and social class, to rise in our country – the magnets that attract so many to our shores.

 

Socialists abhor the concept of personal freedom; they want government to control the lives of its citizens, as well as the means of production. It is not a government of, by and for the people – it is a false promise of equal outcomes – an impossible dream. It is the political leaders in Socialist/Communist countries that are the principal beneficiaries of government, as can be seen in China, Russia, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela. It is they who place at risk those individual values that helped make the United States what it is – a love for freedom, a belief in the future, a willingness to work hard, honesty, and compassion for those unable to care for themselves. It is paternalism, in all its forms, that is a threat to democracy. While most Americans celebrated the July 4^th with parades, fireworks and cookouts, a few thousand American Socialists met in Chicago at an event called Socialism 2025 – a four-day conference that brought together Socialists and radical activists from around the country.

 

In this vein, the upcoming New York City Mayoral election is something to watch. A self-described Socialist and anti-Semite has become the Democrat nominee for a city that includes over two million Jews. Zohran Mamdani refuses to condemn the phrase “Globalize the Intifada,” a phrase that calls for the annihilation of Israel. Socialism is rooted in its opposition to capitalism and a belief in the concept that government should be all-powerful. Diversity to these people is limited to skin color, gender, and sexual orientation. It does not include differences in opinions, which threaten their paternalistic preferences.

 

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The 56 delegates from thirteen British colonies who signed the Declaration of Independence were subjects of the British Empire. In signing the document, they committed treason, putting their lives at risk. It was a revolutionary act, in the midst of a war that had begun a year earlier at a bridge in Concord, and would end five years later with Cornwallis’ surrender at Yorktown. The consequence was the birth of the United States, a country based on the concept that all men are created equal – that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights 

 

Our Declaration of Independence was a revolutionary response to the authoritarianism of British rule. Our Declaration acknowledged self-evident truths. It preceded our Constitution, which created a government that did, among other guarantees, assure the right to speak freely, to practice the religion of one’s choice, to protect against unreasonable search and to provide a defense against foreign enemies; the Constitution bestows on every citizen equality before the law, due process and a trial by one’s peers. It celebrates the individual. It is not paternalistic. It assumes that freedom is desired, even when requiring dedication, effort and sacrifice. The rise of Socialism is a return to authoritarian paternalism, disguised as compassionate and virtuous. Those are attributes of individuals and should be encouraged; they do not apply to governments.

 

"Sixty Years of Marriage"

 

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

More Essays from Essex

“Sixty Years of Marriage”

April 13, 2024

 

“Marriage, N. The state or condition of a community consisting

of a master, a mistress, two slaves, making in all, two”

                                                                                                                                Ambrose Bierce (1842-c.1914)

                                                                                                                                The Devil’s Dictionary, 1911

 

“There is no more lovely, friendly, and charming 

relationship, communion or company than a good marriage.”

                                                                                                                                Martin Luther (1483-1546)[1]

                                                                                                                                Table Talk

Published posthumously in 1566

 

Two days ago Caroline and I celebrated sixty years of marriage.

 

…………………………………………………………………………………….

 

Winston Churchill once allegedly said: “My most brilliant achievement was my ability to persuade my wife to marry me.” Whether Churchill said that or not, the statement is true of me. I still marvel that Caroline accepted my marriage proposal. I was, at the time, a college drop out with no prospects. Military service was in my future, as was finishing college. Yet, she said yes.

 

Sixty years is a long time. Sixty years before we were married was 1904 – the year construction began on the Panama Canal, the year fingerprints were first used as an investigative tool, and the year Cy Young pitched the first perfect game in modern baseball, as the Boston Americans beat the Philadelphia Athletics 3-0. It was three years before my grandparents were married and six years before my father was born.

 

The last sixty years – because we lived through them – do not carry the same weight as earlier ones, though they might for our grandchildren. When we married Lyndon Johnson had been in the White House less than five months, the first major battle between U.S. Forces and the Army of North Vietnam was seventeen months in the future, the moon was unblemished by human footprints, a postage stamp cost $0.05, college tuition was $1,700, the average cost of a house in the U.S. was $18,900, and a gallon of gas cost $0.30. My starting salary at Eastman Kodak in June 1965, however, was $6,000.00.

 

But marriage cannot be measured by historical events or the effects of inflation on goods, services, and income. It is, when one thinks of it, amazing that so many marriages endure. Courting, even for two years as we did, does not offer the time to really know the other person. In fact, we never stop learning about the person we wed. Sociologists and marriage counselors have long pondered which maxim best applies to marriage: that opposites attract, or whether it is birds of a feather. More likely, it is love, luck, temperament, and tolerance that play key roles. Peering back into the mists of sixty years, I am thankful we never thought deeply about such matters. The future arrived one step at a time.

 

We had grown up differently, Caroline in New York City and I in the small New Hampshire town of Peterborough. But we fell in love, that indescribable (and delightful) condition that defies definition. There is no question that we are different in many respects, but we also share common interests, the most important being devotion to one another, our three children, their spouses, and our ten grandchildren.

 

Our first home was a 500 square foot, $85.00 a month, apartment in Durham, New Hampshire where I was finishing my degree at the University of New Hampshire. Because of my initial conduct in college (completing one year of credits in two years), I had to pay for my room, board and tuition when I returned following military service. So, in the next two years I completed three years of credits – while working three jobs – finishing in February 1965 (proof that the proffered hand is not necessarily as productive as the calloused one). With a job at Kodak[2] starting in June, and as we had had no honeymoon, we took $2,000.00 we had saved, bought round-trip tickets to Paris, and spent eleven weeks traveling around southern Europe in a rented Volkswagen without an itinerary. It was a memorable start for our marriage.  

 

Our voyage since has taken us through five Connecticut towns: Glastonbury (one year), Durham (four years), Greenwich (twenty-four years), Old Lyme (twenty-three years, along with a small one-bedroom apartment in New York for seventeen of those years), and now Essex where we have lived for the past eight years. 

 

We met on New Year’s Eve of 1961 at a ski weekend near my hometown. My sister who had known Caroline at Garland Junior College in Boston introduced us that afternoon. That evening I monopolized her. We saw each other regularly for the next several weekends, until on March 11 in North Conway, New Hampshire I asked for her hand. She said yes. The next day, on our first run down Wildcat Mountain, she broke her leg. At the time I was working in a laboratory outside of Boston. I spoke to my father, who was with my younger sister Betsy who was racing at Cranmore Mountain. I told him what had happened, including my proposal of the night before. He told me my duty was to stay with Caroline even if it cost me my job, which it did; for, as he said, you can always get another, which I did.

 

In his 1922 novel The Adventures of Sally, P.G. Wodehouse wrote: “And she’s got brains enough for two, which is the exact quantity the girl who marries you will need.” While neither of our fathers repeated those exact words to me, I could tell they were thinking them. We got married on April 11, 1964 in New York’s Church of the Heavenly Rest, in a service conducted by the Reverend Floyd Thomas – to join hands “…till death do us part.”

 

In Adam Bede, George Eliot wrote: “What greater thing is there for two human souls, than to feel that they are joined for life – to strengthen each other in all labor, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories of the last parting.” Amen.

 

Together we move on, happy and still in love.

 

 

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[1] Martin Luther, once a Catholic monk, married Katherine von Bora, a former num, in April 1523, two years after he had been excommunicated by Pope Leo X.

[2] In the summer of 1967, I became a stockbroker – my career for the next 48 years.

"Is Wokeism Dying?"

 First, apologies for the length of this essay. Over two hundred words were cut last evening and another ten this morning. Still, it runs to just over 1,600 words, about a third longer than usual. A disciplined editor with an acute eye and sharp blade could have removed more words but, alas, that was not to be.

 

The Durham Report was released yesterday, finally. While it found no evidence to justify the FBI’s launch of a full-scale investigation into the alleged collusion between the Trump campaign in 2016 and Russia, it also brought no indictments against those who launched the investigation, which cost taxpayers millions o dollars. Perhaps that was because if indictments were brought it would condemn the entire Justice Department and the intelligence services, and the swamp in which they thrive?

 

By the way, with 81-year-old Martha Stewart on the cover of Sports Illustrated, it suggests the 80s may be the new 40s, at least for a lucky few!  

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Is Wokeism[1] Dying?”

May 16, 2023

 

“At its heart, wokeness is divisive, exclusionary, and hateful. It basically

gives mean people a shield to be mean and cruel, armored in false virtue.”

                                                                                                Elon Musk, Babylon Bee

          December 21, 2021 interview

 

For the last few years, the stench of wokeness has enshrouded our nation – in schools, corporations, politics, and cultural institutions. It arrived under the names “Political Correctness” and “Diversity;” as it came in on T.S. Eliot’s “little cat feet,” unobtrusively, but seductively and relentlessly, backed by the arrogance of the self-righteous. While many of its proponents want a world where racism does not exist, where sexuality is a choice, and where a sustainable climate allows mankind to flourish, the world they have created has the absurdity of Gulliver’s travels to the kingdom of Balnibarbi and the island of Laputa.

 

It is the folly of wokeness that augurs its demise: that slavery defined our nation’s founding, and that racism infects all white people, at least those who do not hew to a progressive line; that biology does not define a man and a woman, and that gender is a choice; and that unless we all give up gas stoves and drive electric vehicles the world will become uninhabitable. 

 

At the same time, we face real problems: failing public schools; a shrinking military; a permeable southern border; federal debt that, as a percent of GDP, is higher than at any point since World War II; persistent inflation; an aging population that will require more entitlement spending; a decline in global influence; a general sense of pessimism expressed in declining birth rates; and a President who, as Bruce Thornton recently wrote, “makes Chance, the Gardner look like Abraham Lincoln.” 

 

Students score poorly on international tests in math, science and reading, and they fail questions regarding history and civics. We have been divided into tribes, into oppressors and the oppressed. Those who are seen as victims (and their heirs) are condemned to victimization for all eternity. California has considered reparations to descendants of slaves, including those five to seven generations removed.  Ignored is the instinct for people to better themselves. Neglected is the Biblical admonition from Ezekiel 18:20: “The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father the guilt of the son.” 

 

While it will never totally disappear, racism has lessened over the years. In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court held that anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional. Since then, interracial marriages in the United States, as a percent of all marriages, have increased from 3% to 19%. Executive order 11246, signed by Lyndon Johnson fifty-eight years ago, prohibited employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, and national origin. It was amended two years later to include women. The last half century has seen improvements in race relations and women’s rights. Since the 91^st Congress (1969-1971), the number of Blacks in Congress has steadily increased. Currently there are 60 in the House, or 13.8%, and three, or 3%, in the Senate. Parity has not been reached in the Senate, but progress is undeniable. Women make up 28% of the 118^th Congress. Eight years ago, they represented 19.4% of the 113^th Congress. Nevertheless, silliness prevails. Colleges have incorporated critical race theory into their curriculums; they have segregated dorms and graduation ceremonies. Black judges who do not adhere to progressive orthodoxy are ‘Uncle Tom’s.’ Mary Hamil Gilbert, professor of classical studies at Birmingham-Southern College, was quoted recently in The New York Times on the subject of black actress Adele James who plays the role of Cleopatra in the new Netflix docudrama, “Queen Cleopatra.” As a professional actress, it is a role she is entitled to play. Nevertheless, Ms. Gilbert felt compelled to add that, while Cleopatra was of Greek origin, she was “culturally black,” that “she was part of a culture and history that has known oppression, triumph, exploitation, and survival.” Who and what cultures do those words not describe? My lily-white ancestors came from Britain, where they had been conquered by Vikings and Normans a thousand years ago. As colonialists in North America, they were subject to “taxation without representation.” Does that make me “culturally black?” Of course not.

 

Gender dysphoria is real but not widespread. From time immemorial, it has been a condition felt by young people as they went through puberty. A Pew Research Center poll found that 3.1% of adults younger than 25 feel they are a trans man or trans woman versus just 0.5% of those between the ages of 25 to 29. There have long been exceptions: George Jorgenson traveled to Denmark, in the 1950s, to become Christine Jorgenson. In the 1970s Richard Raskind was reborn as Renée Richards, and in 2015 former Olympian Bruce Jenner became Caitlyn Jenner. However, we have reached a level when only the Babylon Bee or Alfred E, Neuman can do the subject justice: Schools, and some in the medical profession, permit surgery to transition to another sex (removal of breasts, uteruses, and penises) at great medical and psychological risk. Students are told that men can give birth and a statue of a naked, bearded man breastfeeding a baby has been placed in a public spot in Denmark. “Person” is substituted for “man” or “woman” regarding the production of sperm or eggs. Biological men are able to compete in women’s sports. And the Defense Department is more interested in pronouns than in military readiness. Interestingly, while the Woke have become more assertive in their adamancy, the same Pew Research Center study found that the number of Americans who believe gender is determined at birth has risen from 54% in 2017 to 60% in 2022. Will the Woke catch up to the people? 

 

Protecting the environment is a legitimate and welcome exercise, yet in a world of climate fanaticism, inmates now run the asylum. Historically, we were fortunate. Our democratic system of government and free-market capitalism allowed living standards to rise for all inhabitants – far beyond the expectations of our parents and grandparents. While the United States represents only 5% of the Earth’s population, we consume 30% of its energy and are responsible for 28% of carbon emissions. And yet, while we consume more energy per capita than did our forefathers, our rivers, shores, lakes, forests, and mountains are more livable than what they knew. Each year, clean energy technology improves, especially in natural gas, but that is not enough for the Woke who forget how we achieved what we did. Like Canute, who claimed to be able to stop the incoming tide, they say they can halt the warming (or the cooling) of the Earth – a planet that has been around for four and a half billion years – which has been covered with hot and humid jungles and, at a different time, with miles of ice, and where continents have shifted hundreds of miles. Yet the Woke claim that a ban on fossil fuels in the United States, which makes up less than 10% of the Earth’s land mass, will prevent seas from rising. At the margin, their efforts may have some small effect, but at what costs? Have they considered the amount of fossil fuels needed to extract cobalt and lithium (mostly sourced from China), and copper and zinc, to make batteries and solar panels? Have they considered the effect offshore wind platforms have on undersea life? Have they considered how higher energy costs will affect the poor in the U.S., and what those costs will mean to developing nations? Should not adaption to changing environmental conditions be part of their plan?

 

Christopher Rufo recently wrote in the Manhattan Institute’s “President’s Letter:” “Left-wing cultural politics is very good for affluent, single, urban professionals, the ‘avocado toast’ class, but when those people mature into the phase of buying a home and raising a family, I think they’re going to realize that those cultural politics actually work against their interests and values.” I hope he is right, and believe he is. With parents fighting back regarding schools, we have begun to see the beginnings of resistance. People are noting the difference between “equity of outcomes” and “equality of opportunity.” Trustees of pension funds in some states are awakening to the age-old maxim that returns on investment supersede political injections of ESG. Residents of high-taxed states – California, New York, Illinois, and New Jersey – are experiencing out-migration, while low taxed states like Florida, Texas, and Tennessee are experiencing in-migrations. Missing from woke ideologies have been common sense, reflection, wisdom, respect for the opinions of others, along with simple decency. 

 

On February 3 of this year, I wrote an essay with a similar theme: “Is Sanity Replacing Wokeism?” I was heartened by what I felt were signs of optimism – parents of school age children fighting back; (some) university trustees assuming responsibility, and (some) state legislators cutting taxes. Heartened by today’s increasingly comical version of Wokeism, I remain of the opinion, with the pendulum swinging back toward common sense, that Wokeism is dying.

 

In his 2021 book, Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam, Vivek Ramaswamy wrote: “’Diversity’ has become a term of art, a symbol, one so powerful that the symbol is now more important than the thing it was supposed to represent. Wokeness sacrifices true diversity, diversity of thought, so that skin-deep symbols of diversity like race and gender can thrive.” Churchill was alleged to have once said: “You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they’ve tried everything else.” Wokeness has become mindlessly hubristic, which gives me hope that a more sensible world lies ahead – that the American people will do the right thing – so long as we do not self-destruct in the meantime. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] Wokeism. noun. Usually disparaging. Promotion of liberal, progressive ideology and policy, as an expression of sensitivity to systemic injustices and prejudices.

"Lighten Up"

                                                                     Sydney M. Williams

30 Bokum Road – Apartment 314

Essex, CT 06426

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Lighten Up”

August 8, 2021

 

“There’s a way you political folks have of coming round and round a plain right thing.”

                                                                                                                                Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896)

                                                                                                                                Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 1852

 

 

It is not that I am without concerns, for everything that happens today is a ‘crisis.’ We live on a planet that has been around for 4.5 billion years. Over that time, it has been warm enough in Connecticut, where I live, to host dinosaurs and cold enough to place it under thirty feet of ice. By the time of the last ice age, man had been around for tens of thousands of years. He adapted. Yet today’s changing climate is said to present an existential challenge for the planet. “Woke” governments and large businesses demand diversity, equity and inclusion, but what they really mean are uniformity, unjustness and exclusion. Universities, once places for inquiring minds, have become venues for intellectual conformity. In sports, men, as transgender women, compete against biological women. Merit has fallen victim to social equity. What gives? The United States was founded on principles of personal liberty and the rule of law, derived from the Enlightenment. Should we let what has taken 250 years to create devolve into darkness? 

 

We should not. We need to lighten up. The political atmosphere has become nasty. In an essay (“Old Glory, new anger”) in the August issue of The Spectator, Peter Wood wrote: “There is the wrathfulness of the political left, stemming from visceral hatred of Trump and his supporters.” As for the Right, he noted: “Their complaint lies far deeper as they see the purposeful destruction of American values by an elite that bullies and derides them.”  Friends and family members are no longer able to air political differences without one being called a racist and the other a toady. If we are to survive as a free, decent and independent people, composed of myriad races, religions and nationalities, political leaders, the media and universities must promote tolerance and mutual respect. To achieve this, they must encourage traditional American values, like family formations and public schools that teach. They must reaffirm the values of common sense, responsibility, hard work, merit and reintroduce civility and humor.

 

The political spectrum is linear, with autocracy at one end and anarchy at the other. Understanding that, we should know where on that line our own political philosophies lie. Fundamentally, our differences are simple. Progressives believe equitable progress is best achieved with more government involvement. Conservatives believe in what Margaret Thatcher said in Gdansk in 1988: “Economic freedom and personal freedom go hand in hand.” The first depends on the ability of a few hundred senior bureaucrats. The second relies on millions of people making millions of decisions. There are gradations of belief. A few extremists are clustered at either end, believing in either the benevolence of autocracy or the benignity of anarchy. Mainstream media would have us bunched (along with them) at extremes – the “woke” on one end and “deplorables” at the other. Most of us, however, lie within a few degrees of the center. But anger divides us, and communication is difficult.

 

Abetted by vitriolic, non-stop talk radio, biased cable and network news commentators, ignorant Hollywood and sports figures, sanctimonious university personnel, politicians who see both profit and votes in discord and “woke” corporations who just want to get along, we are being pushed, unwillingly, toward extremes. Our minders are puritanical, meanspirited, stupid and humorless. For students, fear of not being politically correct has meant withholding healthy emotional release. On college campuses political debate is discouraged and mental health distress is rising. A 2019 study by the American College Health Association found that 87% of college students expressed being overwhelmed. To improve conditions, the Association suggested empowering students, launching wellness campaigns and offering a “decision tree.” Absent from suggestions were open debate or fun and laughter, the latter being a well-known antidote to tension. Remember the old Reader’s Digest column, “Laughter the Best Medicine?” But in 2018, the threat of censorship kept Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock from performing on college campuses.

 

Humor that disparages should be shunned. But the ability to laugh is important. Mark Twain looked at politics through a lens of humor: “Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress…But I repeat myself.” P. J. O’Rourke once wrote on the differences between Democrats and Republicans: “The Democrats are the party of government activism, the party that says government can make you richer, smarter, taller, and get the chickweed out of your lawn. Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work, and then get elected and prove it.” Political correctness, which abjures humor, has infected all aspects of our lives, including the National Football League. Dan Mitchell, economist and former senior fellow at the Cato Institute, recently forwarded the following: “Redskins change name to ‘Lizard People,’ to better represent the population of Washington, D.C.” 

 

Would today’s politicians be offended and find jokes about them hurtful? Would they cry ‘Victim?’ Perhaps, but so what? They are public figures, light on wit but heavy with hubris, so subject to satire. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s quote in the rubric speaks to politicians whose dancing around truths can be a source of fun. Laughing at oneself can be endearing. Lyndon Johnson once said: “Being President is like being a jackass in a hailstorm. There’s nothing to do but stand there and take it.” Ronald Reagan used humor to deflect criticism from opponents. In a 1984 debate with the 56-year-old Walter Mondale, the 73-year-old Reagan said: “I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” In recent years, that self-abasing humor has been missing from political discourse. Obama, Trump and Biden are noted for egos, not for laughing at themselves. 

 

Peter Wood ended his piece: “Despair breeds wrath and that fire, once ignited, will engulf us all.” If our “betters” in politics, the media, campuses, “woke” corporations, the sports world and the entertainment industry fail to dispel the anger that envelopes our nation, which is my assumption and fear, then the responsibility to find light in this darkness falls upon ourselves. Turn down the news, pick up a Wodehouse novel, watch a Bob Hope movie, take a walk in the park, try “forest bathing,” as Peter Wohlleben wrote in The Heartbeat of Trees. Visit with family and friends. Just stay off politics and discover what you have in common. Laugh. Life is short. Those of us in the United States and in other free nations are fortunate to be alive and to live where and in the time we do. To go through life angry is self-defeating.

 

Most of us have beliefs that cluster toward the center of the political spectrum. It has been, more than anything else, the media, and especially social media, that has divided us. We are after all fallible. No one, not the President of the United States, not the senior Senator from Kentucky, not the Congresswoman from California’s 12^th District, knows what the future holds. But we should not let the darkness of despair overwhelm us. We should read, watch and listen to the news with healthy skepticism and a lively, restorative sense of humor. We must lighten up.

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

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Thought of the Day

“It’s the Culture, Stupid – Part II”

June 13, 2020

“Nothing in the entire world is more dangerous

than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

                                                                                                Martin Luther King (1929-1968)

                                                                                                Strength to Love, 1963

                                                                                                collection of sermons

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The False Promise of Equality"

Sydney M. Williams

Thought of the Day

“The False Promise of Equality”

February 1, 2020

“By nature, all men are equal in liberty,

but not in other endowments.”

                                                                                                Thomas Aquinas (c.1225-1274)

Since time immemorial, a perfect society has been a dream. In the “Book of Revelations,” a thousand, golden, peaceful years are promised, when Christ returns to reign before the final judgment day. In 1516, Thomas More coined the word “Utopia” that he incorporated into the title of his classic work, in which he described perfect conditions on the island of Utopia. In 1620, Pilgrims came to the “New World,” in search of a “city on a hill,” a society under God’s guiding hand. Brook Farm, in West Roxbury, Massachusetts was founded by the transcendentalist and former Unitarian minister, George Ripley in 1841. It was to be an egalitarian, self-sufficient community with no distinction between intellectual and manual labor. While FDR’s New Deal was a response to the Great Depression, the Great Society of Lyndon Johnson was an attempt to banish poverty and let equality rule. The belief that man could live as brothers in peace has long been a promise of idealists, swindlers, fraudsters, charlatans and politicians – or do I repeat myself?

The word ‘inequality’ evokes emotion. Webster defines equality as the “quality or state of being equal.” When Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, “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 those are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…,” he was not implying that all persons are equal in talents, or that outcomes should be equal. He was saying we are equal in those natural rights granted by God. Under the Constitution, we are equal in our right to assemble and to speak freely; we are equal in our rights under and before the law, and we are equal in our right to vote.

We should strive for equality of opportunity, but we should acknowledge that opportunities differ. Those born of wealthy parents in affluent communities have better educational opportunities than those born to poor parents in impoverished neighborhoods. Parents can try to address such challenges with competition, like voucher programs or charter schools for those who otherwise are stuck with the sole choice of a monopoly public school. Sanctimony abounds, with many leftist politicians in Washington, who rely on teachers’ unions for funding, condemning choice for the poor and middle class, while they take advantage of private schools, an avenue unavailable to those without means. But to pretend that we have the right to equal outcomes sends a false message of hope; it gives rise to the hypocrisy of an egalitarian ideology satirized by George Orwell in his 1950 allegorical novel, Animal Farm.

Despite the histrionics of opposing political parties, conservatives are not against equality. We believe in the wisdom of the people, free markets and competition. Yet, when we admit to preternatural abilities and the inequalities that naturally ensue, we are slandered as unfeeling and prejudicial. Inequality is a fact of life. Is it fair that I am five feet nine, when my brother is six feet? Was it fair that I was born and raised as a white male child of educated parents in the United States, while another child, born the same day, was raised in a primitive, poverty-stricken African village and nation? Of course not, but that is reality. Is it fair that professional basketball teams have proportionally more African American players than their percent of the population would warrant? Is it fair that Jewish and Asian children score better on aptitude tests than their Caucasian, Black and Hispanic neighbors? Would Harvard be a better university if merit was never considered in admissions? Is it not the desire of most of us to be the best we can? We can never have equal outcomes, because we are not equal in intelligence, athleticism, temperament, wealth or artistic ability. We are not equal in aspiration, determination and in the willingness to work hard. Each of us should take advantage of our individual talents and do the best that our abilities allow. We owe that to ourselves, to our families and communities. But outcomes will never be equal.

A recent op-ed in the New York Times by Ary Amerikaner, vice president of the nonprofit Education Trust, spoke to the hidden inequality in schools. Her concern was that resources provided, and dollars spent per pupil, were not equitably distributed. However, in no place in her column did she lament the monopoly position of public schools, nor did she express concern about the political power of the two major teachers’ unions in deterring competitive alternatives for low and middle-income families. In her view, the answer to academic underperformance lies solely in dollars per pupil expended. Competition, families and absenteeism played no role. Dollars spent is important, but so is home environment and school choice.

The battle over the inequality in free speech could be seen in an episode last Fall at Georgetown Law School. Angered and aggrieved students disrupted and prevented from speaking Kevin McAleenan, then acting secretary for the Department of Homeland Security. His right to speak and the rights of students to hear him were denied. The emotional outbursts of a small cadre of students brought to mind the words of Maine’s Republican Senator Susan Collins when she voted to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court: “We must always remember that it is when passions are most inflamed that fairness is most in jeopardy.” The students at Georgetown Law now claim that any discipline imposed for their illicit behavior would have a “chilling effect on free speech and expression.” In other words, free speech is fine when it comports with preconceived ideas, but not okay if the speaker has views contrary to what the disrupters believe. If that behavior prevails, we are headed to a new dark age.

Striving for perfection is something we should all attempt. But expecting perfection is naïve. Utopias are dreams, false promises, seized upon by charlatans to convince the naïve and unwary to accept their ideas of equality. Ironically, the closest to egalitarian status I have experienced was in Army basic training, in the summer of 1962. Our First Sergeant saw no difference between the three in my company who had just graduated from Harvard Law School and those who came from the streets of Harlem and the hills of Arkansas. We were all equal in his eyes. But service to the nation is not on the bucket list of the “Woke.”

Thomas More fully understood that the Greek roots of the word ‘utopia’ mean no place. An ideal living place is a siren call of those who would be dictators, like National Socialist Adolph Hitler and Communist leaders, such as Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong. Today we see such threats in Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, Syria and Iran. Their leaders seek a government free of dissenting ideas and opinions. And the consequences under all were (and are) enslaved populations and the killing of those who dared (and dare) disagree. In contrast, it should be our responsibility to make the world a better and fairer place. We should treat all people with respect, whether they agree or disagree with us. The biggest impediment to equality is the promise of equality. Aristotle is quoted as writing, “The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.” We are not equal. We differ in myriad ways. We have different talents, desires, and creative genes. Some of us are good and some of us are evil. Voltaire wrote: “All the citizens of a state cannot be equally powerful, but they can be equally free.”  The role of government is to protect our naturally granted equal rights, not to make equal those things that can never be equal. As we strive to be more civil, we should celebrate the differences that allowed a Michael Jordan, a Mother Teresa, a Warren Buffet, an Eleanor Roosevelt, a Stephen Hawking and a Margaret Thatcher to succeed in ways most of us could not. The world is a better place because of their individual and superior talents.