"Tit for Tat - Not a Good Strategy"

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Thought of the Day

“Tit for Tat – Not a Good Strategy”

June 5, 2025

 

“All things are double, one against another. Tit for tat; an eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth;

blood for blood; measure for measure; love for love. Give and it shall be given you.”

                                                                                                Attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

 

“Tit for Tat: The infliction of an injury or insult in return for one that one has suffered,” Oxford English Dictionary. Wikipedia: “It is an alteration of tip for tap ‘blow for blow,’ first recorded in 1558.”

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When Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45^th President of the United States on January 20, 2017 I suspect he was as surprised to be there as anyone. He had been a successful real estate developer, and for thirteen years he hosted “The Apprentice,” a successful reality TV series. But he had never run for political office. As a businessman, he donated to both Jimmy Carter’s and Ronald Reagan’s campaigns in 1980. His political affiliations have changed: a Manhattan Republican in the 1980s; member of the Reform Party in 1999; a Democrat in 2001; and back to a Republican in 2009. By some, he will always be criticized for his changing political affiliations and his out-spoken manner. But he was democratically elected President.

 

For those who make their living in politics, Donald Trump’s success was a threat. His victory was incredulous to Republicans in the primaries and to Democrats in the general election. How could this “orange-haired” man who garbles the English language have won? How could an interloper beat them at their own game?

 

America is a different place than it was a generation or two ago. Civility has declined; anti-social and unethical behavior have increased; and violence has become more common and, worse, acceptable. Scam phone calls have risen by over 20% in each of the last five years. In 2023, the United States Capital Police (USCP) investigated 8,008 threats against members of Congress. A disturbing number of young Leftists cheered on the two attempts on Donald Trump’s life, as well as the attacks on Tesla dealerships. Anti-Semitism has increased, On May 21 a young Jewish couple, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, were shot and killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum. Four days later, in Boulder, Colorado, a man shouted, “Free Palestine,” as he threw Molotov cocktails at demonstrators, injuring fifteen men and women, as they marched in support of Israeli hostages held by Hamas.

 

Political parties have changed. The Democrat Party, once the Party of the working class and poor now appeals to wealthy, suburban whites, and monied groups like trial lawyers, hedge fund managers, and Wall Street tycoons. Like the switch of white southern Democrats to Republicans in the 1960s and ‘70s, former “country club” elitist Republicans, in the wake of Vietnam and Civil Rights, abandoned their traditional Party. Democrats have long dominated academia, but they have become more entrenched. As private sector unions lost members, Democrats lost interest, so concentrated on union leaders and on expanding public sector unions, especially teachers’. Republicans have picked up middle-class, working Americans. They have kept in their fold most religious groups, except Episcopalians. 

 

As well, the sense of what it means to be an American has been derailed by politicians from both parties whose leaders appeal to extremists. Politics has become more partisan. The economic divide between ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots,’ regardless of race, has widened. When Barack Obama was elected as the first black man to become President, instead of acknowledging the economic divide, he made race the issue. He squandered an opportunity to pull America together on race, to close the chasm, to acknowledge the vision and promise of Martin Luther King in his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” That was not the path Mr. Obama chose to take.

 

Not surprisingly, the competent, but ungracious, Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election to the political outsider Mr. Trump. During his first term as President, he was demonized by the Left, even called a Nazi. While he is coarse in speech and offensive in language, he was falsely accused of Russian collusion by his illiberal Democrat opponents – a story that originated in Mrs. Clinton’s campaign. The contempt for him was visceral. It was not just political. No President has ever been treated with the disdain he was. He had invaded the establishment’s sanctuary and succeeded. In their bid to destroy him, Democrats were supported by the Justice Department and joined by a chorus of media enablers. In unprecedented actions, he was impeached twice and indicted four times. And he lost re-election in 2020.

 

Yet after four years of Mr. Biden – a situation for which Democrats have no one to blame but themselves – Mr. Trump won the Presidency again. This time he increased his vote. Notably, he expanded his votes among those who have traditionally been Democrats – blacks, Hispanics, and the working class – those who Democrats have ignored, as they pursued their far-left progressive agenda. They condemned “harmful words,” yet allowed violent anti-Semitism protests on campuses; they opened the southern border to an influx of millions of illegal migrants, including many with criminal records; and they emphasized identity politics, including the allowing of biological men to compete against women in high school and college sports. They abandoned large portions of America’s middle classes.

 

Is revenge a motivating factor in some of Mr. Trump’s actions now? I suspect it is. I don’t support revenge, but I understand it. He is now accused of weaponizing the Justice Department, the same Justice Department that was weaponized against him. In Shakespear’s play Measure for Measure, the title refers to the principle of retributive justice, where actions are judged and punished accordingly – an eye for an eye, for example. In my opinion, it is that principle that has been the impetus behind much of Mr. Trump’s behavior early in his second term. I suspect he believes that those who are being penalized – like prestigious universities being challenged over recruitment and DEI policies, illegal migrants being deported and foreign college students with ties to the CCP having visas revoked – are receiving their just deserts. 

 

But revenge is alien to democratic principles. As a conservative, many of my virtue-signaling Leftist friends remind me of Little Jack Horner who pulled out a plum and, blithely, said, “What a good boy am I!” This while he spoiled the plum pie for others. When these friends condemn Mr. Trump as a tyrant and his supporters as ignorant rubes they should remember that we live in a democracy, and that Mr. Trump won the election. While I will never wear a MAGA hat, I voted for Mr. Trump and, given the option, I am glad I did. When we disagree, we can (and should) take issue even with those we support, and we should not be afraid to speak out against those we do not, but we should do so civilly. And we all should condemn the unacceptable rise in violence.  

"Patriotism"

This is being sent on the evening of July 3, as my wife and I plan to drive to Massachusetts tomorrow morning to attend a family softball game, which was originally played in 1889. To the best of my knowledge, every game over those 135 years has ended in a tie.

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In the midst of celebrating the birth of our country, we should take a few minutes to consider how fortunate we are to be here. According to Freedom in the World 2023, only about 20% of the world’s population live in free countries. And median income in the U.S. is about ten times higher than for the world as a whole. We are far from perfect, but we keep striving; we should be thankful for the United States of America. It is okay to be patriotic.

 

I wish you a joyous 4^th of July!

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Patriotism”

July 4, 2024

 

“Spirit, that made those heroes dare

To die, and leave their children free,

Bid time and Nature gently spare

The shaft we raise to them and thee.”

                                                                                                                                Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

                                                                                                                                Concord Hymn, 1837

 

“The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened

than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.”

                                                                                                                                Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)

                                                                                                                                Democracy in America, 1835

 

Today we celebrate our nation’s 248th birthday. It is the day when, traditionally, patriotism rises to its highest level of the year. Yet, many Americans are conflicted in their attitudes toward their country. We are divided to a greater extent than at any time since the Civil War. Identity politics has become ubiquitous. Anti-Semitism is experienced on college campuses. We cannot even agree on the definition of a woman. We are told that democracy is under threat: The Left cites January 6 and the behavior of Donald Trump and his claim that he will be a dictator for the first day. The Right speaks to the “weaponization” of the intelligence services – the Russian collusion fabrication by the Clinton campaign in 2016, and the statement by 51 intelligence officers, in 2020, that Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation.

 

Patriotism, to those on the political extremes, is dependent upon who holds power. In 1905, addressing this concern, Mark Twain wrote an essay “The Czar’s Soliloquy” for North American Review: “True patriotism, real patriotism: loyalty, not to a Family and a Fiction, but loyalty to the Nation itself.” Twain was commenting on Tsar Nicholas’ habit of ignoring the needs of his people while meditating for an hour every morning after his bath. While Twain wrote 120 years ago about a monarchy that no longer exists, his words are applicable today. Patriotism is not based on family, personal biases or party affiliation, but of love for country – in our case the United States, with its history, complexities and opportunities.

 

Of course excessive patriotism – the wrapping of oneself in the flag – is off-putting and has been condemned by many. On April 7, 1775 James Boswell wrote that Samuel Johnson, taking a swipe at then prevalent jingoism, pronounced patriotism to be the last refuge of the scoundrel. A hundred and forty years later, disillusioned by the horrors of trench warfare on the Western Front, Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) wrote the poem “Dulce et Decorum Est,” which ends with these haunting lines:

 

“My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old lie: Dolce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.”[1]

 

Nevertheless, patriotism is critical for the success of a nation. However, we seem to have lost our way. Divisive politics, with its emphasis on racial and gender identity rather than on a shared identity as Americans, has made us angry and sad. Following the recent debate many concluded that the “Biden-Trump reality show,” as Daniel DePetris put it recently in The Spectator, “is a reflection of our decline and an indictment on waning US global power.” But is it? I am not so sure. We are unique in the annals of nations. We are not British, French, Latvian, Chinese, Japanese, Israeli, Jordanian, Nigerian, Algerian, Angolan, Peruvian or Ecuadorian. We are all of them and many more. And, while we are each unique, with myriad skills and varying abilities, we are “We the people,” as the preamble to the Constitution begins. We live in a country founded under Judeo-Christian principles and governed by laws, not men. We have a Bill of Rights that guarantees freedom of speech, assembly and religion, and a Constitution that provides equality before the law. We are free to peacefully protest what impinges on our beliefs. A secret ballot assures we can vote our conscience without fear of retaliation. We live in an economic system that allows individuals to rise as far as aspiration, talent, effort (and luck) take them. We have survived a British invasion in 1812, a Civil War, two world wars and four assassinations. As for our democracy: “It won’t be dismantled so easily,” wrote Matthew Hennessey in an op-ed in last Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal.

 

We should honor the memory of those who fought, died and won our independence 241 years ago – among them recent immigrants to what would become the United States of America. And we must never forget the men and women who fought and died in subsequent wars to keep this nation’s (and other nations’) people free. We should laud the Founders, imperfect though they were, for their vision embedded in the Declaration of Independence. We should study the history of our country, its perfections and its blemishes, and we should understand the three distinct branches of our government and how it operates. We should support the right of every individual to speak for what they believe. We can disagree, but we should not disparage. We should be respectful, not blasphemous. No matter our heritage, race, gender, religion, political affiliation, or economic class, we pledge allegiance to our “flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” As David Wolpe, emeritus rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, wrote in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, “There are people of good heart and good will, of soulfulness and love, all over this great nation.” Americans, wear your patriotism with pride. 

 

HAPPY 4^th!

 

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[1] It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. Owen was killed in France one week before the Armistice.

"Age and the Passing of the Torch"

 

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Age and the Passing of the Torch”

September 23, 2023

 

“At twenty a man is a peacock, at thirty a lion, at forty a camel,

at fifty a serpent, at sixty a dog, at seventy an ape, at eighty a nothing at all.”

                                                                                                                                Baltasar Gracián (1601-1658)

                                                                                                                                Spanish writer and philosopher

                                                                                                                                The Art of Worldly Wisdom, 1647

 

For Queen Elizabeth, 1992 was her annus horribilis. I had my own – far less significant – diem horribilis last Sunday. Unlike Elizabeth’s year, some of what happened to me was, surely, age related. I had tested positive for Covid that morning. Then, feeling groggy and with slurred speech, I fell twice. Apart from a bumped head, bruised hip and ego, no damage was done. Nevertheless after the second fall, we called health services. Shortly thereafter I was taken by ambulance to a clinic and later to Middlesex Hospital. Tests showed no signs of a stroke or brain injury, and on Tuesday I came home, with a cane but that was because of the bruised hip.

 

The effects of age are not necessarily chronological, and they differ greatly from one individual to another. My father died at 58, while his father died one day shy of 90 and his mother at 92. While they became physically frail, both had their wits until they died. Cancer, heart disease, and senility are more common as one ages. Muscles lose tone and bones become brittle. But there are those like Henry Kissinger who are physically able and mentally alert at 100. Many people don’t let age stop them.  The Wall Street Journal, last June 25^th, published an article, “Why High-Powered People are Working in Their 80s.” In it they quoted data from the Census Bureau that roughly 650,000 Americans over 80 were working last year. My younger brother who turns 81 in October continues to work as a partner in an investment firm. My father-in-law went to work most every day as an admiralty lawyer, until he died at 77. Old age, mental acuity, and employment are not incompatible. For some, but not for all.

 

While Republicans have been vocal about the President’s physical and mental failings – based on visible evidence of dementia – the question of age has now been raised by Independents and Democrats. An August CNN poll conducted by SSRS found that “roughly three-quarters of Americans say they’re seriously concerned that Biden’s age might negatively affect his current level of physical and mental competence…” On the other hand, Alex Keyssar of the Harvard Kennedy School takes a more nuanced view. According to the July 17, 2023 issue of the Harvard Gazette, he “believes Democrats who cite age as a major election concern are probably really expressing ‘a desire for energetic leadership, a force for new ideas, new spirit, and new energy.’” Perhaps. But it seems more likely that the Democrat leadership is concerned that fibs, gaffes, and stumbles now define Mr. Biden – not good for his re-election chances, especially when his Vice President’s approval numbers are lower than his.

 

With Donald Trump currently leading the battle for his Party’s nomination, Republicans are caught in the same vise; thus a rising, bipartisan, interest in younger leaders. At his January 21, 1960 inauguration, John F. Kennedy spoke of “passing the torch” to a new generation. That happened. Eisenhower was the last President born in the 19^th Century. Franklin Roosevelt was fifty when he was elected in 1932, the first President younger than my grandfather. Kennedy was elected at age forty-three, the first President younger than my father. Bill Clinton was the first President elected younger than me. My grandfather, father and I were all in our 50s when the nation first elected Presidents younger than we were. Today, our three children are all in their 50s.  It is time to pass the torch. Following a recent TV interview in which President Biden touted his ‘wisdom’ and ‘experience’ as reasons to vote for him, Bonnie Wong, director of the neuropsychology program at Mass. General, allowed that there is some validity to the idea that with age comes wisdom. On the other hand, there are those who feel differently: H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) wrote in his 1919 book Prejudices: Third Series, “The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.” Age does bring perspective, but drifting minds are not compatible with wisdom. Nevertheless, it now appears that the 2024 election will consist of two, deeply flawed, old men, both accused of corruption and neither wise. We can picture them “yodeling,” as Lance Morrow wrote in Thursday’s The Wall Street Journal, “across the valley at one another: ‘Not guilty! Not guilty!’” Or, as P.G. Wodehouse more colorfully put it in The Inimitable Jeeves, the prospect resembles “…when Aunt is calling Aunt, like mastodons bellowing across primeval swamps...” This is not a prospect most Americans want.

 

It is not just the last two Presidents – both running for re-election – who are old. The average age in the U.S. Senate today is 65. Political leadership in Washington resembles the Soviet Union’s Politburo of 1982 when the average age was 70. But age, alone, is not the issue. We all know octogenarians and even nonagenarians who are mentally alert and physically spry. While he was writing of women, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s words are universally applicable: “The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.” Having cognizant-alert, elderly advisors has merit, as they can provide a sense of continuity and, despite Mencken’s warning, offer wisdom to new generations of more energetic politicians who will listen to, respond to and be honest with the people.

 

We who are older must adapt to life’s challenges. As J. Alfred Prufrock says, in T.S. Eliot’s eponymous poem: “I grow old…I grow old. / I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.” But that does not mean that our political parties should make the American people choose between one old man who is riven by an oversized personal ego and who speaks hatefully of those who cross him, and a second, even older man who trips boarding airplanes, who cannot speak without a teleprompter, and who utters non sequiturs that baffle his audience and his advisors.

 

Watching President Biden makes one wonder what it would have been like to observe President Woodrow Wilson after his October 1919 stroke? That was not permitted, as his wife and doctor kept him hidden from prying reporters. That cannot be done today. However, the White House keeps the President’s appearances to a minimum, and mainstream media, out of deference to the office, remains mute about Mr. Biden’s deteriorating mental capabilities. But our allies and enemies are aware of what is happening. Not a good look for the most powerful nation on earth. Age matters, but what is most important is how one ages. In the U.S. today, it is time to pass the porch.

"Integrity"

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Integrity”

May 1, 2023

 

“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.”

                                                                                                                                Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

                                                                                                                                “Self-Reliance”

                                                                                                                                Essays: First Series, 1841

 

This essay was prompted by former deputy director of the CIA (2010-2013) Michael Morrell’s interview with House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) and House Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner (R-OH). In that interview Morell said he had phoned Antony Blinken in October 2020 about the Hunter Biden laptop story, which had appeared in the New York Post on October 14, 2020. A consequence of that call was that a few days before the 2020 election fifty-one former intelligence officers signed a public letter (a letter prepared by Morrell), which claimed that the Hunter Biden laptop story had all the classic earmarks of a Russian disinformation operation. As those officials have since acknowledged, the letter was written without any evidence of Russian involvement; yet those intelligence officers chose to propagate a false story to help Presidential candidate Joe Biden. Reporters from mainstream media were provided an out from having to follow up on the Hunter Biden laptop story. Integrity, where art thou? 

 

Why, I wondered, would someone with Antony Blinken’s pedigree stoop to such a dirty trick?  At the time he was a senior advisor to the Biden campaign, with hopes of a position in a Biden administration. And why would fifty-one former intelligence officers do something that may have affected the outcome of a Presidential election? Is integrity as rare among Washington’s bureaucracy as it is among elected officials?

 

When I first thought of Mr. Blinken, a man raised in privilege – educated at the Dalton School, École Jeannine Manuel, Harvard, and Columbia – abetting the manipulation of an election, my mind went to Eugene Field’s nursery rhyme, “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod,” only with names and words changed:

 

Biden, Blinken, and Harris

Sailed off in the Ship of State;

Sailed onward toward Utopia,

On a sea of deceit.

And what is your goal, voters did ask?

We have come for the power and glory,

And the gold that will follow,

Said Biden, Blinken, and Harris.

 

Politics and honesty have never mixed. One is reminded of Diogenes searching for an honest man. In his 1880 book, A Tramp Abroad (based on a trip to Southern Europe) Mark Twain wrote: “An honest man in politics shines more than he would elsewhere.” Twenty-six years later, Ambrose Bierce published The Devil’s Dictionary. In it he defined politics: “n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.” Written in humor but highlighting a truism.

 

Most politicians, I fear, will never meet Webster’s definition of integrity: “The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles.” This is not to say that there are no honest politicians, but, as a species, they are endangered. You are more likely to see an ivory-billed woodpecker out your window than an honest politician on Pennsylvania Avenue. They fabricate, dissemble, and tell half-truths. Elected politicians are accountable to voters, but they evade responsibility for bad decisions. They are masters of illusion and obfuscation. In his taped message announcing his re-election plans, President Biden said he wanted to “finish the job,” a frightening thought. Consider the examples these people set for our children – they lie, blame the other guy, procrastinate, and never take responsibility for bad outcomes. 

 

How will we disengage from this dank and dismal place? Finding honest politicians or government bureaucrats is a dream unlikely to be realized. Extrication may never be possible but if it is, it must lie with the media and education. The former could report facts and leave opinions to editorial pages. The latter could teach students to think independently. A reporter should be interested in uncovering the truth, regardless of where it leads. Will that happen? In today’s polarized environment, doubtful. The better solution – though also a stretch – lies with schools, colleges, and universities where students should be taught to think independently, to study facts, appreciate nuances, and then form and defend their own opinions. Sy Syms used to say, when hawking off-price clothes, “an educated consumer is our best customer.” Similarly, an educated citizen is the best way to keep democracy from collapsing. The most effective response to social media, biased reporting, and hypocritical politicians, is the ability to think for oneself, to read, listen, and to question. That may be wishful thinking, but it is our only hope.

 

Integrity is a personal trait, difficult to practice when society’s emphasis is on conformity; for example, being asked to put one’s signature on a letter that includes a false statement. Employees are warned about using correct pronouns; conservatives are banned from speaking at universities; universities have substituted social justice for merit. Individuals are subjugated to the state, as mandates are issued regarding gasoline-powered cars and as we are told how much electricity must come from renewable sources. Thrift is penalized; under Fannie Mae’s and Freddy Mac’s new rules, those with higher credit scores will be charged higher interest rates, so that people with lower scores can secure mortgages at lower rates – the socialization of credit risk, as The Wall Street Journal put it. Unnecessary government interferences impede free markets; regulations imposed by the Biden administration have had an estimated cost to the economy of over $200 billion, according to the Washington Examiner. Sensitivity readers are employed by publishers to ensure harmful words are eradicated. But perhaps there is hope? At the Time 100 summit last week in New York, Steven Spielberg spoke out against political correctness in the film industry: “No film should be revised based on the lenses we now are either voluntarily or being forced to peer through.” 

 

Technology is changing our lives, with so many “cultural and political earthquakes testing the cohesion of our society,” as Walter Russell Mead recently wrote in Tablet Magazine, that we need the guidance which fundamental principles provide. Integrity is one of those virtues, along with tolerance, fortitude, diligence, charity, humility, and others. In Emerson’s essay, from which the rubric above was taken, he wrote of the “need for each individual to avoid uniformity and false consistency and follow his own instincts and ideas.” In Hamlet, Polonius offered similar advice to his son Laertes: “To thine own self be true.”

 

Eisenhower is alleged to have once said: “The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity.” It is a characteristic missing in almost all public figures, in the media, large corporations, banks and, perhaps most damaging, in schools, colleges and universities. Without principles to guide us, darkness prevails.

"Luck"

This essay had its genesis in an idea about writing of the good the United States has done over the years, and the sadness that we have become so polarized and divided. Christopher Buskirk, publisher and editor of American Greatness and opinion writer for the New York Times, recently wrote an essay, “The Vital Nation.” In it he wrote that “civilizational vitality springs from a shared identity that unites people.” Paul Johnson, the British historian who recently died at the age 94, wrote last April in The Spectator: “What is America? It is not a race but a cohesion of all the races of the world.” E Pluribus Unum. Out of many, one – the motto on the United States’ Great seal. 

 

We used to think of ourselves that way, as individuals thrown into an American mixing bowl. Today, we see ourselves separated by identity, as in a salad bowl where the radishes do mot mingle with the tomatoes. The U.S. has its share of blemishes, we are far from perfect, but what other country has provided opportunities to so many from so many different parts of the world? I, for one, thank God that I had the good fortune to be born here, and that is how this essay came to be written.

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

More Essays from Essex

“Luck”

January 28, 2023

 

“Be grateful for luck. Pay the thunder no mind.

Listen to the birds. And don’t hate nobody.”

Attributed to Eubie Blake (1887-1983)

American pianist and composer

 

Tuesday will be my 82^nd birthday. So, forgive me if I wax nostalgic. I promise to be short. 

 

Luck is happenstance. Good or bad, it cannot be summoned or dismissed at will. It is, however, often denigrated. In his 1860 book of essays, The Conduct of Life, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: “Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.” I presume Emerson meant that effort was necessary for fortune. There is no question that, individually, we make our own luck, in aspiration, diligence, and hard work. As Edward Gibbon wrote in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: “The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.” Yet, so much happens in our lives – for better or worse – for which we bear no responsibility: the families and places into which we are born, accidents for which we have no fault, serendipitous meetings that lead to long and loving relationships.

 

None of us chooses the time or place of our birth, nor do we select our parents. It is purely by chance, or luck, if you will. It is the right people meeting, going back tens of thousands of years. The odds of being born, whenever or wherever, are infinitesimal. The fact we are alive is reason to celebrate.

 

Fortune smiled upon me from the start, first in the parents I had. While both had been raised in comfortable circumstances, they chose a life of impecunious artists in a New Hampshire farmhouse that belonged to my father’s parents. There they raised nine children: “our nine little seedlings/all planted with love/nurtured with patience/from Heaven above,” as my mother wrote on their 25^th wedding anniversary. In an undated letter to the editor of the Peterborough Transcript (probably from the mid 1950s), she wrote of parenting: “Children have to learn and learn young what goes and what doesn’t go…Our formula is lots of love, lots of sleep, and lots of time to themselves, with a good spanking when it is necessary.”

 

In another stroke of fortune, I met Caroline sixty-one years ago; we fell in love and were married on April 11, 1964. And the two of us were blessed with three children who, in turn, produced ten grandchildren. If that’s not luck, I don’t know what is. 

 

Of all times to have been born, I was lucky, even as the runway gets shorter. I look at the comforts of today versus what was available to those of yesterday; the leisure time we have, something unknown to prior generations; of the ability to travel anywhere and to easily communicate with family and friends; of the advances in medicine, which have stretched our lives; and of the relative peace our world has enjoyed. 

 

And, of all places to be born, I was fortunate to have been born in the United States. As Baxter Black, the late cowboy, veterinarian, and poet wrote in 2008: “I’m lucky to be an American, and the freedom that I have.”  It has become popular to accentuate our nation’s faults and minimize her virtues. She is not perfect – “pay the thunder no mind” – but she remains the preferred destination of those wishing to emigrate from other countries all over the world – “listen to the birds.” I am lucky to have been born in the U.S. of A.

"Common Sense - Where Has It Gone?"

 

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Common Sense – Where Has It Gone?”

September 29, 2021

 

“Common sense is seeing things as they are,

and doing things as they ought to be.”

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896)

 

Common sense: noun – sound and prudent judgement. Its best antonym: unreasonable – without reason.

 

Common sense is a phrase we all know but rarely practice. So why is it called common? In A Pocket Philosophical Dictionary, Voltaire wrote: “Common sense is not so common.” It does not appear to exist among our cultural and political elite, where reason has given way to ideology. Ralph Waldo Emerson is alleged to have said: “Common Sense is genius dressed in working clothes.” That is, perhaps, what William Buckley meant when he said he would rather be governed by the first four hundred names in the Boston telephone directory than the Harvard faculty? Today, politicians, professors, CEOs, the media and many in the world of entertainment dress more informally, which may be sensible in terms of personal comfort, but a lack of common sense pulsates through their daily activities and commentaries. 

 

Common sense has been banished by the self-righteous. This part of Connecticut is not immune. Last week, in my local paper The Day, appeared an article about the sensible (my word) refusal of Old Lyme’s First Selectman (a Republican) to bring to a vote a resolution proposed by the Democratic Selectwoman which would identify racism as a public health crisis. His refusal was based, first, on the question: What does racism have to do with public health? Secondly, he pointed out such a resolution would imply the town has a race problem. Even the Democratic Selectwoman has said that she does not believe the people in Old Lyme are racist, yet she wants this resolution. Admittedly, the town of 7,000 is estimated to be 97.4% white, but that does not mean the community is racist. Certainly, the Republican First Selectman is not. His daughter is married to a black man whom, with his wife and children, we often see at our beach club. And Old Lyme is among a handful of Connecticut towns that welcome refugees.

 

So, why does she insist on such a resolution? Does she feel pangs of “white” guilt because of who she is and where she lives? Does she believe systemic racism infests Old Lyme? Or does she expect that accusations of racism will help Democrats’ cause? The answer seems obvious. She is motivated by politics and a lack of common sense. Social justice, systemic racism and anthropological-caused climate change are lightning rods, which activate the juices of hypocritical progressives. Common sense be damned.

 

We see this lack of common sense everywhere. Does it make sense to say that the “rich” should pay their “fair share,” and then say you want to reinstate SALT (state and local taxes) deductions, when 95% of the benefit accrues to the top one percent of wage earners? Or is that simply hypocrisy?  Corporations have adopted to this new world by claiming support for all “stakeholders.” It is a feel-good word, but does it say anything new? Years ago, the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) observed: “He who serves the public best, makes the highest profits.” In Iacocca: An Autobiography (1984), Lee Iacocca wrote: “In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words: people, products, profit.” Over four million businesses were created in 2020, with about 600,000 failing. According to the Center for M.I.T. Entrepreneurship, most new businesses are not cash flow positive for 3-5 years. If a business is not profitable, no one is served – not the employees, customers, suppliers, tax agencies or owners. Consider, when the Left decries the inequities of capitalism, the words of Thomas Sowell in Controversial Essays: “No government of the left has done as much for the poor as capitalism has. Even when it comes to the redistribution of income, the left talks the talk, but the free market walks the walk.”

 

Bjorn Lomborg, in a recent op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, wrote that according to a forthcoming Lancet study: “More than 45% of people 16 to 25 in the ten countries surveyed are so worried (about climate change) that it affects their daily life and functioning.” Does that reflect sensible behavior on the part of their teachers? Was it common sense that allowed an uncompromising focus on renewables to cause electricity prices in Connecticut to rise by 14% last June? Regarding the stalled $3.5 trillion spending bill, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) recently tweeted: “Paid leave is infrastructure. Childcare is infrastructure. Caregiving is infrastructure.” Common sense tells us they are not. Bridges, tunnels and roads are infrastructure, not entitlements. Her comments are part of a narrative that lacks reason and truth. It was “virtue-signaling that led to pride flags, gender studies and George Floyd murals in Kabul,” as Victor Davis Hanson recently wrote, when common sense would have had the U.S. maintain Bagram Airfield until the last American, ally, and Afghani who had assisted allied forces had left Afghanistan. Did General Mark A. Milley show common sense when he made those Dr. Strangelove-like calls to General Li Zuocheng? Do calls for defunding the police, despite rising murder rates in inner cities, reflect common sense? What about the discrimination exhibited in schools and colleges in setting different standards for students based on race? Is not that sanctimonious discrimination? Does it make common sense to mandate masks and vaccinations for university students and business employees, yet let in tens of thousands of illegal immigrants, without requiring either masks or vaccines? 

 

It is not as though the U.S. is not faced with real problems, which common sense would address. To name four: Debt and deficits: The ratio of federal debt to GDP is approaching what it was in World War II, and that does not include unfunded liabilities for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. In 1960, mandatory spending (entitlements, like Social Security. Medicare and Medicaid, etc.) accounted for about 25% of the federal budget. Today, that number is close to 70%. Education: We spend more per student than most any other country. Yet, we are failing many, mostly in Democrat-controlled, inner cities. In the 2018 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), which tests 15-year-olds around the world, the United States ranks below the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) average. As well, college costs have become untethered from reality. Families: It is well understood that children raised in two-parent households fare better economically and emotionally. Yet, family formations have been in decline in the U.S. for sixty years. In 1960, according to a 2015 Pew Research Center study, 73% of children were raised in two-parent households. By 2014, that had declined to 46%. Culture: As a nation, we have descended into a morass of multiculturalism, political correctness and wokeism, which has left us bereft of a national moral compass.

 

Common sense is looking at the world through clear lenses. It sees the world as it is, as Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote, not as one would like it to be. Like classical liberalism, common sense is based on empiricism, experience and research.; it is skeptical of fashion. It recognizes differences in people, not in races. It acknowledges there are two biological genders, not the 57 that OpenLearn suggests. It adheres to the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have done unto you; it is learning right from wrong and practicing the civilities once taught by parents, and in schools, Synagogues and Churches. Common sense allows us to focus on the individual, rather than the collective.

 

Horse sense is a synonym for common sense. The former was once defined by the comedian and actor W.C. Fields: “Horse sense is a thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.” Yet we, with people-sense and with government encouragement, bet on everything, from Lotteries to sports to horses – which common sense tells us is a loser’s game and regressive taxation. Common sense, where have you gone? 

"The COVID-19 Pandemic - Some Random Thoughts"

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Thought of the Day

“The COVID-19 Pandemic – Random Thoughts”

March 18, 2020

“Fear cannot be banished, but it can be calm and without panic;

it can be mitigated by reason and evaluation.”

                                                                                                Vannevar Bush (1890-1975)

                                                                                                Scientist, Educator, Inventor

Sensible advice has been offered by many: Scrub your hands, socially distant yourself; isolate yourself if sick. Nevertheless, manifestations of fear and panic are all around us. Restaurants, bars and casinos have closed in the part of the Country where I live. Colleges have sent students home. Schools have been closed, while grocery stores cannot keep up with demand for toilet paper, hand-wipes, latex gloves, disinfectants and many other household and food products. ‘Social distancing’ is nowhere to be seen when it comes to filling one’s larder or closet. Yet, with the exception of products directly related to coronavirus, like hand-wipes and latex gloves, final demand for items like toilet paper and frozen foods will grow in terms of population expansion, or about 0.5 percent. (In Connecticut, population growth will probably decline about 0.2 percent, as it did in 2019.) Understocked shelves will become overstocked.

“Any man’s death diminishes me,” John Donne wrote, and all deaths are, indeed, to be regretted. But perspective should be maintained. The question we all struggle with: Is the fear we exhibit rational? We don’t know, but containment and mitigation seem to be working, at least in China and South Korea. According to their numbers, since last November China has had 190,000 individuals infected with COVID-19 (out of a population of 1.39 billion). Just under 7,500 have died, implying a mortality rate of 3.9 percent. Keep in mind, numbers from China are suspect and between 30,000 and 40,000 people die every day in their Country. South Korea’s statistics are likely more accurate. Their first case was noted on January 20. As of March 16, two hundred and twenty thousand people had been tested in South Korea, out of a population of 51.4 million, 8,320 cases had been confirmed and 81 had died, or just under one percent. Health officials in Seoul claimed on March 9 that their Country had passed the peak of the contagion. They credit their “trace, test and treat” system, where an individual can drive to a testing site and have samples taken from the back of one’s throat and nose. A few hours later, the individual will get a call if the test is positive or a text if it is negative.

The world was slow to take note of the seriousness of the crisis. China, a Communist dictatorship, delayed informing the outside world for a month and a half. More than three weeks after China did, and with the contagion already having infected half a dozen countries, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared, on January 23, that the coronavirus did not constitute a public emergency of international concern. (It would be March 11 before they declared it a pandemic.) Early on, the President was ahead of the curve. He formed a White House task force for coronavirus on January 29, led by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alexander Azar, and he shut down flights from China on January 31. On February 27, he placed Vice President Mike Pence in charge of the Task Force. Contrary to some reports, the White House did not “gut” the National Security Council’s counter pandemic effort. But he was slow in promoting tests for the virus and urging the search for a vaccine. He was not alone. The press was more interested in impeachment than in informing their readers and viewers of the virus China had exported, which was beginning to contaminate the world.

Throughout most of February and early March, the U.S., President Trump appeared to minimize the health impact of COVID-19, while he emphasized the need for calm. It was not surprising, and he was not alone. As a businessman, he knew what fear and panic do to an economy – creating artificial shortages, while negatively impacting economic growth. Keep in mind, every day the U.S. economy generates roughly $60 billion in national income. Shutting down commerce will have serious consequences for individuals, many of whom will be laid off, even if temporarily. Government will step in to help – the House passed an $850 billion stimulus bill yesterday – but we should not forget that we are already carrying the largest amount of debt, relative to GDP, since World War II. Adding another trillion is important now, but even low-cost debt must be repaid. When (not if) interest rates move back up, the pain is going to be severe – for governments, corporations and consumers. Neither should we forget that an economic system that preserves uneconomic businesses for “humanitarian” purposes is neither compassionate nor financially viable.

The closing of restaurants, gyms, casinos, schools, colleges and churches is critical and will limit the spread of the virus. While there is much that is unknown about COVID-19, it is known to have a high R0 (R naught), a mathematical determination of its contagion properties. Questions remain: Will healthcare be rationed? Will further restrictions be imposed? However, we cannot ignore its effect on the economy, the education of our youth and the social and spiritual well-being of us all. While we cannot return to normal, we must be alert to unintended consequences.

As well, we should be wary of hyperbole, of those who see a crisis as something for personal advantage. Last Sunday, Goldman Sachs, according to Zero Hedge journalist Tyler Durden, spoke to 1500 clients and told them 50% of Americans will contract the virus and that mortality rates could reach two percent. Perhaps they will be right, but that would contrast with less than one tenth of one percent of South Koreans and Chinese who have contracted the disease. In Italy, the 30,000 cases thus far represent about 0.05% of their population. In the U.S., the disease will become more widespread before it abates, but one wonders if Goldman was pandering to hedge funds that were short the market. If they were, they had happy clients on Monday, when the market dropped thirteen percent. It is only to be expected that Democrat Presidential candidates will use the virus against Mr. Trump. (Republicans would do the same were roles reversed.) We should also note the pandemic has brought a cease-fire – probably temporary – in the partisanship that has marked our politics. Both Governor Gavin Newsom of California and Andrew Cuomo of New York have praised the President for his response to the crisis. (A cynic might say they were looking for federal funds). However, Governor Cuomo complained on Monday that “the federal government has been behind on this crisis from day one.” Still, praise is praise.

In a recent column, Peggy Noonan wrote that telling people not to panic is bad advice. I disagree. People should be told to be wary, especially around the elderly and the vulnerable: to wash their hands regularly and vigorously, to avoid unnecessary personal contact, to sneeze or cough into a Kleenex or handkerchief, to use handwipes and surgical gloves when in stores, and to stay home, especially when a fever or cold persists. But we should not panic. “Panic,” as Stephen King once wrote, “is highly contagious, especially when nothing is known, and everything is in flux,” as it is now. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “…panic is the terror of ignorance, surrendered to the imagination.” “Fear,” as Vannevar Bush is quoted in the rubric above, “cannot be banished,” but it can be rationalized. During the depths of the Depression, Franklin Roosevelt said, in a fireside chat, when so many were fearful: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Our hospitals and healthcare are second to none. Containment and mitigation will conquer COVID-19, so long as we comply with basic rules of hygiene and common sense. We cannot and should not, let fear and panic catapult us into a recession or worse – a situation where Constitutional rights are abrogated.