"Our Political State"

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

 

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

 

Sydney M. Williams

30 Bokum Road – Apartment 314

Essex, CT 06426

 

Thought of the Day

“Our Political State”

October 8, 2023

 

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

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

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

                                                                                                                             Paul G. Summers

                                                                                                                             Former Attorney General, Tennessee

                                                                                                                             The Tennessean

                                                                                                                              November 2, 2022

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

"A Cockeyed Optimist"

 It’s raining in Connecticut today, the greyness of the day matching the mood of the Country, as Democrats seem intent on moving forward with Biden as their standard bearer in a quest for another four years in the White House, while Donald Trump seems intent on fracturing Republicans and undermining their attempt to replace Mr. Biden. 

 

Perhaps this essay, with its message of hope, will lift your mood.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“A Cockeyed Optimist”

April 23, 2023

 

“Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power.”

                                                                                                                William James (1842-1910)

                                                                                                                The Varieties of Religious Experience, 1902

 

“I know America is a land of opportunity, not a land of oppression. I know it because I’ve lived it.”

                                                                                                                Senator Tim Scott (R-SC)

                                                                                                                Speech, April 12, 2023 

 

It is easy to be pessimistic:

 

Americans’ trust in government, according to a June 6, 2022 Pew Research Center study, has fallen from 75% in 1958 when the study began to 20% today. Total Fertility Rates, which measure the average number of children born to a female over their lifetime, have declined in the United States from 3.58 in 1960 to 1.64 in 2020. (To maintain population, the TFR must be 2.1.) The numbers portend a shrinking labor force and an increasing number of retirees. A February 2023 WSJ/NORC poll showed that only 21% of Americans feel their children will be better off financially than they are. Belief in God has fallen to 81%, down six percentage points from 2017, and the lowest since the question was first asked by Gallup in 1944.

 

Less than half of all Americans express a great deal of confidence in the military, with 77% of young Americans physically unfit to serve. Only 9% of those eligible to serve wish to do so, according to an op-ed in the April 15-16, 2023 issue of The Wall Street Journal by the authors of Superpower in Peril: A Battle Plan to Renew America. For more than fifty years, Cassandras have been predicting climate apocalypse. A generation ago, the UN Environment Program claimed that “…entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.” Undeterred by past failures, they continue to predict catastrophe. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently issued a report: “We’re hurtling down the road to ruin and running out of time to change course.” Failure has not chastened these prophets of doom.  

 

Wherever we turn, there is bad news. Crime rates and mass shootings make daily headlines, with perpetrators too often seen as “victims.” According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, weekly earnings for private-sector workers, adjusted for inflation, declined 3.6% over the past two years, the longest stretch since the 1970s. High school math and reading scores on international tests (PISA) remain low, while political indoctrination is high. Interest rates on U.S. Treasuries have risen, but remain below the rate of inflation, implying negative real returns. Abortion is a super-charged political issue, yet, according to the Guttmacher Institute, the number of abortions in the U.S. was 930 thousand in 2020 versus 1.6 million in 1990, and 93% of all abortions occur in the first trimester, according to the same source. Rational debate is off the table, and ignored is the wisdom of President Clinton from 1992: “Abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.” Keep in mind, we were all fetuses once and were given the chance to live. At this point, it looks like voters in 2024 could be faced with the same Hobson’s choice they had in 2020 – the Scylla of a cognitively challenged and corrupt Joe Biden, or the Charybdis of an ego-infested, unprincipled showman, Donald Trump. As a nation, can we not have better choices? Despite two individuals having declared for the Democrat primary, the DNC says there will be no Democrat primary debates.

 

The world is dangerous. Our enemies have the ability to nuke our cities. They have the means to disrupt our financial markets, banking and utility systems, and air travel, via cyber warfare or knocking out satellites. Commerce would be brought to a stand-still. And all the while, our political class is more interested in stuffing their bank accounts and gender identification than in enabling our military and cyber defense systems; universities are more interested in protecting students from harmful words than in preparing them to become good citizens, and the media would rather delegitimize those with conservative political views than expose weakness in our nation’s defense systems. 

 

It is easy to see the future in dark tones. And yet, no matter how bleak the world seems; no matter how foolish politicians responsible for the management of our nation’s affairs act or how biased is the media, and no matter the phony accusations of racism, idiotic calls for stakeholder capitalism, or the encouragement of transwomen to compete in women’s sports, I awake each morning and thank God for the fortune to have been born and to live in this country at this time: Conservatives are speaking out. Parents are fighting to regain control of their children’s education. The Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard was recently formed, even though it has only attracted 71 faculty members out of 1,196 eligible. Young people are taking an interest in public service, brilliant and sensible ones like Vivek Ramaswamy – at 37, a man closer in age to my grandchildren than my children. Combined with others, these factors tell me that all is not lost. I look at our three children, their spouses, and the ten grandchildren they have produced, and I am inspired for the future – a future I may never see, but one in which I have hope, in which I believe.

 

The left has become shrill as they use authoritarian means to defend what they claim are democratic values: They do not allow school choice for the nation’s poor, because it violates the wishes of teachers’ unions; they substitute racism and gender preference for merit, thereby destroying the historic excellence of schools and colleges, an excellence which allowed people and the county to prosper; they demonize conservative blacks like Justice Clarence Thomas and Thomas Sowell for the temerity to think for themselves, rather than comply to a prescribed progressive line; they allow children as young as ten to select their gender preference, which has created an understandable backlash among concerned parents. The shrill left has invaded Wall Street and corporate board rooms, with innocent sounding calls for “stakeholder” capitalism, ignoring the fact that every successful company must balance the needs of owner/shareholders, employees, customers, and communities, without the need to train workers in “bias breaking,” “psychological safety,” and other forms of “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” words that mean whatever the corporate executive wants them to mean. 

 

As for immigrants, the United States has always attracted those with a sense of “can-do.” Immigrants who come legally do not come for handouts. They are attracted by opportunities our nation offers: its freedom; its democratic form of government; its economy based on free market capitalism; and, most important, its belief in the individual, that if one uses his or her native talent, works hard, adheres to the law, respectful of others, and is personally responsible, then success will ensue. Education is at the core of individual success, which is why teachers’ unions have become an impediment, especially in the nation’s poorest sections. It is why the push for charter schools, or for letting money follow the student – for choice – is critical if we want to be fair to those less advantaged. And that push for choice has become more prevalent.

 

A pessimist is one who looks at the present and extrapolates all that is wrong and concludes that that is the future. An optimist is one who studies the past, lives the present, and then eyes the future and dreams of what is possible. With that as a definition, I remain an optimist. Reason tells me that the obstacles we face are formidable. It’s easy to be pessimistic, but in my heart, I feel as did Mitzi Gaynor in South Pacific, as war loomed around, when she sang: “I hear the human race/ is fallin’ on its face/ and hasn’t very far to go…But I’m only a cockeyed optimist.”

"Common Sense"

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Thought of the Day

“Common Sense”

September 19, 2022

 

“Do not be bullied out of your common sense

by the specialist; two to one, he is a pedant.”

                                                                                                                     Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894)

                                                                                                                     Over the Teacups, 1891

 

Webster’s defines common sense as “sound and prudent judgement, based on a simple perception of the situation or facts.” Lucretia Peabody Hale’s The Peterkin Papers provides fictions best (and most amusing) examples of common sense – with the “Lady from Philadelphia” offering obvious solutions to what seem insurmountable obstacles to the Peterkin family.

 

…………………………………………………………….

 

A year ago, I wrote an essay regretting the loss of common sense in the political realm: “Common Sense – Where has it Gone?” (September 29, 2021). It was a lament, without answer. 

 

Now, three disparate events remind me that common sense remains AWOL: First, I have been re-reading a 1999 collection of essays by Thomas Sowell, Barbarians Inside the Gates. The book speaks to the loss of common sense in political, social, and cultural realms. Second, Queen Elizabeth’s death was a reminder of the importance of personal traits like common sense, stability, tradition, and personal virtue, which Western culture has replaced with silliness, variability, ignorance, and social virtues. And third, a eulogy for Common Sense was recently sent me. I had seen it before, but it is worth re-reading.

 

Sowell’s book, published in 1999, was prophetic, as conditions he then wrote about remain with us – racism, declines in education standards, hyperbole over man-caused climate change, the advocacy for socialism and the criticism of capitalism in the West, and political extremism. Sowell is a realist who relies on facts and who cares little for sentiment. His observations reflect his intolerance for the idiocy of most politicians. In an essay titled “From Marxism to the Market,” he wrote: “The rhetoric of socialism may be inspiring, but the actual record is dismal.” In another, “The Multiculturalism Cult,” he wrote of how real people around the world do not “celebrate diversity;” they “pick and choose which of their own cultural features they want to keep and which they want to dump…” In a third, “Life is Culturally Biased,” he noted: “As limited human beings, we must make our choices among the alternatives actually available.” A fourth essay, “Anti-Elitism in Education:” “…you cannot let everyone go to Stuyvesant (where Sowell went in the late 1940s) without its ceasing to be the kind of school that makes them want to go there.” That the problems he wrote of so long ago have only worsened is a sad commentary on our social, cultural, and political life.

 

Much has been written of the remarkable saga of Queen Elizabeth’s 70-year reign. In death, if not always in life, she was admired from those across the political spectrum. I have read several obituaries, including those in England’s Spectator and The London Telegraph. The best, in my opinion, was Andrew Roberts’ essay in the September 10-11 edition of The Wall Street Journal. He wrote: “Would to God that more of our leaders in public life had a fraction of her grace, her gravitas and, above all, her common sense.” In her 1957 Christmas message, as Britain was transitioning from Empire to Commonwealth, Elizabeth warned against “carelessly” throwing away “ageless ideals.” While I am not a monarchist, I applaud the Queen’s role in helping unwind the Empire, and I appreciate the unity she helped bring to Britain, something that in the U.S. was once provided by universal respect for the ideals – if not the lives – of the Founders. Today, we have imposed current moral standards on historical individuals and cultures (along with the divisive and historically erroneous 1619 Project), which have destroyed what had been a near-universal faith in the words embedded in the writings of the Founders. No matter our political leanings, we all – immigrant and native born, white and black, men and women – once believed in the universal truths expressed in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers. Sadly, that is no longer true. With the death of the Queen, Brits – no matter their sex, religion, or country of origin – have rediscovered their British commonality. 

 

As for the obituary for common sense (“Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense”), it first appeared in The London Times at least twenty-four years ago. The obituary mentions that “he” was preceded in death “by his parents, Truth and Trust; by his wife, Discretion; by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason.” While it makes one smile, its truth makes one cringe.

 

We see the loss of common sense in the hypocrisy of our immigration policy, where elites who favor open borders squeal when migrants land in their backyards. We see it in the exaggerations of our climate scaremongers who play Canute, while ignoring extreme climate changes that have occurred naturally over millions of years. We read of it in the wacky assumption that increased spending will somehow bring down debt and reduce inflation. We see it in the lack of choice in public schools for the poor, especially in inner cities. We see it in the political indoctrination of college students, and in racism that persists against Asians and whites. We see it in a call for diversity and inclusion that excludes conservative speakers and opinions. We see it in the spewing of hatred and in the absence of civility. Common sense is the antithesis of political correctness. Worse, its absence is never mentioned by mainstream media.

 

Common sense interferes with politicians’ desire for control. They are less interested in answers than in keeping alive issues. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization did not ban abortion. It threw the decision back to the states, to allow the people to decide, as is proper in a democracy. Our Founders did not create a country to be run by an oligarchy of nine unelected judges in black robes. Common sense tells us that we, the people, should make such decisions through our elected representatives. The Left explains, commonsensically, that higher taxes on tobacco and booze reduce consumption of both. However, they fail to apply the same logic when it comes to higher taxes on employers and capital investments. Common sense uses reason, not emotion. It employs restraint, not indulgence.

 

Will common sense be resurrected? I hope so, but I worry. The Hoover Institute’s Thomas Sowell does not hold out much hope. He once wrote: “What is so rare as a day in June? Common sense on the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals.” Sad, but true.

"Know Thyself"

 Welcome to the post-Labor Day period, traditionally, the beginning of the fall political campaign season, though in today’s world that season has no beginning and no end.

 

A few words on Donald Trump. As we all know, he is not a saint. But neither is he a semi-fascist, as President Biden claimed, nor is he a lunatic, as National Review recently wrote. His super-sized ego and bombastic language are offensive. But lost in the polarization of feelings he engenders, it is worth remembering why he decided to run for President. He went to Washington for at least two reasons: He went selfishly, to raise his profile, and he went magnanimously to drain Washington’s swamp. His profile has risen, but not in ways he would have wished. Keep in mind, his net worth declined by about a billion dollars while he was President. The swamp, however, remains dense and dark. Establishment politicians of both Parties, with their enablers in Washington’s bureaucracy, banded to destroy the threat he posed to their comfortable way of life, which in hundreds of cases have converted public service to private gains.

 

The swamp remains – at an enormous cost to taxpayers – as does the job to drain it. Is there another politician from either Party willing to take on this unpopular and Herculean task, or will the swamp grow danker, deeper, and darker?

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Know Thyself”

September 6, 2022

 

“The first thing you have to know is yourself. A man who knows himself

can step outside himself and watch his own reactions like an observer.”

                                                                                                George Goodman as Adam Smith (1930-2014)

                                                                                                The Money Game, 1968

 

The words “Know thyself” were, according to legend, engraved above the forecourt in the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, located on Mount Parnassus in central Greece. A search for self-knowledge is common, and its importance has been lauded by many, from Benjamin Franklin to Lao Tzu to Pythagoras. To fatalist Greeks the saying meant that one should accept the role nature assigned one. But for those of us today who believe we are also nurtured by our environment. self-examination should be an ongoing process.

 

There are those who dismiss the concept, because we change. Andre Gide wrote in Autumn Leaves: “A caterpillar who seeks to know himself would never become a butterfly.” But a search for self-understanding is not seeking perfection in the here and now; it seeks to understand; it recognizes that change is given: We have new experiences; we meet different people, and we read. Life does not stand still and neither do we. What if Gide’s caterpillar wanted to become a butterfly? Some conflate self-knowledge with hubris – that in claiming to know ourselves we admit to knowing what we do not know. That, to borrow one of Joe Biden’s favorite expressions, is malarkey. It’s an argument used by woke philosophy professors to confuse young, impressionable minds. It is impossible to know what we do not know. 

 

Self-understanding is important in an ever-changing world. In a recent interview in The Wall Street Journal, American tennis player Danielle Collins spoke “of how to use your strengths and how to work around your weaknesses” to win matches. She understands that her weaknesses will improve with practice, and that her strengths can be harbored and utilized. It was Heraclitus (c.535BC-c.475BC) who is credited with the saying: “Change is the only constant in life.” Knowing oneself is acknowledging that truth.

 

Knowing oneself is especially important in this age of political polarization that has tipped into extremism. It is easy to get carried away by the swift-moving current of political correctness. Those of us who still believe in the premise of classical liberalism face a political mindset that invokes moral equivalence to justify a belief that the United States is inherently evil, founded on the backs of slaves – that we are no better than other despotic nations. Today, amidst a torrent of “wokeness,” we face a crisis in education, where equity trumps excellence, where conformity reigns due to a lack of diversity of ideas, and where history incorporates “presentism,” promoting ignorance of earlier eras and cultures. The consequence has been high school and college graduates who know little of our history and civic affairs, and where persistently low scores on international tests have become common. The Department of Education (DOE) recently released fourth grade test scores that show the effects of Covid-related shutdowns. But shutdowns were not solely to blame, as charts show declines in math and reading scores began ten years ago.

 

We face a border crisis that is unfair to immigrants and to American citizens, where the only beneficiaries have been human and drug smugglers. We have created a national debt that has reached a size that a normalization of interest rates is no longer a viable alternative. We no longer celebrate the two-parent family, value the moral teachings of religion, or appreciate the dignity of work. We have a “semi-Socialist and semi-authoritarian” President (to borrow from Daniel Henninger) who promised to unify the nation, but who recently called his 2020 competitor a “semi-fascist.”

 

Except for the Reagan years, for over eight decades an expanding and “compassionate” government has been seen as the answer to problems we individually face. On January 6, 1941, in his State of the Union, President Franklin Roosevelt spoke of four freedoms: The first two were lifted from the Bill of Rights: freedom of speech and freedom to worship. The next two involved government, in a way unintended by the Constitution – freedom from want and freedom from fear. After a dozen years of depression and a European war underway, it is understandable why his words were so well received and are so fondly remembered. But all the ills of the world cannot be resolved by a pen and a phone. Want has persisted as has fear. Sadly, there will always be poverty, illness, and accidents. But, keep in mind, no political system yet devised has been better at reducing poverty and alleviating fears than a democratic-republic and free-market capitalism. 

 

As we head toward the midterm elections, we should each take stock of our own political beliefs. I can only speak for myself: I want constrained, self-paying government, with separation of powers, a fair judiciary. a government which functions under the rule of law, guarantees our enumerated rights and our borders, provides for defense – a government that allows us to freely have options, which fit individual needs. I want a vibrant, competitive, free-market economy that responds to millions of people making thousands of choices every day, not one directed by bureaucrats in Washington. We have seen the unfortunate consequences of government-managed economies, in an earlier period of Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe and today in places like China, Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, Paraguay, Ghana, and Zimbabwe, among others.

 

Knowing oneself involves soul-searching and asking difficult questions. Do we like what we have become? The President has called Mr. Trump and his followers “semi-fascists.” Democratic advisor Kurt Bardella, speaking on MSNBC last week, said that modern Republican ‘playbook’ was like that of Nazi Germany: “We are watching right now a very radical and extreme Republican Party mirror what we have seen in other places like Nazi Germany, like other people, like the Bolsheviks. We have seen this playbook before.”

 

Really? Which Party weaponized the IRS in 2012 to slow-walk non-profit status for groups whose ideology was deemed unhelpful? Which Party colluded with the FBI to find dirt on their political opponents in 2016? Which Party referred to parents as terrorists in 2020? Which Party in 2022 authorized an unprecedented FBI invasion of the home of a former President? Which Party has most expanded the state and constricted the private sector, with restrictive rules and regulations? Both Parties are guilty of extremism, but the sanctimonious left, “the anointed” as Thomas Sowell calls them, has been guilty of undemocratic actions.

 

Politics historically, through debate and vote, have been used to resolve controversial issues. But we live in an age of extremism. Donald Trump, if he cares for conservative values, should remove himself, as he has become Democrats’ principal asset and Republicans’ biggest liability. But it is Democrats, with their sycophants in Washington’s bureaucracies, media and social media, universities, big corporations, and the entertainment industry who are stifling freedom and destroying democracy, not Republicans. I urge my Democrat friends to consider the rhetoric and vendettas of their Party. It has been their words and actions, plus censorship in schools and colleges, and a politicization of climate change, which imperil the freedom and prospects of the citizens of this exceptional nation. Socrates said that to know oneself is the beginning of wisdom. There is no need to navel gaze, but we should take a few moments to consider our history, to think of who we are and what we want, and to ask: What has happened? Why has so much gone wrong?

 

We are better than what we have become.

"Who is Behind the Curtain?"

                                                                     Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Who is Behind the Curtain?”

May 12, 2022

 

“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”

                                                                                                                                The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 1900

                                                                                                                                L. Frank Baum (1856-1919

 

Apart from the final seventeen months of the Woodrow Wilson Administration, when the President suffered a stroke, we have never had a President appear unable to carry out his responsibilities – until now. To be honest, that assessment of Mr. Biden, while I believe it to be true, is based on observation rather than empirical evidence. In the case of President Wilson, the cover-up of his infirmities was due to his doctor, Cary Grayson and his second wife, Edith Bolling Galt Wilson. Dr. Grayson did brief Wilson’s cabinet and the question of succession arose, but the doctor refused to sign any official notice of inability, so Vice President Thomas Marshall remains a footnote, and the Presidency was allegedly managed by Mrs. Wilson.

 

At 78, Mr. Biden became the oldest person to be inaugurated President, eight years older than Donald Trump and nine years older than Ronald Reagan. In both cases, political opponents called into question their mental acuity; so, it is unsurprising that concerns for Mr. Biden have been raised. Four years and ten months after leaving office, Mr. Reagan sent a letter to the American people telling them he was afflicted with Alzheimer’s. In the summer of 2018, eighteen months after taking office, Mr. Trump took (and passed) the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) test. Thus far, Mr. Biden has refused to take a similar test.

 

Since Mr. Biden has not taken a cognitive test, comments that he has early signs of dementia are speculation. Nevertheless, concerns abound and not just among Republicans. A Politico Morning Consult poll in January 2022 found that 48% of those polled do not believe he is mentally fit. An ABC/The Washington Post poll, taken at the same time, indicated that Mr. Biden lacks the “mental sharpness” to be President. A Harvard Youth Poll showed a job approval rate of 41%, despite 57% of the correspondents having voted for him. Anecdotally, anyone who has watched his news conferences has noted his shuffling gait, his fumbling answers and his slurring of words. 

 

Again, none of this is proof of dementia, but enough questions have been raised that the White House should respond. After all, the U.S. Presidency is the most powerful position in the world, and if someone else (or some cabal) is making decisions in his name the people should know who that is.

 

My candidate for puppeteer is former President Barack Obama. In Columbia, Missouri on October 30, 2008, Mr. Obama boldly declared: “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” While he later backed away from that assertion, that is what he said. The National Catholic Register, at the time, referred to the statement as “revolutionary” and “audacious.” 

 

As the son of a white mother and a black father, Mr. Obama had the unique opportunity to bridge the racial divide in the U.S. Instead, racism worsened, and political polarization intensified during his eight years. Perhaps we should not have been surprised. From an early age, Mr. Obama had had mentors who were anti-West and anti-American: Frank Marshall Davis in Hawaii, an anti-white and anti-American former member of the Communist Party; Professor Edward Said of Columbia, a spokesperson for Palestinian terrorists; Professor Derrick Bell of Harvard Law School, an early advocator of Critical Race Theory; Reverend Jeremiah Wright whose church, Trinity United Church of Christ, Mr. Obama attended for twenty years; and Bill Ayers, a domestic terrorist in whose Chicago home Mr. Obama held fundraisers.

 

Some might argue that criticism of Mr. Obama is based solely on racial prejudice. While that certainly is true of some, most of the criticism was (and is) directed at his policies, not at the person. Extremism exists in both parties but has been more prominent on the left. It was in 2013 that #Black Live Matter was formed, in response to the Trayvon Martin murder, and Antifa rose to prominence during the Obama years. Instead of following the example set by Martin Luther King of encouraging character development, Mr. Obama pursued identity politics. In doing so, his statements stood in contrast to those of black economist and scholar, Thomas Sowell: “If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today.”

 

The 2016 election was a surprise. Many people, but particularly Democrats, expected Hillary Clinton would win and further the progressive goals established by Mr. Obama. That was not to be. Four years later they had their chance. Covid derailed the Trump economy, which had lifted economic growth and allowed minority incomes to achieve record levels. The choice of Joe Biden as Democrat nominee was fortuitous for Mr. Obama. Mr. Biden was familiar with his agenda and was portrayed during the campaign as a moderate. However, Newsweek, on December 22, 2020, headlined an article: “Nearly 60% of Biden’s Cabinet Appointments So Far Are Obama Officials.” They include Janet Yellen, John Kerry, Susan Rice, Lloyd Austin, Alejandro Mayorkas, Denis McDonough, Avril Haines and Linda Thomas-Greenfield, among others.

 

What Democrats did not expect was the rapid decline in the Administration’s popularity – with job approval for Mr. Biden in the low 40s and the even lower ones for Vice President Kamala Harris. But how could they have been so blind? Did they not expect a surge of illegal immigrants when they loosened rules at the border? Why did they not anticipate inflation when they kept interest rates low, increased money supply, expanded government spending and tightened regulations regarding fossil fuels? Did they not realize that their calls to defund the police would result in a surge in crime? Did they not consider the consequences of a too-hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan? Did they expect parents to docilely accept the teachings of “woke” ideologies in public schools? With a military more focused on social justice, why were they so surprised at our relative unpreparedness for conflicts with Russia and China?

 

Democrats must realize that the odds favor them losing majorities in the Senate and possibly in the House in the midterms. Prospects for 2024 don’t look great either, putting their progressive agenda further at risk. Mr. Biden will be 82 in January 2025, and his cognitive infirmities will have worsened. Ms. Harris comes across as a cackling incompetent; thus, with her low polling numbers, she seems an unlikely candidate for President in 2024. It is fear that they may lose their soap box that explains the recent creation of the dystopian Disinformation Governance Board, a proposal called for by Mr. Obama that would effectively shut down free speech.

 

The risk of losing our democratic republic has always been there. Freedom is difficult to attain, but easy to lose. Elected officials and unelected bureaucrats must be held accountable. That cannot be if the people don’t know who is in charge. We’re not in Kansas anymore; we should know who is behind the curtain.

"Political Stakes"

 This essay was begun before Russia’s threat on Ukraine’s border became front page news. Putin’s actions validate the thesis that the political stakes are high, that the risks are existential, and that the United States and its Western European allies must change tactics from promoting “social justice” to affirming and defending a belief in classical liberal democracy. 

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Political Stakes”

February 23, 2022

 

“Imagine a political system so radical as to promise to move more of the poorest 20%

of the population into the richest 20% than remain in the poorest bracket within the

decade? You don’t have to imagine it. It’s called the United States of America.”

                                                                                                                                                Thomas Sowell (1930 -)

 

The Cold War lasted for 42 years, from 1947 until 1989. It pitted the United States against the Soviet Union, along with respective allies. It ended with the fall of the Iron Curtain, and when a wave of (mostly) peaceful revolutions overthrew Communist governments in the Eastern Bloc. Three years later Francis Fukuyama published The End of History and the Last Man, which argued the universal acceptance of Western liberal democracies represented the final form of human government. The intervening years have shown how wrong he was. He appears to have misunderstood geo-politics, and he underestimated human desire for power and control. 

 

Today, liberal Western democracies face a new challenge: an autocracy epitomized by China, where power is concentrated in the 205 members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, a Party that comprises less than seven percent of the population of the world’s most populous country. Joining the Communist Party can take several years and is generally open only to those with Han ethnicity. Xi Jinping is the current, paramount leader. He serves as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Chairman of the Central Military Commission and President of the People’s Republic of China. China’s Communist Party is not diversified, equitable or inclusive. According to Statista, 88% of its members are ethnic Han. There are only nine women who sit on the Central Committee, a committee composed of 205 members. Its parliament, the world’s largest, stands at 2,924 members and which, according to CNBC, includes 100 billionaires. The 209 wealthiest members have an average wealth of $300 million. This is a country where the mean adult net worth is less than $68,000, and where GDP per capita is one sixth of that in the U.S. 

 

Yet, our enemies see us as divided, in retreat globally and undergoing self-flagellation. What do immigrants make of Vice President Kamala Harris’, the daughter of immigrants, recent statement: “The truth is: There is segregation in America, xenophobia exists in America. Antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia all exist.” One cannot deny that among 330 million inhabitants one could find examples to substantiate her claim. But do the words of a few nuts define our nation? In every country there is good and evil, there are saints and devils. On February 17, reporting on Ms. Harris’ observation, National Review said: “If they wish, American citizens may be neutral on the virtues of their country. The Vice President doesn’t have that luxury.” Her statement served as aid to our enemies who want the rest of the world to perceive the U.S. as hypocritical, as divided by race and gender. Moreover, Ms. Harris, a woman of mixed heritage and daughter of immigrants, has risen to the nation’s second highest office. Is she a victim?

 

One asks: Why do immigrants choose to come to the United States, Western Europe, Australia and Canada and not to China, Russia, Iran, North Korea or Cuba? Why did Ms. Harris’ parents come here rather than Russia, Iran or Cuba? Where are the Chinese protesting China’s internment of Uyghers? Where are the Russians protesting Russia’s new-found imperialism? Where are the protesters complaining of wealth and income gaps in China, Russia, Iran, North Korea or Cuba?

 

What we face is a new cold war – which we pray does not become heated – between forces of darkness, led by China and other totalitarian states, and forces of freedom led by the United States and other liberal democracies. We must be alert and able to respond to weapons they will use: strengthened militaries, cyber warfare, which could affect banks and electric grids, biological weapons and, perhaps most important, insidious and infectious propaganda designed to undermine our culture. The outcome may not affect those of us in our 80s, but it certainly will have consequences for our children and grandchildren.

 

But the United States will continue to stand as a beacon to other nations: if our government continues to protect our inalienable rights; if it functions under the rule of law; if it offers opportunities for individuals to use their individual drive and abilities to better their conditions; if it promotes freedom not mandates; if it rids itself of the scourge that is wokeism, and if it once again recognizes its unique position in the world.

 

Speaking to the desire of some in government to impose more controls, Kimberly Fiorello, a Republican Connecticut State Legislator representing Greenwich and Stamford, penned an op-ed in the February 18, 2022 issue of the Greenwich Sentinel in which she argued November’s election will not be about Democrat versus Republican. “In 2022, it is about more freedom versus more government control.” What is true for Connecticut is true for the world.  It is freedom, which lights the lamp that distinguishes democracies from autocracies. An interview by Richard Milne with Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, in last weekend’s edition of the Financial Times, highlights the concern of smaller, more vulnerable nations: “That memory of the terror and deprivations of Soviet rule, and a desire to never return to those days, explains why Estonia has consistently warned the west about the dangers of a revanchist Russia.”  

 

Among these concerns, there has been suggestion that woke Progressivism, which mimics the ideology, tactics and goals of totalitarianism, may have reached its zenith: The parents’ revolt in Virginia resulted in the election of Republican Glenn Youngkin as governor; in November voters in Minneapolis rejected the overhaul of their police department; Eric Adams, a former chief of police, defeated Kathryn Garcia in the New York City mayoral Democratic primary last summer; the Build Back Better bill failed in the Senate, and a recent vote in San Francisco recalled three progressive schoolboard members. We must build on those successes, as we and the world confront ever-more dangerous, political alternatives, represented by the autocracies of China and Russia.

 

Thomas Sowell is correct, in the rubric quoted above. The United States, in the history of nations, has been unique in its radical, and positive, experiment.  It is the country that created and led an international order following World War II, an order now at risk. As we retreat from leadership, we leave open spheres to be influenced by China and Russia. The risk we face is truly existential – a new cold war that could end the nation and a way of life we have known, a country in which individuals, through aptitude, determination and effort, regardless of connections, race or gender, have risen from poverty to success. In this new war, the political stakes are high. It is imperative we keep lit the lamp of freedom, which gives hope to millions.

"Maverick: A Biography of Thomas Sowell," by Jason Riley

 As much a biography, this book by Jason Riley is a treatise on intellectual thought over the past six decades, for it his mind that truly distinguishes Thomas Sowell. Sowell is an exemplar of the value of empiricism when formulating ideas that become good policy, of which, sadly, there is too little today. 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Burrowing into Books

“Maverick: A Biography of Thomas Sowell,” Jason L. Riley

October 10, 2021

 

“The kind of idealized unity, projected by political leaders and

intellectuals, has seldom existed among any racial and minority

anywhere. Nor has the economic progress of racial or ethnic groups

been much correlated with their closeness to, or remoteness from, such unity.”

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Thomas Sowell (1930-)

                                                                                                                 As quoted by Jason Riley in Maverick

 

Thomas Sowell was born into rural poverty in North Carolina in 1930. His father died before he was born and his mother a few years later, giving birth to a younger brother. With an aunt, he moved to Harlem. Two years after being admitted to New York’s Stuyvesant High School he dropped out. At eighteen he joined the Marines. After his service he acquired his GED and entered Howard University. Following freshman year, he transferred to Harvard. He earned a masters at Columbia and a PhD in economics at the University of Chicago. After giving up teaching at age fifty, he has spent the last forty-one years at the Hoover Institute. He has written at least thirty books on subjects ranging from economics, race, education, to politics and intellectual thought. It has been his intense research and life-long pursuit of facts, which usually produce conclusions that do not conform to what is expected of a black American male. 

 

The author, Jason Riley, was born in Buffalo, New York in 1971. He graduated from State University of New York in Buffalo in 1993. After stints at Buffalo News and USA Today, he joined The Wall Street Journal in 1994. In 2005, he joined the editorial board and since 2016 has had a weekly op-ed column. He is also a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.  With this biography, he has authored four books, including Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed (2014), a book Thomas Sowell applauded.

 

In this, Riley spends little time on Sowell’s personal history, relying on his autobiography, A Personal Odyssey, published in 2000 (and written up by me in August 2020.) “The goal,” Jason Riley wrote in his introduction, “…is to place what he and others consider his (Sowell’s) most important observations into context, and then trace the intellectual traditions from which those insights derive and the orthodoxy they often challenge.” While Thomas Sowell is an economist – his PhD thesis was an analysis of Say’s Law – his interests extend far beyond economics. While studying under Milton Friedman and George Stigler at the University of Chicago, he remained a Marxist, but that changed in 1960 when he became an intern at the U.S. Department of Labor, studying Puerto Rico’s unemployment in the sugar industry. A study of the data convinced him that the cause for unemployment was due to a mandated minimum wage. 

 

The book, which is 248 readable pages, is divided into nine chapters, with titles like “Higher Education, Lower Expectations,” Sowell’s Knowledge,” “Civil Rights and Wrongs,” and “Culture Matters.” Sowell is an intellectual and empiricist. Riley quotes from the preface to Sowell’s book Race and Culture: “…what is most needed is an understanding of existing realities, the history from which the present evolved, and the enduring principles constraining our options for the future.” It is the reliance on empiricism, rationalism and skepticism that has always distinguished Thomas Sowell, whether he is writing on economics, race, education or culture. For example, in an essay written in 2000, “Success Concealing Failure,” when U.S. universities bragged that Americans win more Nobel prizes than any other nation, Sowell pointed out an unpleasant truth: “While Americans won the lion’s share of Nobel Prizes in 1999, not one of these winners was actually born in the United States.”

 

Riley points out Sowell’s belief that well-intentioned people (“useful idiots,” as Lenin described them) strive to help blacks and other minorities. Yet the results, as both Sowell and Riley have noted, are often the opposite of what was intended. Sowell says it is unclear whether Civil Rights leaders’ and politicians’ intentions are unintended, as both groups have built careers on the concept that blacks can only succeed with the help of programs like Affirmative Action – a policy Sowell finds insulting to the millions of individual blacks who succeeded without assistance. If it were true, how does one explain the success of Dunbar High School in Washington, D.C., a black-only high school, where black students out-scored white students in segregated schools in the 1950s? School success is a function of ability and effort on part of the student and insistence on learning on part of the teacher. Can a gifted black youngster in the nation’s capital today receive as good a high school education as one could sixty-five years ago? 

 

Sowell is concerned about current trends toward wokeism. In an essay, “Lessons not Learned” published twenty years ago, he wrote, “…we and our children are being trained to be sheep and to respond automatically to words that strike an emotional chord…The very tactics of those totalitarian movements – intimidation, demonization and disregard of all rules in favor of politically defined results – have become hallmarks of political correctness today.” And political correctness has become more ubiquitous over the past two decades. 

 

While this is not a biography in the traditional sense, Jason Riley enters the mind of a man about whom Steven Pinker once wrote, “…is one of the most brilliant thinkers in the world today.” Like most black conservatives, Sowell is denigrated by much of mainstream media and progressive politicians because the conclusions he reaches do not accord with those who feel that all blacks should speak with one voice. Riley’s contribution is to better understand this man, and that it is the individual – not the gender, tribe or race – that is important. We are not born equal. We do not have equal abilities or aspirations, but our Constitution provides for equal rights and equal protection under the law. We must strive for inclusion, diversity of ideas and equal opportunities; but equal outcomes are dreams of the naïve, which deceitfully serve only those who seek power. Ironically, and perhaps counter-intuitively, Sowell has greater confidence in the innate ability of blacks than do many of those who claim to help them. “Sowell wants to make his readers smarter, not tell them what to do,” Riley writes.

 

Maverick is an important book. It illuminates a brilliant thinker; it explains why current, perhaps well-intentioned, but racially discriminatory policies, like critical race theory, hurt those they are supposed to help, and it describes a man who rose to prominence, despite enormous odds, based on his abilities and his willingness to follow where his knowledge and research led, regardless of what public opinion might say.