"Freedom"

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Freedom”

August 28, 2024

 

“Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person

who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.”

                                                                                                Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)

                                                                                                You learn by Living: Eleven Keys to a More Fulfilling Life, 1960

 

The word freedom is inherent to our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. It is ingrained in what it means to be an American: “And so let freedom ring,” spoke Martin Luther King on August 28, 1963, “from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire…” The Oxford English Dictionarydefines the word: “The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint,” which is not too different from the definition Noah Webster assigned the word in his 1828 Webster’s Dictionary: “A state of exemption from the power or control of another.” Freedom from fear and freedom from want (two of FDR’s “Four Freedoms”) are offerings of the state, but they do not meet the classical definition of freedom.

 

Democrats see the state as providing the conditions, through rules, laws, and regulations, that allow individuals opportunities – what are now called “positive” freedoms. The Swiss-French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau believed that men are born free but “everywhere he is in chains.” So the state exists to guarantee his liberty and freedom from the restraints of society. Without the state, he believed, there is no freedom. Voltaire disagreed. The state can be a trap: “It is difficult to free fools from chains they revere.” 

 

Republicans define freedom, in accordance with John Locke and Thomas Jefferson, as natural rights, characterized by the absence of external (the state) constraints on individual freedoms. These freedoms are now referred to as “negative” freedoms. Locke, two generations earlier than Rousseau, had argued that people are naturally free and equal, and have a right to life, liberty and property that are independent of society’s laws, ideas borrowed by Thomas Jefferson in 1776: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” The Bill of Rights, adopted in December 1791, exemplified individual freedom. The colonists had lived under a tyrannical king. Fearful of autocracy that could stem from a strong central government, they desired a limited, federalist government, one composed, as Lincoln later said, “of, by and for the people.”  In a September 25^th, 1961 address to the United Nations’ General Assembly, President Kennedy warned: “Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.” 

 

No matter one’s definition, we should all agree that the freedoms to think, to pray, to write and to speak as one chooses are natural rights – gifts to us from God, inherent to us as Americans. We should also all agree that living in a community means that we must respect the rights and freedoms of others, that one person’s freedom to walk where he pleases may violate another’s right to privacy, so that government is necessary to adjudicate differences. The Constitution may give a person the right “to bear arms,” but that does not give that individual the right to kill his neighbor. Some freedoms, such as the right to abortion, are complex, as it contradicts the right to life. The decision to have an abortion, in my opinion, is best decided between the mother, the father, her doctor, her parents and perhaps a spiritual advisor. President Clinton came closest to my own belief: abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.” While we all know that government is necessary for society to function, we should also realize that rules, regulations and taxes, while imperative to civil society, are inhibitors to free expression. Arriving at a consensus means that, individually, we forego some freedoms in the interest of the greater good. We are fortunate to live in a country in which our democratic form of government allows for differences to be debated so as to find common solutions. Even so, as government swells in size, individual freedoms shrink.

 

There will always be areas of conflict between your freedom and mine. Taxpayers pay the salaries of public-school teachers. Teachers should have the freedom to unionize, but that should not prevent parent’s from having the freedom to choose which education system best fits their children – traditional schools, vouchers, or non-unionized charter schools. University professors and high school teachers have the freedom to think and speak as they wish, but they also have a responsibility to instruct students to think independently, to perhaps come to conclusions different from their own. Censorship, “harmful words” and “safe places” are antithetical to the concept of free expression. In a March 15, 1783 address to the officers of the Continental Army, George Washington spoke: “If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to slaughter.”

 

Democrats, at their Chicago convention, adopted freedom (along with “joy”) as their theme. According to a New York Times word-count, the word “freedom” was used 227 times in speeches over their four-day convention. I was happy that they did. But there is irony, hypocrisy and perhaps a touch of deviousness in a Party that talks up freedom but which defenestrated its sitting President, nominated Vice President Harris without a single primary delegate vote, wants to mandate EVs, prohibit gas stoves, limit school choice, and that weaponized federal agencies. This is the Party that uses the excuse of “disinformation” to censor political speech, that has done away with the concept of separation of powers by embracing the administrative state; it is the Party which would like to have the Supreme Court come under the purview of Congress. Yet they waved a banner of freedom at their convention. As a skeptic one is forced to ask: What freedom do they mean? Freedom for the state to do as it pleases? Freedom for me, or freedom for thou?

 

As the United States’ government grows larger and more complex, individual freedom, definitionally, lessens. According to the Office of the Federal Register, the number of final rules published each year ranges between 3,000 and 4,500. Wikipedia claims that approximately 200 new federal statutes are enacted each year. Most of these rules and laws are designed to benefit the people. But we should never ignore the fact that every new law and each new regulation has an impact – perhaps minor – on individual freedoms. Freedom is more than a slogan for conventioneers. It is why migrants come to these shores, even as most of us take freedom for granted. Freedom is not dependent on forgiveness of student debt, or dollars spent on entitlements. It comes with responsibilities, as Eleanor Roosevelt reminded us sixty-four years ago. It is an attitude, a belief. It is a gift from God. “Freedom isn’t free,” as the song goes.  It is rare, must be defended and should be treated as endangered. Fifty-seven years ago, in his first inaugural address as California’s new governor, Ronald Reagan said: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the blood stream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.” Amen.

"James," Percival Everett - A Review

  

Sydney M. Williams

 

Burrowing into Books

James, Percival Everett

May 11, 2024

 

“‘And who are you?’ ‘I am James.’ ‘James what?’ ‘Just James.’”

                                                                                                                James, 2024

                                                                                                                Percival Everett (1956-)

 

Slavery is evil. It is an abomination – the degradation of one human by another. But it has been in existence for most of human existence, and it still exists in parts of Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Estimates are that about 50 million people are enslaved today. Prior to the 19^th Century slavery was normal in most parts of the world. 

                                                                

…………………………………………………………..

 

Just as Huck was the voice in Mark Twain’s 1885 Huckleberry Finn, the enslaved (and runaway) Jim is the voice in Percival Everett’s 2024 novel, James. The setting of both books would be early 1861. Lincoln had been elected. Slavery was on the docket, as was secession. Abolitionists were ascendant in the north. Plantation owners, with their thousands of slaves, dominated politics of the south.

 

Like John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, Huckleberry Finn has been (and is) banned in many schools and libraries, generally because of its racist language. While many words are offensive, they reflect the dialect of the time. A warning: Everett uses similar language. Through his character Huckleberry Finn, Twain explored conflicting values – Huck’s desire to see Jim free versus the fact that, under laws that then existed, he (Jim) was the property of another person, Miss Watson. In the end, Jim’s freedom was more important to Huck. Everett explores the inner tension of a literate man who must endure and conform to what is expected of him as a slave. 

 

Like Twain’s Jim, James is decent and empathetic. Additionally, Mr. Everett has him as well-read (through access to Judge Thatcher’s library), something, as a slave, he must hide from white people. In giving lessons to his daughter Lizzie and other children, he tells them of how “the more you talk of God and Jesus and heaven and hell, the better they feel.” The children then respond: “And the better they feel, the safer we are.” Jim then asks, “February, translate that:” She responds, “Da mo’ betta dey feels, da mo’ safer we be.” Jim replies, “Nice.” Whites, Everett infers, need to feel superior to slaves, especially when they are not. 

 

Like the original, when Jim hears that Miss Watson plans to sell him down the river, he tells his wife Sadie and daughter Lizzie that he must leave but will return to get them. For a slave to run away took courage. Free states, like Illinois across the Mississippi River, would often capture and return run-aways. Punishment was lashing or hanging. So Jim first escapes to Jackson’s Island where Huck joins him. Jim had brought with him a bag of books: “Though Huck was asleep, I could not chance his waking and discovering me with my face in an open book. But then I thought, How could he know I was actually reading? I could simply claim to be staring dumbly at the letters…” So he opens the book, and “the smell of the pages was glorious.” “In the country of Westphalia…” – he reads the opening sentence of Voltaire’s Candide. Later, while still on Jackson’s Island, Jim gets bitten by a rattle snake, and in his delirium is visited by Voltaire. He talks to him “about slavery, race and, of all things, albinism.” In another scene, Jim argues with John Locke, father of liberalism who helped write the 1669 Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina that justified slavery: “What you’re saying,” Jim retorts, “is that if someone pays you enough, it’s okay to abandon what you have claimed to understand as moral and right.” “When you put it that way,” Locke replies.

 

Percival Everett, an African American professor of English at USC, has given us Jim’s side of Huck’s story.

We meet many of the same characters we know from Huckleberry Finn: Huck, Miss Watson, Aunt Polly, Judge Thatcher, the “Duke,” the “King,” and others. Following Twain’s story, using history, compassion and humor, he offers a worthy companion to Twain’s story, highlighting the indignity and horrors of slavery.

"The Decline of Merit as a Measurement of Value"

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“The Decline of Merit as a Measurement of Value”

June 10, 2022

 

“We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe – 

some people are smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they’re

born with it…some people are born gifted beyond the normal scope of most men.”

                                                                                                                                To Kill a Mockingbird, 1960

                                                                                                                                Harper Lee (1926-2016)

 

Ms. Harper wrote in a less politically correct age. The word ‘men’ does not refer to gender but to mankind. In this essay, I use the word as she did.

 

In the first half of the 20^th Century (and earlier), through the early 1950s, wealth and social class were more important determinants than merit, in terms of college acceptance, employment gained, and wealth accumulated. White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant men were favored. Appropriately, attitudes changed in the post-War years, with merit playing a bigger role. Colleges and employers looked more at innate ability, personal drive, and willingness to work hard rather than family connections or schools attended. Race, gender and religious prejudices still applied, but that also began to change in the 1960s and ‘70s, with civil and women’s rights legislation, color-blind applications, and with many single-sex colleges going co-ed. Now we appear to have reverted to earlier times when, once again, identity – race, gender, ethnicity, and even sexual orientation – is valued above merit. 

 

For colleges and universities, the use of merit – with SATs and ACTs as the standard measurements for educational potential – was an attempt to seek out the most qualified students, regardless of sex, race, or from whence they came. It is not a perfect system (no system is), but it has, at least, less bias than subjective measures. However, those exams now disproportionately favor Asians, so are deemed unfair, as they fail woke standards of diversity, inclusion and equity, standards which, by the way, exclude those with conservative political opinions and unsanctified cultural preferences.

 

Should merit alone be the standard for admitting a new student or hiring a new employee? Of course not. There are other valued traits: character, moral and common sense, integrity, diligence, loyalty. But, while many of those traits can be perceived through a subjective lens, the determination of merit is largely objective. It was almost sixty years ago that Martin Luther King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, where he spoke of a time when his 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.” Six decades later, woke progressives insist that the color of one’s skin does matter. The implication being that blacks cannot compete without assistance from the state. It is false and demeaning. 

 

The world is not equitable, as Harper Lee implied in the rubric above and as Voltaire’s Dr. Pangloss discovered; no matter how hard one searches perfection remains elusive. Nevertheless, we should always work at bettering our society, but we should do so while taking pride in our country and by building people up, not belittling them. How much more powerful would President Biden’s choice for the Supreme Court have reverberated throughout the land if he had said he would nominate the most qualified individual and then nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson, instead of first saying he would nominate a black woman? No matter her brilliance, she will be forever stigmatized as being selected – not for her legal expertise or her personal bona fides, but because she was a black woman.

 

The concept of meritocracy has come under attack in recent times. In a new book The Meritocracy Trap, Yale Law School professor Daniel Markovits, writes that meritocracy is simply “a pretense, constructed to rationalize an unjust distribution advantage.” Mac Margolis, a columnist for The Washington Post, suggests that merit has replaced the old system of inherited privilege…that it is, at least partly like the old system, class-based. Parents with money, education and connections cultivate in their children the habits that bring meritocratic rewards. While there is some truth to what they write, is a return to racism – even when formatted differently – the answer? Merit should be encouraged, not belittled. Regardless of wealth or social station, we should all strive to improve ourselves. As a nation, we should strive for unity, not division. Sadly, today there are legions who believe that identity politics is more important than merit when admitting a student to an elite college or welcoming an applicant to a high-profile job. The woke are comfortable being racist (though they will never admit it), so long as ends justify means. 

 

It was merit that lifted man to the heights he has achieved, in terms of industry, scientific developments, and living standards. It was merit that formed our unique government in 1776. It was merit that has given us works of art, literature, music, and poetry. Man is not the “poor bare, forked animal” of King Lear’s imagination. Man is a human being, capable of thought and reason. He seeks opportunities because of the talents he possesses, so long as he has the freedom to express them and the legal framework to protect what he has produced. It was merit, not family connections, or racial or gender preferences, that saw – according to a 2018 Brookings Institute study – 44% of the Fortune 500 companies being founded or run by immigrants.

 

Merit, as I wrote earlier, should not be the sole basis for making judgments, but its importance should not be minimized. We want and need the best and the brightest to pursue and realize their dreams. Our future well-being depends on it.

"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? 

"Uncommon Common Sense"

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Thought of the Day

“Uncommon Common Sense”

January 19, 2020

“Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.”

                                                                                                Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

                                                                                                Literary Remains, Volume 1

                                                                                                Edited Henry Nelson Coleridge, 1836

At some point in the mid 1950s I attended a party at Dr. Edwin Land’s summer home in Peterborough, New Hampshire. I was fifteen and Dr. Land’s thirteen-year-old daughter was my girlfriend. I found myself listening to three or four learned men trying to define horse sense. There was no unanimity. Having grown up with horses, I knew they were not the most intelligent of animals, but I also knew they had enough sense to seek shelter when it rained and come to the barn when hungry for grain. They had (and have) common sense. Horse sense and common sense are born of the same mother, though I was too intimidated to say anything 65 years ago. Webster’s agrees. Horse sense is defined: “the ability to make good judgements.” W. C. Fields also agreed, when he said that “horse sense is a thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.” Besides providing a horse laugh, there is a lesson in that adage.

Coleridge was right. Wisdom is the exercise of common sense. Wisdom is rare, especially in politicians who choose political correctness (the world as they would like it to be, not as it is), identity politics (segregation over unity), and victimization (the passing of blame rather than the assuming of responsibility). Common sense bases judgements on empirical evidence, on “self-evident truths,” as Robert Curry wrote in his book Reclaiming Common Sense: Finding Truth in a Post-Truth World. Meanwhile, politicians appeal to emotions, not reason, for example getting attendees pumped at rallies, which common sense says is a reason not to allow early voting.

“Facts,” as John Adams is supposed to have said, “are stubborn things.”  Nobody in Washington seems to worry about deficit spending even in a period of economic growth, yet last year’s deficit of just under a trillion dollars is equal to $3,000 per person. The published national debt is an obligation of $80,000 for every man, woman and child in the nation. When one adds in the unfunded liabilities of Medicare and Social Security, per person debt rises to $380,000. Facts tell us that our population is aging – that the number of workers is shrinking, while the number of retirees is expanding. Yet, the six candidates for President in last week’s debate in Iowa were interested only in programs that would add to the deficit, add to the national debt and add to unfunded liabilities. Even the Republican Party, the party supposedly of thrift seems to care little about running a fiscally responsible administration. To paraphrase Dr. Seuss: “How did we get so stupid so soon?”

Listening to those candidates in Iowa talk about the economy, one would conclude prospects are grim for lower income folks and depression is around the corner. They claimed things have worsened for lower income workers since Mr. Trump took office. Yet facts tell a different story. Unemployment, at 3.5%, is the lowest in fifty years. Employment for Blacks and Hispanics is the highest on record. Last year, income gains for the bottom tenth of workers rose faster than income gains for the top ten percent – something that never happened during the Obama years. Net worth gains for the bottom half of households have risen 47% since the 2016 election, according to the Wall Street Journal. U.S. GDP, in the first three years of the Trump administration, has risen 30% faster than it did during the last seven years of the Obama administration. And, take the Trump Tax Reform Bill: When Democrats shed crocodile tears over the unfairness of the Bill, were (are) they thinking of the 20% reduction in rates for median households, or were (are) they really concerned that deductions for state and local taxes were limited to $10,000? Keep in mind, for plutocrats in California, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut – those making two million dollars – the limit has cost each $100,000 or more. Between Democrats and Republicans debate, whose policies have done more for working people, and which party is appealing to common sense and which to sensibilities, as Jane Austen might have asked?  

Or take the killing of Qassim Soleimani. Here was a man that all facts demonstrated had been implicated in the deaths of thousands of Americans and even more Iraqis, Syrians, Yemenis, Lebanese and even fellow Iranians. Yet, the Left found it more palatable to see him as a martyr, a Martin Luther King, or, at a minimum, an Iranian politician deserving of respect. His death became a rallying point to curb the ability of the American President to respond to imminent, or even not so imminent, threats. And what about the problems of illegal immigration, border walls and sanctuary cities? There are, by some estimates, thirty million illegals in this country. And there are those who do not see this as a problem, financially, socially and culturally? Does it not make sense to control immigration? It is not a question of not wanting immigrants. We need them for the jobs they perform  and for what they offer the Country. We need, in my opinion, more legal immigrants. But should not all of us want to control the process? A wall may not be the only (or even the best) answer, but it won’t increase the flow of illegals. Sanctuary cities break federal law. Would it be okay if a city in Idaho or Texas broke federal laws regarding the carrying of firearms? Or should mayors and governors enforce only those federal laws they like? Should judges be allowed to make laws, or should that be the responsibility of legislatures, or a referendum voted on by the people? Was not our government, a nation of laws, set up on the principle of three independent branches, with clear and distinct responsibilities – a legislature to enact laws, an executive to administer them and a judiciary to interpret them. Each branch serves as a check on the other two. Common sense says that the answers to these questions are not complicated. The problem is, as Will Rogers once said, “Common sense ain’t common.”

But it is in the politicization of our changing climate where common sense is most needed, yet it is where it has been abandoned most ardently. Michael Moore and Al Gore made fortunes predicting catastrophes that never happened. Admittedly, there is a small coterie who do not believe that man has any affect on climate. But man is not the only cause of climate change. Why, for example, did global temperatures decline during the 1940s when the world was engulfed in the spewing of toxic gasses from bombs and vehicles during World War II. (According to a May 2007 edition of NewScientist, global temperatures dropped 0.02 degrees during the decade.) There are millions of people in our ivy-coated universities and colleges who do not seem to understand the power of nature. They appear unaware of the way in which the world has changed over millions of years, of tectonic shifts that have caused continents to shift, mountains to rise and shorelines to move – all long before man began spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Consider the energy produced from volcanoes, like the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens in Washington that produced energy equal to 1,600 times the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Or think of the fact that one average hurricane crossing the Atlantic produces the energy equivalent to approximately half the electrical generating capacity of the planet. Nature is still more powerful than man. Common sense says we shouldn’t live in the path of hurricanes or within the range of volcanoes, yet populations living in coastal areas continue to expand at a rate 50% above the national average. And, we should not forget, technology has improved conditions in the U.S. Since 2005, carbon emissions have fallen 14% while GDP has increased 50%. Why? It had nothing to do with the 2015 Paris Agreement. The reason had to do with technology– fracking and horizontal drilling that allowed cleaner natural gas to replace oil and the capture of carbon emissions from coal plants. Energy from solar and wind will continue, and we should encourage their expansion, but today they contribute less than ten percent of our energy needs.

My point is not to argue that climate change is not real. It is and always has been. Evidence suggests the Earth is in a warming period and storms, it is claimed, are more frequent. It is the politicization of the issue that has put emotion above reason. We should focus on the elimination of pollutants not because that will affect temperatures, but because a cleaner environment is healthier and more pleasant. To believe that man can halt the increase in temperatures or cause the oceans to stop rising is to believe the sun revolves around the Earth.

If the Earth continues to warm, and to the extent natural causes are in part to blame, are we not better off to focus on adaption than seeking blame? The Country, and ultimately the world, will move away from fossil fuels, but the move should not come at the expense of economic growth, as is happening in Europe where they have not only placed their economy at risk but also their security. Energy independence has empowered the U.S., made it safer and allowed us to face global tensions with more confidence. Consider the difference between the U.S. and Europe. With North Sea wells drying up, Europe imports its energy needs from Russia, the Middle East and Africa. Yet, we read that the amount of shale gas in Europe is thought to exceed that in the U.S. As well, they have given up on nuclear power. Is it not realistic to believe that European energy companies would be more environmentally friendly than those in Russia, the Middle East or Africa? It is a lack of common sense that prevents them from tapping their own resources and building nuclear power plants. A lack of energy independence has made Europe hostage to a hostile Russia and a volatile Middle East and Africa. In the meantime, with an aging and shrinking populations, their economies have been anemic since the 2008 credit crisis.

My father used to tell me to never argue with a dope, because a passerby could not distinguish one from the other. Thomas Paine is alleged to have said something similar: “To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.” Politics is the search for and the exercise of power. As it has descended into a morass of emotionalism and away from reason, it has made our lives increasingly divisive. Our universities should be bastions of search, reason and debate. Instead, they have become advocates for passion and histrionics. The same can be said about our media. The search for truth and sense has been abandoned. “Common sense is not so common,” Voltaire reminded us in his A Pocket Philosophical Dictionary. The responsibility of educators and pundits should be to make common sense more common.