"A Good Education Has Never Been More Important"

The photo is one I found on the internet, which I thought pertinent to the subject of this essay.

It is never fun watching markets dissolve, but I still believe that Israel and the U.S., in confronting Iran, have done the right thing, especially as we have been joined by most of the Arab states. With their continued work on an atomic weapon and with missiles capable of hitting Diego Garcia 2500 miles away, that means Iran could as easily hit Vienna or Athens. They do represent a threat to world peace. They need to be stopped.

 

This essay represents something I have been thinking of for some time.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“A Good Education Has Never Been More Important”

March 28, 2026

 

“The objective of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives.”

                                                                                                                Attributed to Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899-1977)

                                                                                                                Former Chancellor & President, University of Chicago

 

There is an old Chinese proverb that is appropriate in this age of AI, increased dependency on government, wokeism, and at a time when education needs a re-boot: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” While we all are dependent on others, especially for love and companionship, a free individual is not one dependent on the state except in the case of dire and exceptional need. Reason and soundness must replace foolish ignorance.

 

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It is not simply artificial intelligence that makes our age unique and so badly in need of the ability to reason logically and to think independently, it is also the fact that extremism has kidnapped our politics, and that ignorance and foolishness have laid waste to common sense and made our cultural heritage something to shun rather than to celebrate. 

 

If Mark Ziuckerberg needs a robotic assistant, what about us? Do we need some piece of machinery to remind us to send flowers on Mother’s Day, book lunch on Tuesday, and reply to this morning’s e-mails? That might simplify our lives, but are not personal connection and human empathy important? How much of our personal lives do we want to lay off on a piece of software that might be hackable? Will our AI assistant, to get in our good graces, heap false praise on what we have done or are about to do? Or will it provide the analytic criticism needed to improve our performance? Efficiency without empathy does not necessarily lead to a happy life. Will we lose our ability to sense emotion and to think critically if we rely on artificial intelligence? These are questions best considered when one has read widely.

 

Without a classical liberal arts education that includes biology, we are at risk of accepting as fact that men can be woman (or vice versa) if they so choose – that one’s sex is not a matter of science but of choice. Consider who benefits from such allegations. It is not only certain male athletes, but clinics willing to perform gender-affirming surgeries. Skepticism is a bi-product of a good education. Remember how Paul Ehrlich amassed a fortune, stating as fact that millions would die because of a planet unable to feed its population. In the years since 1968, when The Population Bomb was published (and which sold over two million copies in its first three years), the world population has more than doubled, while the percent of the population suffering from hunger has declined. Millions of people accepted his conclusions without questioning.

 

And think of climate wars. It was in elementary school that we were first taught of how Earth had warmed and cooled over the millennia – from the Tyrannosaurus Rex during the Cretaceous Period to the Wooly Mammoth during the Pleistocene Epoch. That is not to say we can ignore our environment or changes in climate. The Earth does not sit still, and man has a responsibility to all forms of life and to the planet he lives on. Yet we are scolded by supercilious tree-huggers if we drive a gas-powered vehicle, use more than a gallon of water to flush the toilet, or fail to re-cycle the plastic yogurt cover. Personally, I am conscious of the environment and I re-cycle, but I don’t like to be scolded by a bigot who scoots off in his private jet, or on their 200-foot yacht. A good education teaches one to differentiate between a policy based on facts and prescriptions based on ideologies.

 

Political extremism has become ubiquitous. In both parties, extremists control the message. A few minutes spent listening to a speech by President Trump or a response by Senator Chuck Schumer reminds one of the lament that starts Rudyard Kipling’s Ballad: “Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.” The one exception to this polarization appears to be the Supreme Court – the only adult branch of government. Thus far in the 2025-26 term, which began in October 2025, the Court has released 20 opinions, five of which were 9-0 decisions. If Ketanji Brown Jackson and Clarence Thomas can agree 25% of the time, why can’t Congress?

 

Over the long-term extremism never succeeds – there are simply not enough extremists. But we also know from Iran that extremists in government can persevere for many years. Forty-seven years of rule by fanatic mullahs have caused millions to suffer and tens-of-thousands to die. It is the study of history that provides perspective. In a recent issue of The Spectator – in an article titled “Those Who Believe in Liberalism Must Now Fight For It” – Adrian Wooldridge wrote: “The best resource we have in preventing a return to the 1930s is the memory of the 1930s.” The best way to understand the present is to read of the past.

 

None of us can predict the future. Change is coming, but that has always been true. The best way to deal with the world we face is with a good education – whether its change wrought by AI, dealing with (sometimes well-intentioned but always misplaced) wokeism, or political extremism. Sadly our public schools, especially those in inner cities, are governed by unions more interested in growing membership than in the students they are supposed to educate, and too many of our universities, with costs having risen about three times the rate of inflation over the past fifty years, are more focused on diversity than on excellence. 

 

A good education is a life-long pursuit, and it is the encouragement of that, as Mr. Hutchins is quoted in the epigraph, which should be the job of schools, universities and parents. We should never stop learning. An educated individual understands the risks of open borders, as well as the primacy of legal immigration. She or he realizes and perils of mercantilism and socialism, while recognizing the advantages of capitalism. They know the differences between equality and equity, and between diversity and assimilation. Years ago Sy Syms developed his iconic marketing slogan: “An educated consumer is our best customer.” An educated electorate is the best defense of democracy.

 

My argument in favor of education is not because I believe a university degree will assure a higher paying job. It may or may not. It is because I believe a liberal arts education will make one a more informed citizen, one better able to navigate disruption caused by technology or anything else, to make sense of polarized political views, and to appreciate our history, our form of government, and our cultural heritage.

"The Shooting of Donald Trump - Identity Politics and the Hatred that Ensues"

  

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtottd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“The Shooting of Donald Trump – Identity Politics and the Hatred that Ensues”

July 16, 2024

 

“The first reaction to truth is hatred.”

                                                                                                                                Tertullian (160AD-240AD)

                                                                                                                                Early Christian author from Carthage

 

Identity politics have divided us into warring camps. While it is terrible to accept the fact that we live in a time of such hatred, we do. The attempted assassination of Mr. Trump was the most recent and most violent. The intention of those who promoted identity politics may have been well-intentioned, but the consequences have been disastrous. Where division is sown violence is reaped.

 

I write as a conservative. I believe in family, tradition, the rule of law, limited government, free markets, a balanced budget in time of peace, and the freedom to follow one’s dreams, so long as one does no harm to others. I believe that government has a responsibility to keep us safe, our borders secure, to educate youth, and to provide for those unable to care for themselves. As well, we live in a global world; we cannot hide in isolation. Mr. Trump has never been my preference, but he served as a good President – at least in my opinion – for four years, and he did so under circumstances that would have undone most politicians. Elected President in 2016, he was deemed illegitimate by mainstream media and by most Democrats. With the help of a weaponized justice department, he was falsely accused of colluding with the Russians, with investigations interrupting his Administration. Four years later the intelligence community deliberately ignored the fact of Hunter Biden’s laptop, accusing Mr. Trump of being a Putin puppet. While never tarred and feathered, he has been investigated, denigrated, penalized, impeached and indicted. And now some nut has tried to kill him. He has been called a liar, fraudster and a threat to democracy – by those who misuse instruments of democracy to destroy him. Hollywood and social media elites have called for his death. The hypocrisy has been breathtaking, especially by those who inflict division, but then claim it is their desire to unite the country. While most politicians go to Washington and see their wealth increase, Mr. Trump saw his net worth decline by over a billion dollars during his four years as President.

 

Trump derangement syndrome has become pervasive, and hatred for all conservatives has become rampant, including Supreme Court justices. An otherwise respectful reader of my essays wrote recently that they “hope and pray that Thomas and Alito die soon.” What prompts people to write such inflammatory stuff? Why have we come to this place? The individual who pulled the trigger last Saturday was only twenty years old, which means that he would have been twelve when Trump was elected President. He grew up in this stench of Trump hatred. The hypocrisy of the progressive left, as another reader recently wrote, “has been breathtaking.” 

 

I don’t pretend to have answers, but the words and actions of those who despise Mr. Trump have given him a boost toward the November election. Cave quid volunt are words that should guide the far left, rather than the front page of last Sunday’s New York Times opinion page, which is attached. Perhaps Mr. Trump’s display of courage moments after the shot, and the horror most Americans feel at the attempted assassination, will cause a course correction in the identity politics that have come to dominate our lives. I hope so.

"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.”

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“The Election – A Few More Things to Consider”

October 30, 2020

 

“Extreme intolerance has now replaced the liberal notion of 

negotiated compromise that is the sine quo non of democracy.”

                                                                                                                                Andrew A. Michta

                                                                                                                                Dean, College of International Studies

                                                                                                                                George C. Marshall European Center

                                                                                                                                Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

                                                                                                                                Op-ed, Wall Street Journal, 10-27-20

 

The election will be over in four days, though the results may not be known for a while. This is written to raise questions, which give credence to the importance of this election.

 

The strongest case for Joe Biden is that he will (or so he claims) return the country to normalcy – whatever that is – and bring civility back to the White House. God knows, today’s politics do not appear normal and even Mr. Trump’s most ardent supporters would hesitate to affix the adjective “civil” when describing the 45^th President. Calling Vice President Biden “sleepy Joe,” and referring to the Speaker of the House as “crazy Nancy” would not endear Mr. Trump to Emily Post. But is he alone? Was it polite for Mr. Biden to tell the black radio host Charlamagne, “If you have a problem figuring out if you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black!”? Was it gracious for the Speaker to tear up the President’s State of the Union speech on live TV? Civility is absent in Washington. Should that be blamed on Trump or do its roots extend further back? Could anyone describe Joe Biden’s behavior as civil, when as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the 1980s, he interrogated Robert Bork, claiming his America was “…a land where women are forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors…” or what about his “high-tech lynching” of Clarence Thomas? Was Senate Majority leader Harry Reid deferential (or even wise) to eliminate the filibuster, as it applied to judicial appointments, in November 2013? A decision regretted four years later. 

 

And what is normal behavior? Is it normal to not acknowledge the results of an election, as numerous politicians did in joining the Trump “resistance” in January 2017? Have the looting, riots and killings in cities across the nation, in response to the horrific death of George Lloyd at the hands of a policeman, been normal? Was the refusal to accept the findings of the Mueller investigation, after three years and the expenditure of thirty to forty million taxpayer dollars normal? Was it normal for a sitting U.S. Vice President to allow his son to trade on his name with foreign nationals? Was it normal for the nation’s intelligence agencies to try to sabotage a duly elected President? Was it normal for the New York Times’ writer-at-large, Jim Rutenberg to admit, as he did in August 2016, that they (the Times) could not be “objective” when covering Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump?  Would it be normal, should Democrats take the Senate and the Presidency, to then try to “pack” the Supreme Court and/or attempt to make Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. states? 

 

There are other points to consider: Is the nihilism implicit in cancel culture, and which is rampant in our schools and universities, something average Americans want? Do we want the segregation that stems from identity politics? Are we ready to embrace the Socialism of the far Left? Will the New York Times 1619 Project replace the story of our founding in our public schools? And what about Black Lives Matter? Their lives have long mattered, as have all lives. Are the words expressed in our Declaration of Independence and in the Gettysburg Address to be discarded, along with statues of Jefferson and Lincoln that have already been destroyed? Should we ignore the long path toward racial equality over which our nation has traveled, beginning with Lincoln and furthered by Democrat President Harry Truman when he integrated the Armed Forces in July 1948? It received an assist with the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, which stated that separate schools for whites and blacks are unconstitutional and inherently unequal. And it was abetted by Republican President Dwight Eisenhower when he sent the 101^st Airborne to Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957, to integrate the city’s all-white Central High School. Did not the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 help the cause? 

 

Should we not allow inner-city children and their parents to have choice, as do wealthy elites, when it comes to schools, through vouchers or charters? The Country has achieved energy independence for the first time in decades. Do we want to return to dependence on Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia? Is it healthy when three technology companies, from whom 70% of Americans get their news, genuflect to the same political ideology? I don’t pretend to have an answer, but I am sure if the shoe were on the other foot, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi would be up in arms. 

 

And what about the pandemic. In truth, what would Biden have done differently? Mr. Trump was faced with a novel virus, the first of its kind in a hundred years. On January 30, Mr. Trump declared a national public health emergency. On that same day, he barred entry into the U.S. by foreign nationals who had recently visited China, a decision Mr. Biden said was xenophobic. Four weeks later, on February 24^th, Nancy Pelosi visited San Francisco’s China Town: “Come, because precautions have been taken. The city is on top of the situation.” Because of its novelty, the handling of the Virus was experimental, on-the-job training if you will. Operation Warp Speed has been a success. A partnership between components of HHS, CDC, BARDA (Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority) and the DOD and private companies, it was introduced on May 15, its purpose is to accelerate the development of products and services to combat COVID-19, while maintaining protocols of safety and efficacy. Could the overall situation have been handled better? Perhaps. Monday morning quarterbacks can always find something they would have done differently. but the President had to balance the pandemic with the need to keep the economy alive. Now, we look forward to a bright spring, hopefully not a “dark winter.”     

 

With the prospect for peace in the Middle East more viable than ever, should we abandon Jerusalem and return to regional instability?  Should we permit China to resume its practice of stealing American technology, its unfair trade practices and its building of military bases on man-made islands in the South China Sea? Should we permit Iran to develop a nuclear weapon? Should not Europe be made to pay their fair share for defense? Should we remove the newly-erected missile defense system in Poland?

 

This list does not pretend to cover all areas, and everyone will have different things to considers. But they point to the fact that this election is important, in ways beyond the two men running. What kind of a country do we want for our children, grandchildren and all those yet to be born? Tolerance of intolerance, whether on the left or the right, is never the answer. We need debate and discussion – civilly, if possible. Nor can we forget our heritage that dates back to the earliest settlers, and which was forged in a War for Independence and, seventy-four years later, in a Civil War. It is a heritage of which to be proud and that today includes all races, ethnicities and religions – people who came to these shores and this place on sailing ships, steam ships, planes and on foot. They came for a better future. They came to become Americans, not hyphenated Americans. That is something to celebrate.