My Thoughts-

By Peter McIlroy

October 22, 2020

Thanks for sharing David’s response to my good friend, Hal Gershowitz, regarding his recent blog. I agree that Trump’s antics have fomented unrest and discord which is unhealthy for our country. This is a shame because I agree with many of his policy decisions and many of the actions he has taken … but this paper is not intended to be a defense or debate over policy.

I am a centrist … not a hardline conservative. On the big issues today I am split between Democrat positions and Republican positions. I support leaving Rowe v Wade in place although I don’t support late-term abortions. I favor immigration and immigration reform but I am opposed to open borders and sanctuary cities. I believe that we are experiencing potentially catastrophic global warming and I favor new strong and cost-effective environmental laws and regulations. I oppose any election laws which restrict the abilities of any class of our citizens to vote. I favor retaining Obamacare with some significant modifications. I favor gun ownership in general but at the same time I favor gun control in the form of strict regulation of gun sales and the prohibition of the sale of automatic weapons that weren’t designed for the sport of hunting.

I try to form my opinions on these and other issues based upon logic and reason rather than emotion or self-interest. Here’s the rub … I am increasingly concerned about the gradual shift in our country away from the form of government which has been so successful for us and the free world … democracy combined with capitalism. That combination has raised the standard of living wherever it exists around the world. As the years have gone by, several generations of Americans have come to see only what’s wrong with our system rather than what’s right. Many now see the incentive to achieve a better life as greed and unfairness. Greed at the expense of others is a possible byproduct of capitalism but that is why we have anti-trust laws and bank regulations. In some cases these protections clearly have not been strong enough but the best thing we can do is fix them rather than move away from the magic of democracy/capitalism. All of our family are now living safe and wonderful lives due to the hard work of four generations of McIlroys and Higgins and because of our capitalist system. We certainly would not be doing so if our country had been formed on the socialism model. The lack of incentive and opportunity to succeed will eventually result in mediocrity, lack of innovation and life lived at the lowest common denominator. You may say “don’t worry about it, the US will never convert to socialism.” Well, hard to believe but the Democrat party had two strong socialist candidates for their presidential nomination this voting cycle and they both had a good chance of winning!

The bottom line for me is that we have to fix our problems rather than destroy our system. If there are bad elements in our police forces, FIX IT rather than disband our police. If there is undue delay and restriction in our immigration system, FIX IT rather than allow open borders and sanctuary cities which create serious security risks and are unfair to legal immigrants already here. If we are not responding fast enough with environmental reform, FIX IT by using a combination of incentives and regulations. The ban on internal combustion cars being sold in California after 2034 is one good example but we must do more than that (see PBS documentary: David Attenborough – A life on our planet). If any class is disenfranchised by unfair voting laws or practices, FIX IT. If there are still many whites who are racist, we must tackle the problem. Peaceful demonstrations by large groups of all races such as we have seen recently have worked in the past to change thinking in the US (Civil Rights marches in the 1960s) but this will not happen if we allow total lawlessness to highjack the cause. If black youths are challenged by a culture of fatherless families, FIX IT with incentives for black fathers to stay home rather than incentives for them to leave. Black Americans will never achieve their goals until this problem is solved.* If you don’t like things that were done by our forefathers, talk about it, write about it, educate about it but don’t cancel history. Yes, there was slavery here and around the world when our country was founded. At that time the continent of Africa was a hot bed of slavery with a culture of tribal warfare in which winning tribes enslaved the losers and often sold them to white slave traders.

Eighty-five years after our founding, we fought a bloody civil war which brought about the abolition of slavery.

We are still working to eliminate the lingering effects of slavery. We are making progress and it is good that so many people of all colors are coming together to demand change. Having said that, it is ludicrous to say that all whites are racist. That would be like saying all blacks are criminals. That kind of rhetoric can only slow down our efforts to achieve true colorblindness. Similarly, the concept of reparations makes no sense and will only slow down efforts to achieve racial equality.

As for the founding fathers, we must not forget that they founded the first and perhaps only nation on Earth based upon “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” This was a concept unheard of by the monarchs of the world at that time. It took wisdom, foresight and courage to propose such a bold concept and to pull it off. They do not deserve to be dishonored. It should be noted, based upon some of that statues that have been torn down it is clear that many of those tearing down statues today don’t know history or even whose statue they are tearing down such as the Frederick Douglas statue in Rochester, NY and the Abraham Lincoln statue in Portland, OR.

Throughout my life, I observed that educational institutions and the media had bias toward liberal positions but that was not a problem for me because we still had free speech and people were willing to debate their positions vigorously without violence and hatred. Today free speech has been shut down in America. Political correctness is a cancer in our society. The very institutions that used to champion freedom of speech (academia, media, ACLU) have reversed their positions and now condone muzzling any opposing views in the name of political correctness. Anonymous “thought police” now tell us what we can say and what words and names are acceptable. Hard to believe but true!

I believe the cause of this dangerous shift is the influence of liberal teachers in our schools at all levels. It appears as if left-leaning political views are now a requirement for new faculty hires at the majority of our colleges and universities. Actually, that has been the case for many years. It is OK for students to be exposed to ideas in school that are different from what they may have learned at home but it is not OK to lock these ideas in place with an unforgiving culture of political correctness.

As you can see, the issues of “socialism drift” and political correctness (freedom of speech) are the issues that keep me awake at night. Regardless of which candidate wins in November, I feel these issues have to be addressed. We must support free speech and talking civilly and openly again or we will never find solutions to the many difficult problems facing us. We also must find ways of doing this without destroying our heritage of democracy/capitalism.

I know everyone has their own opinions on these topics and I am not expecting to change anyone’s mind. To me, this is less about the upcoming election and more about how our country moves forward in future decades. It is about fixing what is bad without destroying what is good. Oh, and it feels good to get this off my chest!

*Our current means-based welfare system discourages marriage. When a low income mother and father marry, they will generally experience a sharp drop in benefits and their joint income will fall. The anti-marriage penalty is often most severe among married couples where both parents are employed. When the war on poverty began in the 1960s, 36% of poor families with children were headed by single parents. By 2018 that number was 24% for whites and 65% for blacks. 1.

When compared with children in intact married homes, children raised with single parents are more likely to have emotional and behavioral problems; be physically abused; smoke; drink and use drugs; be aggressive; be engaged in violent, delinquent and criminal behavior; have poor school performance; be expelled from school; and drop out of high school. Children living in single parent homes are 50% more likely to experience official poverty as adults when compared with children from intact married homes. 2.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation – kids count data center 2020.
Robert Rector, Heritage Foundation, November 17, 2014.

PMcI 10-22-20