RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/07/04/franklins_admonition

““A republic, if you can keep it.” What I once thought of as a quaint, half tongue-in-cheek caution, I now see as an earnest admonition. July 4 commemorates not only America’s independence from Great Britain, but also its assumption among the powers of the earth of a form of government dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Our society’s recent descent into tribalism is sharply at odds with that experiment in aspiration. It’s time we grew up and embraced the wisdom of our Founders. ”

“A republic, if you can keep it.” 

That was Ben Franklin’s famous response when asked, as the Constitutional Convention ended in 1787, what sort of government the delegates had crafted.

Time was, I thought Franklin’s answer droll. But as July 4, 2020, comes into view, I wonder. A republic depends on the rule of law. The rule of law has been having a hard time of it lately. So: Can we keep it? 

I have never been tempted to equate the equality celebrated by the Declaration of Independence with egalitarianism. The philosopher Harvey Mansfield was obviously correct, I believe, when he spoke of the “self-evident half-truth that all men are created equal.” 

Differences in talent, disposition, family situation, and plain dumb luck inevitably result in differences in achievement. As James Madison put it in Federalist 10, the rights of property originate in “diversity in the faculties of men.” Protecting those faculties, he said, “is the first object of government.” 

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-diversity-trap-jilani

Progressive ideas about diversity have taken over the corporate world but they offer a skin-deep version obsessed only with color and conformity.

A shallow, reductive version of diversity that first gained a foothold in progressive political spaces has rapidly spread across American institutions and the corporate world. It values skin color and other inherited characteristics above all else, largely ignores class issues, and overlooks the benefits of real diversity, like the anti-fragile resilience created by fostering people with different viewpoints. Yet, despite the many flaws and dangers of this new orthodoxy—or perhaps because of them—anyone who challenges it, risks damage to their career and social life.

Just look at the case of Denise Young Smith. Young Smith spent almost two decades working her way up in Apple, becoming one of the few black people to ever reach its executive team. She was named vice president of diversity and inclusion, and in 2017 traveled to the One Young World Summit in Bogotá, Colombia.

At the summit, she was asked by a reporter whether black women would be a priority in her new role promoting diversity in the company. In her answer, she described a lonely rise through the ranks: “I’ve been black and a woman for a long time. I have been a first, I’ve been an only,” she said. She talked about hearing from other black women in the industry who shared stories about people assuming they were the assistant or secretary rather than the manager.

Her words were a powerful testament to anyone who has ever been stereotyped or been on the receiving end of low expectations due to the color of their skin.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/07/04/a-magnificent-speech/

Donald Trump did not mention Lincoln’s First Inaugural address in his speech commemorating the spirit of American Independence at Mount Rushmore on Friday night. But the president’s speech—perhaps his most forceful and eloquent to date—vibrated with the same energy and existential commitment that fired Lincoln in March 1861. 

Lincoln came to office at a time of crisis. His election had precipitated the secession of seven Southern states. His inaugural address was both a plea for conciliation and unity as well as a warning that violence would be stopped with force. “We are not enemies, but friends,” Lincoln said. 

Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Donald Trump issued a kindred invitation to unity in the midst of conflict. The signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia in July 1776 was a world-historical event. It represented, the president rightly said, “the culmination of thousands of years of Western Civilization—and the triumph not only of spirit, but of wisdom, philosophy, and reason.” At the center of the triumph was the animating possession of liberty, made possible by the unanimous affirmation of the principles Thomas Jefferson articulated in the Declaration: “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 president’s speech was a passionate celebration of American freedom and American greatness—a greatness, he noted, that was embodied by the sublime majesty of the heads of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt sculpted into the granite pinnacle of Mt. Rushmore. 

But just as Lincoln spoke on the eve of civil war, so Donald Trump spoke in the midst of widespread and organized violence against the emblems and the spirit of the American promise. “[T]here is,” he warned, “a growing danger that threatens every blessing our ancestors fought, struggled, and bled to secure.”