November 23, 1965

Double Standard

We have come to the point in civilization where the art of logic - now an intellectual study shunned by most college students - should be a required subject in one of the mandatory grades of education.

Of course, the whole science of thinking is worth a great deal of encouragement. If we could teach our youngsters to apply a single standard of ethics to their problems - personal, national and world - they might avoid the mistakes we make over and over again.

We tend to apply a convenient double standard to a distressingly large number of issues. A prejudiced approach to a controversial question is inherently unfair. The injured antagonist invariably retaliates. The result is conflict, which at the national level we call war.

As we survey the current world scene, it is easy to find examples of the discriminatory double standard of logic which fouls up peace and harmony.

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The hullabaloo in Rhodesia has not yet impressed me as a matter to get excited about, although the two-bit African countries in the United Nations are working up quite a head of steam over it.

As usual with our fuzzy-minded liberals, the real issue is smothered by a syrup on inconsistent brotherly love. “Racial bigots!” they scream at the white Rhodesians. Parallels between the American Negro and the African black man are neatly drawn.

The facts of the case are not nearly as one sided as the representatives of the “emergent” nations would have us believe. The merits of both sides in this argument deserve examination in depth, but our theme today is the standard of conduct we practice.

Let us assume for the sake of argument, that the white Rhodesians really do intend to freeze out the native black man and reserve to themselves the fruits of the land.

This must lead us immediately to the strongest condemnation of the Israelites who - while the U.S. liberals sang hosanna - drove out the Arab population with United Nations military assistance, confiscated the property of ancient owners and disenfranchised everybody but imported Jews.

Those Arabs were placed in concentration camps 20 years ago WHERE THEY REMAIN TODAY, well guarded by UN personnel and fed at UN expense.

The defense of Zionists is that Israelites have made the land productive, whereas the Arabs had let the land go to waste.

How true it was of the Arabs. How true it is of the African native.

Either Israel is right and Rhodesia is right - or they are both wrong.

It is interesting to note that the Rhodesians, at worst, propose to keep their present constitution that permits 30 percent of their elected legislators to be natives. Perhaps the concentration camps will come when the UN builds them.

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Coming closer to home, we find the interesting double standard applied by the Great Society planners to our so-called “free enterprise system.”

Earlier this year, unions forced the bell weather industries - metal, autos, electrical - into wage hikes in excess of 5 percent annually.

President Johnson noted some time ago that 3 percent in wage increases was “non-inflationary,” just so long as the industries bearing that new cost were held to zero percent.

LBJ gulped a little, but in the end had no trouble swallowing the obviously inflationary wage settlements with a tolerant smile.

Steel and auto companies were kept in line by the old, Kennedy threats of government harassment and withholding of defense contracts.

Aluminum and copper industries were brought to heel with a vicious Johnsonian gambit - absorb the higher wage costs or compete with a market flooded with government stockpiled metal.

One wonders about the original need for an expensive stockpile of strategic metals, or about the folly of disposing of the material if it really is important to our military defense.

Again, however, I digress. The subject at hand is the inconsistency of one set of rules for the worker and another more stringent set for the employer.

If the American economic enterprise system is to be free, then competition for both goods and labor must be allowed to find a natural level. On the other hand, if our economy is to be managed, then let it be managed for owners and investors, as well as for laborers.

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The double standard of ethics common to politics would be amusing if the American tax payers weren’t being flimflammed.

Sherman Adams, President Eisenhower’s aide, was shamed out of office because he accepted a fancy sheepskin coat from a friend who happened to be selling felt to the government. Not one shred of evidence was ever produced that Adams gave any favor to his friend.

Bobby Baker was the hatchet man for Lyndon Johnson. His financial wheeling and dealing on behalf of his boss and the Democrat establishment in Congress is almost beyond belief. Favors were merchandised by him in supermarket proportions.

The same people who staggered at the transgression of Sherman Adams, sympathized with Bobby and set him up in business so he could continue to live in the fashion to which he had become accustomed.

What happened to Senator Williams, of New Jersey, who blew the whistle on Bobby?

At last report he was up to his ears in a minute examination of his income tax returns by the Internal Revenue Department and in a witch hunt by other government bureaus for irregularities in his property holdings.

So far he has checked out clean, but you can be sure our double standard boys will find some way to punish him for demanding equal morality in public trust.

By Lindsey Wilger Williams, retired newspaper publisher and syndicated columnist