On Sept. 10, ABC moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis failed to live up to that standard by interjecting themselves as fact checkers. Worse, it was completely one-sided and focused on Donald Trump’s false or misleading statements, which while real, ignored those from Kamala Harris to include disingenuous denials or evasions about her views on guns, abortion, policing, ICE and more.

I am sensitive to that issue for many reasons, one of which is the way that I used to teach economics, American government and also a course called Problems of Democracy. The format was lecture/discussion, and I was the only teacher in the building who arranged the students’ desks into an inward facing rectangle so that they could see each other’s faces. I often stood in the center like a talk show host. Topics were introduced by me — say a particular U.S. Supreme Court decision involving the First Amendment — and then the floor was thrown open to students to comment, to compare and contrast the majority opinion(s), the dissenting opinion(s), and of course their own opinions of the case.

It was a little bit like a daily town hall, except that after I was finished presenting the opinions, the students took over and all I did was moderate the discussion and make sure that it remained civil and respectful. I did not correct a student, even if I knew they had gotten something wrong, because this wasn’t about winning or persuading; it was simply about sharing views even if the basis for some of those views was inaccurate. Moreover, my interjecting myself as a fact checker would have had a chilling effect on my students’ willingness to participate, and that was the last thing I wanted to do.

In the end, more than the details of a case, or an occasional misstatement of fact, they would remember the most important lesson, which was to listen with the intent of understanding and not arguing back in order to win a point. That is the only way to truly understand an issue, which is impossible if we focus instead on how we’re going to respond. Listening should be proactive, not reactive. But of all the communication skills we were taught in school (reading, writing, speaking), how many of us have ever taken a course in active listening?

There was only one case where my methodology failed, and that was the year that Roe v. Wade was decided. Knowing it was surely in the minds of my 12th grade students, I chose it as a topic for discussion. That was a mistake. The emotions were so high on the opposing sides that I lost control of the discussion and had to deal with students in tears on both sides of the issue, which really wasn’t the point. I wanted them to understand the four primary governmental interests that the Court had defined in Roe and also to be familiar with the majority and dissenting opinions, but to no avail.

Now, half a century later, I still encounter people who are incapable of discussing abortion in a scholarly and unemotional way, and most of whom have never read Roe v. Wade, Casey v. Planned Parenthood or Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, despite having such strong opinions.

Back to the debate, regular readers of this column already know that I am no fan of former President Trump. Quite the opposite. But I hope they also recall that the expansion of governmental size, scope, cost and power under modern progressivism, exemplified by Vice President Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, is one of my greatest fears. And so, I can report with some degree of objectivity that Trump’s performance at the recent debate was abysmal. He fell back upon his endlessly repeated hyperbolic claims, exaggerations, and falsehoods instead of laying out a vision for the American people. Surely his debate preparatory team must have made every effort to dissuade him from resorting to his usual rally/stump speech, but he can’t help himself.

Harris did not need the help of the ABC moderators. She would have walked away the winner of that debate without their unfortunate and inappropriate intervention. Despite her multiple evasions and falsehoods, she came across as prepared, disciplined and in control of herself. She wisely “let Trump be Trump” for all the nation to see.

Now, as we begin the voting process, the key will be the undecideds, especially in the swing states. Long after those voters have forgotten the details of the recent debate, they will remember how the two candidates made them feel. Donald Trump likely made a lot of them squirm in their seats. Kamala Harris likely made them feel more at ease by comparison, and if she wins, more than anything else, that may be the reason. But neither, if elected, will govern with a mandate.

Joseph Filko has taught economics and American government and lives in Williamsburg. He can be reached at jfilko1944@gmail.com.

Such is the case with health care. Granted, we will still be paying for it with our tax dollars, but that pain won’t feel the same as paying insurance premiums, co-pays and deductibles. It will all be wrapped into our tax bill, and we won’t know how much we are paying anymore than we know how much we are paying for defense spending.

A person who might not have gone to the doctor for a minor sprain or a routine respiratory infection will have no reluctance to seek medical care if it costs nothing out of pocket.

Moreover, proponents of Medicare for All claim that health care is an individual right. Beyond that, they define “having a right” to mean that the government must provide it. But are those two claims really true?

Protecting a right and providing a right are two very different things, and some progressives are trying to morph the first into the second.

John Locke, and many other philosophers of the Enlightenment, as well as the American founders who studied them and who codified their thinking into our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, would probably dissent from the idea that specific goods (food, clothing, shelter) or services (health care) are human “rights.”

They defined human rights as freedoms of action (speech, press, assembly, petition, worship) or as restrictions on governmental actions (due process, private property, jury trial, corruption of blood, ex post facto laws, etc.).

A few examples may be helpful: The 2nd Amendment gives me the right to bear arms, but it does not obligate my fellow citizens to provide me with a gun if I can’t afford one. I have the right to free speech, but I can’t demand that the government give me a megaphone, nor an assembly hall if I can’t afford to rent one, nor a church in which to worship.

There are a large number of people running for public office who continue to assure us that not only do we have an “individual right” to an ever-expanding list of material goods and services, but that is it the proper function of government to provide them for us at the involuntary expense of our fellow citizens. This is not a new idea.

The United Nations produced a list of economic, social and cultural “rights” in 1948. So has the Democratic Party platform over the years. The reality that you have to violate Peter’s rights in order to pay Paul doesn’t seem to bother adherents of that philosophy.

When I served on a Pennsylvania school board, we were required by law to have a balanced budget. We could not operate at a deficit. Because of that, we did not self-insure against the health risk. We purchased group medical insurance for our employees and let the insurer take the risk. To self-insure would have been to write a blank check on the school district and indirectly on our local taxpayers.

Medicare for All would be a bigger blank check drawn on the federal government than Medicare is now, and Medicare is already on a glide path to insufficiency.

The fatal flaw of government insurance programs is politics. Pandering politicians promise ever-bigger financial benefits while at the same time being unwilling to charge risk-appropriate premiums or taxes, and they buy us off with the promise that it can all be paid for by taxing “the rich.” The inevitable result will be much higher taxes down the road and lower payments to medical providers and hospitals.

Finally, are we willing to turn the medical profession into a 21st-century version of involuntary servitude? Will we force ‘doctors and nurses to treat us for whatever the government is willing to pay? Remember, low prices tend to not only increase demand but also to decrease supply. If doctors and nurses go on strike and hospitals close, who is going to provide us with our alleged “right” to health care? I would not care to go under the knife of a surgeon who was forced to operate on me.

Filko has taught economics, government and insurance, and can be reached at jfilko1944@gmail.com.

Some years later, upon returning to that same college town to teach seniors in the local high school, I noted that university students who had no interest in learning the words of the alma mater would instead sing, “We don’t know the GD words” repeatedly until the song was over. I guess they thought that was clever or cute. Many of us alumni didn’t think so.

I think of those things because of a story just told to me by an out-of-state friend. He works at a middle school, and every morning the students there are given an opportunity to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Not all of the students participate, and since we have not enforced compulsory speech ever since the case of West Virginia School Board v. Barnette in 1943, the students who elect not to take the Pledge are within their rights.

However, there are a number of other students who, in what is probably an attempt to be rebellious or daring, have chosen to modify the Pledge by inserting F-bombs in the text: “I pledge allegiance to the (F-bomb) flag of the (F-bomb) United States of America…”). I wonder if they insert it between “under” and “God”, if they say those words at all in our secular age.

These are middle school children, and this behavior occurs without consequence.

Am I the only one who finds this to be appalling? Is this protecting the freedom of speech, or is it an abdication of responsibility by the adults in the room? Are the parents supportive of this?

I happened to stop into a neighborhood restaurant for a mug of beer a few months ago. I had not been there before. As I sat down at the bar, the other patrons, clearly a bunch of locals, welcomed me warmly and wanted to know all about me. I was almost finished with my beer when the bartender appeared with a trayful of shot glasses, each one brimming with some special concoction of his, and he gave one to every person there at no charge, and someone said, “It’s 4 o’clock.”

At that, everyone stood up, turned around and faced a large American Flag on the wall that I had not noticed, and with those shot glasses in their left hands and with their right hands over their hearts, they solemnly repeated in unison the Pledge of Allegiance. Then we all tossed down our shots, sat down and resumed our normal conversations.

To employ an overused phrase, I was blown away.

I think of that incident when I learn of that bunch of disrespectful students dropping F-bombs into the Pledge of Allegiance.

Part of me would like to introduce them to a bar of soap.

But I think it would far better to take them up to Arlington.

Filko lives in Williamsburg and has taught Economics and American Government.