decency

It was during the nationally televised Army–McCarthy hearings of 1954 that Joseph Welch, the lawyer for an accused officer, snapped back at the senator, “Have you no sense of decency, sir?”

“I wanted to convey the message that this was not Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, that this is about human rights and human decency,” he said in an interview with The Times.

A majority no longer have a standard of decency for a presidential candidate — or if they do, it’s lower than a rattlesnake.

All too often, smart business tactics produce cowardly leaders who take liberal democracy and common decency for granted.

The forces of basic decency are truly a David facing a Goliath.