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Did the English Get It Right?

August 26, 2019

As usual, something reminded me of a historical phenomenon we need to reexamine: the old British empire and its legacy to the world. The recent outbreak of mass demonstrations in Hong Kong aimed at the China’s center of political power in Beijing recalled the historical period of the British empire which governed over a significant […]

Contextualizing the Past

August 20, 2019

One of my wife’s cousins, Sheffield Hale, is dealing with one of the most delicate issues in modern society over in Atlanta these days. He’s the director of the Atlanta History Center and so is at the epicenter of what to do with the remnants of our Civil War tucked into our history. In the […]

Everything Free, Flatulent Cows, and No More Airplanes

August 17, 2019

I started to make a note of what some politicians are arguing for today and eventually had to run to the Internet to keep track of all the fantastic changes we can look forward to in the next ten years. In the spirit of Lewis Grizzard, I offer the following examination of the truly astounding […]

Freedom of Religion and the Establishment Clause. What Do They Say?

May 26, 2019

Freedom of Religion and the Establishment Clause. What do they say? The First Amendment to the Constitution reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to […]

Dancing Around Anti-Semitism

May 26, 2019

Dancing Around Anti-Semitism The recent, and some not so recent, remarks by our two new Muslim Congresswomen, Rashida Tlaib from Michigan and Ilhan Omar from Minnesota, has raised a hullaballoo among many politicians, both Democrats and Republicans. The issue is portrayed as the Muslim desire to eradicate the state of Israel in favor of a […]

The Significance of Work in Our Nation

January 19, 2019

I am going to do something I don’t do too often in our column, which is to plug a good book. I am not speaking of the Bible, the ultimate “Good Book,” which I refer to often and use as my instructional guide. But the book I am referring to has a lot of Biblical […]

Democratic Socialism

September 16, 2018

Now that have once again turned to socialism for answers to how we should organize ourselves as a people, it may be useful to examine the history of socialism, no matter how cursorily. Let’s start with what the new wave of socialists in this country like to call their profession: democratic socialism. Why do that? […]

Of Socialists, Capitalists, and Progressives

September 16, 2018

A few weeks ago we looked at “democratic socialism.” Let’s broaden the scope a bit of put socialism into a larger context and so understand it better. To simplify a complex subject is not always simple: capitalism is generally a label for a system devoted to making wealth with the least amount of government control; […]

Taming the Alligators, Draining the Swamp, Redux

June 17, 2018

One of President Trump’s campaign goals was to make America great again. Another goal was to tame or throw the alligators out of Washington, by which most of us take that to mean reduce and bring the gigantic federal government down to scale. The “Deep State” is controlling us. According to my instant source of […]

Mr. Roosevelt and the Navy

April 15, 2018

Part of my summer reading a few years ago was a joint biography of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt written by a brilliant historian, Doris Kearns Goodwin. The book is about the Roosevelts during the World War II (1939-1945) years. It is rich in the details of a peacetime society — ours — preparing for war. […]