Reflections of An Uncommon Common Man

Imagine a world where Democratic presidents are placed under a media scrutiny 24/7. Where their every word is blown out of proportion. Scandals are investigated  and remain newsworthy for weeks and months on end. Calls for special prosecutors and impeachment are made not only by the opposing political party but their own political party. They are viciously belittled by late night comedians on a nightly basis and Republican presidents are viewed as brilliant while Democrat presidents become idiotic, bigoted, bumbling fools. You, my friend, would be traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. Your next stop, the Twilight Zone!

When a person dies they will be either be rewarded with eternal life or eternal damnation at some point in the future. When a nation dies it is dead and will never rise again. George Mason, a Founding Father and the Father of the Bill of Rights explains that a nation will also answer to God. Not in the afterlife but in this life. " As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence punishes national sins by national calamities".

  John Kennedy is a hero to Kennedy worshipers and many Black people for his stance on civil rights. Conservatives admire him for his tax cuts. I admire him for both. He was late putting his money where his mouth was on civil rights. Prior to June 1963 Kennedy was trying to manage the progress of  civil rights while at the same time trying not to politically alienate the South. As it turned out instead of  Kennedy managing civil rights, events were managing him. The Greensboro and Nashville sit-ins, the Freedom Rides, the integration of Ole Miss, and the Birmingham Children's march just to name a few. There was the direct action of the Nashville students like Diane Nash, James Bevel, John Lewis, James Lawson, Marion Barry, and others. Also there was Martin Luther King himself. Kings letter from the Birmingham jail condemning the moderates on civil rights had a great impact on Kennedy. On June 11, 1963 Kennedy gave a great speech that boldly proclaimed that civil rights...

  Samuel Whittemore was an American patriot born in England on July 27th, 1695. Sam was nearly eighty years old when the Redcoats and Patriots clashed at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. He came to America in the service of the British Dragoons and fought the French. Sam fought the them at the battle for Fort Louisburg where he captured a French officers sword. A sword he would cherish for the rest of his life. Whenever anyone asked how he came by the sword his standard reply was that the previous owner had "died suddenly". After the war he settled in Menotomy Massachusetts. Between two wives he fathered eight children. Three sons and five daughters. Menotomy is now Arlington Massachusetts and his house still stands. In 1758, during the French and Indian War he volunteered to fight at the age of 64 and was with Colonial troops when they again attacked Fort Louisburg. He finished the war with British general James Wolfe's forces at Quebec. After this decisive vi...

  As a student of American history, the Civil War and Reconstruction, the subject of race and it's complexities, has always fascinated me. You cannot understand American history while at the same time ignoring the subject of race. Alexis Toqueville, the young Frenchman who observed American society in 1831 said that the legacy of slavery in America would be that we would always have a race problem. The following is from his book Democracy in America. "If we reason from what passes in the world, we should almost say that the European is to the other races of mankind what man himself is to the lower animals: he makes them subservient to his use, and when he cannot subdue he destroys them. Oppression has, at one stroke, deprived the descendants of the Africans of almost all the privileges of humanity. The Negro of the United States has lost even the remembrance of his country; the language which his forefathers spoke is never heard around him; he abjured their religion and for...

  In a sixteen year period from 2000 until 2016 there have been two very controversial elections. The Bush - Gore election of 2000 and the Trump-Clinton election of 2016. In both elections Bush and Trump lost the popular vote but won the electoral vote. The 2000 election was one of the closest in history. There have been at least nine controversial or close elections in American history. The other seven were the Jefferson - Adams - Burr election of 1800. The Adams - Jackson election of 1824. The Lincoln - Breckenridge - Douglas - Bell election of 1860. The Hayes - Tilden election of 1876. The Wilson - Taft - Roosevelt election of 1912. The Truman - Dewey election of 1948. The Kennedy - Nixon election of 1960.   THE ELECTION OF 1800   In the 1800 election the Democratic-Republicans and the Federalists hated each other. Both sides believed, as in 2016, that if the other Party won, it would be the end of the country.  The Democratic-Republican's distrusted...