Excellent and accurate observation by Mencken. Though due to the revision of history we don't hear mention such :"unmentionables". The South declared war over states' rights. Lincoln used slavery as a "tool" to whip up support for his cause of expanding the control of a strengthened, centralized federal government. Apparently even then, the GOP had lost its way. Experts agree that slavery was diminishing and would have disappeared within a few years anyway-without the aborgation of states' rights and the destruction of the South. Still, "that a government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth" is a great line...one we should take to heart now that it's continuing in force.

What Reagan saw then, he would see tenfold today. Though I disagreed with him on some issues (as I do with every administration), I admit he was one of the best leaders of this nation. It doesn't appear we will see his like in leadership, statesmanship and an innate understanding of how to deal with bullies-without being one. Sure, Barry gives a good speech (if his teleprompter is working), he's personable and likeable. But he's putting the USA in a position to be decimated by piddling third world bullies. Shame on him---and on those who elected him because they "liked him".

Unfortunately, the current political majority in the bureaucracy has no intention of continuing to allow those protections to remain in place. Though to be fair, the erosion of the protections of the Bill of Rights has been going on in earnest for decades. We just weren't paying attention and the media weren't doing their "watchdog" job. Whether you call it Fox News or Fox Noise, thank God for it. It's the one news outlet that can be counted on to offer opinions from both sides of the issues (on the commentary shows) as well as a great deal more facts in the news portions. They are the fairest of them all. Those like Waffler, who disparage the facts when they disagree with them should still be grateful. It is the Bill of Rights that still manages to preserve even that right.

It is the media's job-nay, duty- to expose those embarrassments. Unfortunately, the majority of our media have decided to abandon that duty by failing to remain "objective". Yet there is still enough conscientious media that those embarrassments do eventually leak out, thanks to that marvelous first amendment. And to J. Carlton, we aren't in this world alone. We must choose those countries with whom we will work and those against whom we will work, based on the best interests of our own country. Nothing we could do would make everyone in the world love us. To believe otherwise is naive. Isolation is no protection-they know we're here.

In just my lifetime, there is so much criticism of government that is heattily deserved...and the pace of that is increasing at an ever more rapid speed now.