Six Democratic veterans in Congress recently released a coordinated message to the U.S. armed forces. The video, featuring Senators Mark Kelly and Elissa Slotkin, urged service members to refuse illegal orders. President Trump responded with accusations of treason, but the lawmakers’ argument rests on military law and historical precedent.

The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) governs the armed forces. Articles 90, 91, and 92 mandate obedience to superiors, but the text explicitly specifies “lawful” commands. This word is the legal basis for the Democrats’ argument. It ensures the American military cannot legally act as a personal enforcement arm outside the Constitution.

History supports this interpretation. The 1973 case United States v. Calley established that “superior orders” is not a valid defense for criminal acts. The Supreme Court ruled similarly in 1804 (Little v. Barreme), stating that a Presidential order does not override federal statute.

The Oath of Enlistment further clarifies this duty. U.S. troops do not swear fealty to a monarch or a specific leader. They swear to support and defend the Constitution. If a leader issues an order that violates the Constitution, the oath demands loyalty to the document over the person.

A New Escalation: The Investigation of Senator Kelly

The conflict intensified in late November 2025. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced a formal investigation into Senator Mark Kelly. Kelly is a retired Navy Captain, meaning he technically remains subject to the UCMJ.

The Pentagon suggests Kelly’s participation in the video may constitute “conduct that brings discredit upon the armed forces.” This move threatens a sitting U.S. Senator with potential recall to active duty and court-martial for political speech. It demonstrates the extreme pressure the military establishment can exert on those who challenge the chain of command.

The Noble Burden and the Severe Risk

This legal framework forces the individual soldier to make a profound moral judgment. Refusing an unlawful order is a defense of American values. It prioritizes the rule of law over the demands of a powerful superior.

Soldiers must understand the danger of this choice. The military justice system is designed to enforce discipline. The investigation into Senator Kelly proves that the hierarchy often views challenges to authority as threats to “good order,” regardless of the moral justification. A soldier who refuses an order stands on the moral high ground. They also stand on a precipice. If a military court decides the order was technically “lawful,” the soldier faces court-martial, dishonorable discharge, and imprisonment.

The choice to disobey requires moral clarity. It also requires the courage to face life-altering consequences.

Disclaimer: This article provides a general overview of historical and legal concepts and does not constitute legal advice. Military law is complex, fact-specific, and currently evolving rapidly. Service members facing these issues should immediately consult with a qualified military law attorney or Judge Advocate General (JAG) before taking any action.

While the desire for autonomy simmers in some corners of the state, fueled by perceived imbalances or disagreements with federal policies, the question of unilateral secession was definitively answered during the Civil War. The Confederacy, formed by states seeking to leave the Union, was ultimately defeated, solidifying the principle of the Union’s indissolubility. Furthermore, the Supreme Court’s 1869 Texas v. White case cemented this legal precedent, declaring that secession was never legal and the Confederacy remained part of the United States throughout the war.

However, acknowledging the definitive legal answer is just the first step. Unpacking the complexities surrounding Texan independence requires delving deeper into historical, economic, and social factors.

Beyond the Binary: Examining the Nuances

The Civil War might have settled the legal debate, but the cultural and political currents of Texan identity remain nuanced and dynamic. Debates about federalism, states’ rights, and individual liberty continue, sometimes intertwined with the rhetoric of secession. Understanding these complexities demands recognizing the following:

• Historical Legacy: The narrative of Texan independence, deeply embedded in the state’s identity, fuels the “could Texas secede” question. This narrative, while romanticized and often overlooking the complexities of the Republic of Texas and its relationship with Mexico, shapes a unique cultural perspective.
• Economic Considerations: Texas boasts a large and diverse economy, leading some to believe it could sustain itself independently. However, the state’s economic success is deeply intertwined with the national economy, with significant trade and investment relying on federal frameworks and infrastructure.
• Social Identity: Texas is a diverse state with a multitude of viewpoints on independence. While some may harbor secessionist sentiments, others strongly identify as part of the United States and advocate for stronger federalism within the existing framework.

Beyond Secession: Charting a United Future

While the legal question is settled, the future of Texas lies not in revisiting the wounds of the past, but in fostering a constructive dialogue and seeking solutions within the existing framework of the United States. There are several crucial points to consider:

• Engaging in Constructive Dialogue: Fostering open and respectful dialogue across different viewpoints is crucial to understanding the complexities of Texan identity and navigating potential tensions. This includes acknowledging the historical narrative, economic realities, and diverse social perspectives within the state.
• Strengthening Federalism: Examining alternative approaches within the federal system, such as increased devolution of power to states or exploring avenues for greater state autonomy within the Constitution, could address concerns about federal overreach without resorting to secession.
• Building a More Perfect Union: The true path forward lies in working collaboratively to strengthen the Union itself. This involves addressing concerns about federal policies, promoting economic opportunity and social justice, and ensuring that all voices are heard and represented within the American tapestry.

Conclusion:

The question of Texan independence, fueled by historical narratives and cultural identity, holds symbolic weight. However, the legal answer was decisively settled in the Civil War, and future progress lies not in secession, but in constructive dialogue, exploring alternative frameworks within the federal system, and building a more perfect Union that addresses the concerns and aspirations of all its citizens. The true legacy of Texas lies not in revisiting the past, but in shaping a brighter future within the United States.

For more great political stories click here.

At a basic level, you should have items that help you out with navigation, sun protection, first aid, nutrition, and bushcrafting. Today we’ll be going through the absolute essentials that will help you get the most from a day of hiking.

1.      Survival Knife

While this isn’t the first thing you’d think to pack for a hiking trip, it might come in handy in more ways than one. On numerous occasions, they come in handy for repairing gear, preparing food, first aid, and even other emergency situations.

Once you get your hands on the best survival knife and start looking for tutorial videos on how to use it in the wild, you’ll be amazed what a great investment you’ve just made. After a long day of hiking, you might want to chop some wood and make a small campfire to enjoy the stars, and having a survival knife is perfect in this scenario.

2.      Sun Protection

Since you’ll probably be hiking from dusk till dawn, it’s important to have a few items that will offer you protection against the sun. These include sun-protective clothing, sunscreen, and sunglasses.

Spending long hours outdoors, especially during the afternoon, means you’ll have to deal with ultraviolet rays. These affect your eyes and skin unless you have proper protection. That’s why you need to prepare yourself similarly to preparing for a day at the beach.

3.     Navigation Tools

When going on an adventure through areas that you’re not familiar with, you’ll need the right tools to avoid getting lost. Now, you might think that having a smartphone with GPS is enough.

However, you won’t always have GPS signal. That’s why you have to rely on older methods. Having a map and compass is as crucial as having food and water when hiking. For extra help, you could also get an altimeter watch that uses a barometer to inform you of the altitude you’re at.

4.      Tools to See in the Dark

A headlamp or a flashlight will come in handy when night comes. Depending on where you are and what time of the year it is, it’s easy to lose track of time and find yourself having to navigate back through dense woods.

The light coming from the stars won’t help you out much in that scenario. You’ll also have a lot of trouble if it’s cloudy night and you don’t even have that to help you out much. So do yourself a favor and be prepared even if you’re not planning to stay until dusk.

5.      First Aid

Even if you’re an experienced hiker or a complete newbie, accidents can happen. It’s vital to carry and know how to use first-aid items for this exact reason.

When you’re out in the woods, even a small cut can result in an infection. Learn how to treat wounds with this basic tutorial and be prepared for anything beforehand.

Final Thoughts

These five essential items will come in handy on any hiking trip, no matter where you plan on going.

Don’t forget to read up on other tips for choosing the best hiking gear for your needs and budget so that you will have everything you need to be prepared.

When you hear the word colonialism used, what does it make you think of? Probably not technology. To date the term colonialism has been used to describe the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically. History provides us clear examples of this practice. The French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese were early practitioners with the Germans and Italians getting into the game late in the mid-20th century. The United Kingdom used the practice to create an empire on which the sun never set.

You don’t hear the term used often these days except perhaps to provide historical context to more recent events occurring around the globe. That’s because technology has made the world smaller, making it far more complex for any single nation to inflict its will over another.

However, colonialism has not quite fully disappeared. We should not remove it from our lexicon just yet. In fact, I am of the belief that colonialism is very much alive in our modern society. It exists in a mutated form, where giant tech companies such as Facebook, Google and Amazon are the empire seekers and unfortunately, we the individual are the people being exploited. Unless we do something to thwart these giant’s control, revisionist historians may come to define the 21st century as the age of “Digital Colonialism”.

To better understand digital colonialism, let’s break it down in terms of the technological world we live in today. In digital colonialism, the policy or practice employed by the tech giants to acquire control is the concept of offering free or subsidized services to the people. Google has replaced war ships with free email but in the end isn’t the result the same. A people, in this case us, are being exploited. The tech giants offered us free services but as we have discovered, nothing is really free. While offering us these so called “free’ services, the tech giants conveniently forgot to tell us is how they planned to use the data they collected about us. Only recently have we seen the commercialized effects of their strategy. They employ our data to invade our privacy and amass some of the greatest fortunes known to mankind. The British Empire exploited its colonies by extracting raw materials to feed its growing industrial revolution and selling the manufactured goods made from those materials back to the same colonists who harvested them. The tech giants exploit us by using our data as the raw material for their advertising factories and then force us to consume this advertising to their profit.

History has also shown us that a key tool in the workshop of colonialism was the trading company, such as the Dutch West India company and the British East India company. These companies acted as monopolies, which were granted by their nation’s respective crowns, for the purpose of promoting colonialism throughout the New World. Notice that the concept here was the granting of a monopoly. It should come as no surprise then that the United States government is just waking up to the fact that today’s tech giants are monopolies. Despite a plethora of legislation prohibiting anti-trust activity such as the Sherman Act of 1890, the Clayton Act of 1914 and the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914, 21st century venture capital figured out a way to circumvent this legislation. They poured money into companies like Amazon, Google and Facebook allowing these companies to sustain repetitive annual losses. The only important was growing market share and driving out competition. The only difference between the 18th and 19th century trading companies and today is that the tech giants use monopoly not to the benefit of the crown and a nation, but instead they use it for their own personal benefit and the benefit of those wealthy enough to own their stock.

I believe much like our nation’s founders must have, that we are at a tipping point in history. We the People need to remember Thomas Jefferson’s immortal words of 1776:

“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

It has been almost 250 years since these words were written, but perhaps they have never rung truer. It is incumbent upon us to remember that it is We the People that hold the true power. It is We that can change the tides of history and it is We can that can dictate the course of human events. Technologies such as blockchain provide us the weapons to use against today’s Empires. It is encouraging to see companies such as Brave, with their new browser and ImagineBC, with their app platform take the lead by making the investment in creating alternate technology that allows all of us to claim our data independence. Now it is time for We the people to rise up, say no more and join the fight.

Erik Rind is the CEO of ImagineBC and an expert in understanding the largely untapped potential that Blockchain and AI technologies bring forward in order to help secure user’s data. He has had significant exposure to writing software in the HCM space and is in the position to bring these skills to his new company.

Erik graduated from George Washington University in 1983 with a B.A. in History. Erik has over 30 years of experience in building advanced technology solutions and has been involved in the HR services industry since 1990. His professional track-record includes starting and then selling PowerPay software for $22 million and becoming President and CEO of Lyceum Business Services until 2018, when he chose to embrace his entrepreneurial side. Additionally, Erik is an advisory board member to Vertalo, Dashub, and Health Wizz.
Website – https://imaginebc.net/

The website of the Polish History Museum publishes reliable information and does not avoid complex topics such as the history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the European order after World War I, or the massacre of the Polish officers in Katyn (more on: http://polishhistory.pl/posts/). The website is intended as a trustworthy source from which anyone can learn about Polish historical events which have also impacted the world. The content is created in cooperation with eminent historians and offers a diverse selection: reviews, essays, interviews, and multimedia materials. Polish history is an online textbook for aficionados of the interesting interesting.
A community of enthusiasts

A community is created to not only share knowledge via the Internet, but also to give you the opportunity to meet others who share the same passion. Information about upcoming events is available on the portal and regularly updated. This community also offers its members a chance to exchange views and become part of a valuable group that cultivates a passion for history and is excited to understand the future by learning about the past.
Author Bio
Amy Rehan is a guest post manager at Globex Outreach. Her job is to ensure all guest post projects are completed on time and according to client’s requirements.

In most cases, the focus of data protection regulations is on data being collected, transmitted, processed, and stored via the Internet. However, this is far from the only way that organizations can collect personal data about their customers.

The US federal government periodically releases a report providing summary statistics regarding wiretapping performed by law enforcement. The US has laws limiting wiretapping, but there is a lot of wiggle room there, meaning that collected phone records can be a significant threat to individuals’ data security.

A Brief Introduction to US Wiretapping Laws

The US has laws limiting how wiretapping can be performed. This can be a significant protection to an individual’s privacy since phone records can contain a great deal of personal information. Under US wiretapping laws, recording a phone conversation using a “device” requires consent or a court order (in the case of law enforcement).

However, what it doesn’t require is consent from both parties involved. If only one party to the conversation gives consent for recording, it’s perfectly legal as long as they inform the other party of the potential that the call is recorded under US law. While certain states may have more stringent rules, it is generally possible to record a person’s telephone call without their permission. This makes it easy for organizations to record customer service or other calls as long as they have the employee’s consent (which may be a condition of employment).

Record-Setting Wiretaps

So, according to US law, law enforcement has to get a court order for performing a wiretap. This is designed to limit wiretapping to cases where there is reasonable suspicion of illegal activity and to protect the privacy of innocent citizens.

But how effective is this in actually limiting the amount of data that is collected during these sanctioned wiretapping operations? Officials are often required to release a transparency report on the number of records collected, and one wiretap from 2018 is a real doozy. A single wiretap order in the Southern District of Texas resulted in the collection of 9.2 million communications records in 2018. The matter under investigation was a narcotics case in which law enforcement monitored the communications of 149 people for four months. Apparently this group was big texters (500 messages apiece intercepted a day), so law enforcement probably knows more about their lives than they ever wanted to. However, no arrests were made for that case.

Privacy Impacts of US Wiretapping

The fact that wiretapping by law enforcement requires a court order in the US is a significant first step in protecting privacy. However, as demonstrated by the Texas case, law enforcement still collects a large amount of data. A major question still remains: what do they do with it afterwards? The privacy of any citizens caught up in a wiretap depends on the government’s security for this evidence. And, while the government needs to disclose its wiretaps, the same is not always true for the private sector. While many organizations may be required to make an announcement that “this call may be monitored or recorded for quality assurance purposes”, the legal requirements vary from place to place.
In general, only one party needs to give consent for wiretapping to be legal, so all a company may have to do in order to record and store customer service call records is to ensure that the employee consents to monitoring and recording.

This can have significant privacy implications due to the data included in many of these calls. Often, customer need to authenticate themselves during the call, providing sensitive data that the company keeps on file to verify their identity. If the call is recorded, so is all of this data, so a leak of customer service phone records can mean a significant breach of personal data. Also, many organizations use the same data for verification, so one breach can then enable attacks against accounts with other organizations.

Beyond Wiretapping: The Need for Data Security

Wiretapping legislation in the US and its implications for personal privacy are an interesting case of companies collecting and storing personal information, but US law enforcement is certainly not the only ones doing it. Every organization has its own cache of sensitive data that needs to protect. In many cases, this is personal data that is even more potentially damaging to customer privacy than recordings of their phone conversations.

Just like US law enforcement needs to properly protect the wiretapping data that they are collecting, storing, and processing, so do other organizations too. The wave of data privacy regulations in recent years demonstrate that data privacy and security has become a priority in many places, and failing to comply can carry extremely stiff penalties.

We all hope that, if our phone records are somehow caught up in a wiretap, that the collector will appropriately use, protect, and discard them. It is the responsibility of other organizations that collect sensitive data to do the same. Failing to do so means an embarrassing data breach at best and an expensive one at worst, making it a priority to deploy data security solutions capable of protecting any and all sensitive data entrusted to an organization.

It’s common knowledge that South Korea continues to harbor a long-standing animosity against Japan. Although this sweeping anti-Japanese sentiment is rooted in historical and cultural context, it has become a dysfunctional fixation, so that even their young children view Japan with antagonism, without exactly knowing why.

Korea, before it was divided into North and South, was under Japanese rule from 1910 to 1945, when World War ll ended and the East Asian peninsula gained freedom and independence. But WWll also saw the division of Korea into a US-supported South and a Soviet-supported North, and technically, the Korean War has not ended.

Although both Koreas allegedly hate Japan, it’s for different reasons. Pyongyang has this idiotic belief that Japan is covertly preparing to conquer Asia again. As for Seoul, its overriding obsession is the comfort women issue. They see Japan as the unrepentant colonizer that took advantage of their women during WWll, turning them into sexual slaves, and not giving a formal apology. Protests and publications highlight the plight of the suffering comfort women, initially within South Korea then spreading globally. The building of statues is one of the many ways that South Korea is using to raise awareness of the issue, hoping to gain the sympathy of foreign nations while simultaneously casting Japan in a negative light.

Today, there are five comfort women statues in various states in the US. Around 40 statues have been erected in South Korea, US, Australia, China, Canada, and Germany. Although Seoul keeps on harping on the Japanese government to issue an apology, Japan has as a matter of fact issued countless apologies and regrets over its collective actions during the war. From Emperor Hirohito and Emperor Akihito to the various Prime Ministers and other officials, apologies and retributions have been given. The Asian Women’s Fund in 1994 donated an estimated $45 million for the comfort women. The Kono Statement in 1993 acknowledge Japan’s wrongdoings during the war, including the putting up of comfort stations. More recently, Japan’s Prime Minister and South Korean ex-Pres. Park came to an agreement in 2015 on the comfort women, which included Japan paying $8.3 million to the 46 surviving women. The matter was supposedly irrevocable, but the new Sokor president, Moon Jae-in, did not honor the deal.

Many South Koreans and other nationalities opine that Seoul should move forward and build friendlier ties with Tokyo. It would benefit both nations economically, politically, and in the defense field. Japan has extended the olive branch to all countries it fought with in the war. But only South Korea remains steadfast in its hostility and bitterness after more than seven decades. Why is that?

One plausible reason is China’s interference. Once called the “sleeping giant,” this communist country is fully awake and eager to rule the world in all aspects. Far-left Chinese activists in California have been fanning the flames of Korean fury, inciting political, socio-civic and women’s groups into erecting comfort women statues and passing resolutions condemning the Japanese for their actions during the war. One such radical is Russell Lowe, a Chinese national who entered the US with his relatives in the 1930s using fake papers. He worked in the office of Senator Dianne Feinstein of California for 20 years, until intelligence officers uncovered him as a left pro-China spy. Although the senator terminated him and denied knowing about Lowe’s background, she and her husband, Richard Blum, have profited immensely from their business dealings with China companies.

It’s ironic that Lowe could not be prosecuted for being a political spy because he had no access to classified information, according to the senator. Yet, Feinstein has been, and still is, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee investigating the Russian interference in the latest presidential election. While working for her, Lowe was reporting to Chinese intelligence on San Francisco’s politics.

After being fired in 2013, Lowe became Secretary General of the Education for Social Justice Foundation. In its website, the ESJF states that its project is “educating the public on the Japanese military’s “comfort women” system, which forced over 200,000 girls and women from at least 13 Asian countries into sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army before and during WWII.” Lowe is also active in the Comfort Women Justice Coalition, the Chinese-American group that pushed for the creation of the comfort woman statue at Lincoln Park in San Francisco.

Why are the Chinese pushing for comfort women statues to be put up? For one, China is the country that hates Japan the most, with South Korea coming in a close second. China also has ambitions to surpass the US as the global superpower and spread its political ideology. South Korea and Japan are the top Asian allies of the united states. Creating discord between Seoul and Tokyo puts a strain on the US and may help drive South Korea to foster better ties with China.

China’s quest to be the greatest is not limited to the economy or the spread of communism. It extends to technology and the military, where Chinese spies proliferate. In IT companies and universities, computer experts, students and professors do research and send the information back to their homeland. China has no qualms about copying and producing tech hardware and software, fake designer label fashion, and popular retail products made with toxic elements. It is building up its military capabilities through training and advanced equipment. In 2016, it raised its military budget to $146 billion, making it the second largest in the world.

With China’s encouragement, there’s no end in sight soon for South Korea to stop its anti-Japanism if it helps to promote Beijing’s goal.

Marlise is a political & world events writer from the Philippines.

New York’s Oculus, the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, is one of Calatrava’s most distinguished and recognizable projects for Americans, due to its location right in the middle of the site where the two towers were brought down in the tragic event of September 2011. The Oculus is both a functional and practical addition for commuters in the city, as well as being part shopping mall. For Calatrava New York’s ever-changing skyline was always a source of inspiration and for the architect the construction of the Oculus was “an enormous privilege and responsibility to reconstruct a place that had been so cruelly  destroyed.”

The project of the Oculus, was intended to serve the public while also honoring the tragedy that occurred where it stands. He stated, “The transportation hub is a monument to life— to everyday life. A gift to people who are commuting, or who are there to buy things, or those who live in the neighborhood.” To honor the space and as an homage to 9/11 and its victims, Calatrava carefully designed a 335-foot-long skylight as a memorial to the attacks. Each year on September 11th at exactly 10:28 a.m., the time when the North Tower fell in 2001, the skylight opens letting the sun enter through the roof and projecting a beam of light on the floor of the Oculus. This is called the “Way of Light”, which according to a spokesperson of the Oculus, represents “the light that continues to shine through after the darkness of the tragedy.” A placard at the transportation hub reads “Envisioned by Santiago Calatrava to symbolize a dove released from a child’s hand, the Oculus is situated at an angle in contrast to neighboring buildings and even the entire grid of the city, thereby allowing the light to shine directly overhead and for the sun to move across its axis exactly on September 11th each  year.”

Although Calatrava may not have expected to become an architect, he honors his position and love for art, and this is definitely felt through his work. The Oculus is an emotionally charged project that has added to New York’s skyline while remembering  9/11.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…” – Thomas  Jefferson

Wednesday marks the 242^nd birthday of what Alexis de Tocqueville – a Frenchman(!) – called a “grand experiment”. While Jefferson’s words sparked a Revolutionary War that took another 2617 days to win, the result was the first nation founded on the basis of Enlightenment-era principles, rather than geography, religion, or monarchy. The idea that we are citizens of a republic rather than subjects to a crown was indeed grand, experimental, and  radical.

Yet when real crisis arises, we see what happens. As a Houstonian, I saw first-hand how people pull together to help their neighbors, without asking or caring whether their blankets are red or  blue. 

Historically, a hallmark of revolutions is that the winners “eat their own”: the various factions, once gaining power and no longer united against a common enemy, start fighting amongst themselves. There certainly was much disagreement among the Founding Fathers about the direction the new nation should take, but what made the American experiment unique was that the fighting remained rhetorical instead of violently cannibalistic. No guillotines were involved, no opponents  exiled.

Rather, a series of grand compromises – over the relationship between the federal and state governments, the separation of powers among the branches of government, large states versus smaller states, and, sadly, over slavery – led to a Constitution and a Bill of Rights that established what Lincoln famously called “a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedication to the proposition that all men are created  equal.”

Since that time, there have been ebbs and flows, lowlights and highlights, war and peace, adversity and triumph. The US became a haven for immigrants, a beacon of hope, a land of opportunity, and a “Shining City on a Hill”. As a result, we expanded “from sea to shining sea”. No nation is perfect, and we still strive today to live up to that conception in Liberty. Yet along the way, the United States became the world superpower – a distinction that rarely existed prior to the post-World War II ascension of the  US.

Economically, we still remain one of the world’s most prosperous economies by any objective metric, and even beyond the empirical data, the US exerts enormous influence on the world economy. Militarily, it’s not even close: we have the most powerful military in the history of the world, and our commitment to maintaining that superiority is  solid.

There certainly was much disagreement among the Founding Fathers about the direction the new nation should take, but what made the American experiment unique was that the fighting remained rhetorical instead of violently cannibalistic. No guillotines were involved, no opponents  exiled.

It is true that this is a time of division and scorn. Political opponents are being demonized rather than debated, reviled rather than rebutted. Neighbors are protesting neighbors, and people are denied a seat at the table. The words “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” mean different things to different people, and in this moment those differences seem to loom  large.

Yet when real crisis arises, we see what happens. As a Houstonian, I saw first-hand how people pull together to help their neighbors, without asking or caring whether their blankets are red or blue. We saw generosity beyond any expectation. We witnessed people like the Cajun Navy come to the rescue of people they’d never  met.

In difficult times, it can seem like the idea of America is falling. But time and again – from the Founding, to the Civil War, to the Greatest Generation, to the end of Jim Crow, to the fall of the Soviet empire, we have shown that when the moment changes, so can  we.

Happy Birthday, America. May the Grand Experiment  continue.

Born in the same county as Davy Crockett in East Tennessee, Dave found his way to Texas where he works in the petrochemical industry. He’s written and spoken about politics on various media outlets including Fox, ABC, and Townhall. He is a graduate of Tennessee Tech with a degree in chemical engineering. Follow Dave on Twitter:  @semperlibertas.