Dr. Wilson, you're awful hard on old Harding. Even though he had the typical GOP administration of cronies, I dont think he was that bad. I notice you left out Mr. Coolidge however, certainly a good president and probably the best of the 20th century.

Your words:

"Lots of people, especially the “religious right,” are upset because the federal judicial oligarchs have banished the Ten Commandments. They are irritated at the slight to Christianity and the Bible. But do they understand what is really at stake? I doubt if they know that disposing of the Commandments destroys the entire foundation of all law and justice and substitutes man-made “justice.” And that is its purpose."

It would also seem that that the religious right and others have simply accepted that sovereignty - which belongs to the individual states, the state being the unique cultural and traditional manifestation of the people living out their lives there and not the polity, bureaucracy and abstraction thereof - has been usurped, at least the domestic aspect of sovereignty, by the nine divines, an unelected branch of the general government which is the agent of the states and the creature of their action and not their lord. We have allowed this fundamental usurpation to put us in the position of choosing a President based in large part on whom he might appoint to be a member of the nine divines. I note that the President and the gray and faceless bureaucracy of his "office" have already usurped, quite completely, sovereignty in matters foreign.

This is an interesting subject actually. My parents are not American-born, though part of my family is very old Southern American yet ended-up abroad, and I have always thought that I am, or should be considered, too foreign to attain certain government positions. This in no way imputes my patriotism, which is solid, but it does touch on softer cultural issues, like what stories someone hears before bed or what nursery songs one first heard, or the oral traditions in one's home. People like me end in a Jamesian, trans-Atlantic world, which is fine and has many advantages - but it should also have disadvantages and consequences, like not having access to classified information either here or in Italy (insert other country). It has always sacred me a little that people like me, who have roots in more than one community, feel no sense of awe or respect for the traditions they are assuming and dismiss any opposition to their presence in certain public posts as simple bigotry. The fact is that a certain hazing or initial disapproval of foreigness is a healthy thing for a community if it eventually allows full membership to those who have proven themselves in some way. No blood yes, but show your merit first. Just showing up should not be enough.

Our current Homeland Security Chief is a dual-citizen of the US and Israel. This is a real problem and, as Mr. Wilson notes, reminds one of late imperial Rome.