The widespread sin of “presentism” poisons our understanding of such hot-button topics as slavery.

If we are to assess slavery and its abolition accurately, we must see them in their fullest historical and cultural contexts. We ought to avoid the temptation to assume that everything about slavery’s history is clear-cut and—pardon the double meaning—black and white.

Polish history is replete with heroic men and women who stood firm against tyranny. I am very proud to have met so many of them. Stefan Kisielewski will always be one of my favorites.

Dorothy Thompson’s blistering attacks on political and economic authoritarianism abroad mirrored what she often said about similar developments here in America.

Black Americans ought to love Calvin Coolidge. This article is also available here: https://tinyurl.com/2p8xtkvd.

In the 1892 presidential election, the better man narrowly lost in Montana.

Though she didn’t at first believe that Hitler would talk his way to power, she more than made up for lost time once he did.

Now and everywhere, as in the 18th Century in Britain, lovers of freedom must recognize and appreciate those who man the barricades.

We need a break from the nastiness, the polarization, the dirty business of accentuating faults in each other and claiming victimhood. We need a moral and spiritual lift.

Americans can be thankful that the cynical effort to corrupt the Court in 1937 was defeated by principled legislators like Montana’s Burton K. Wheeler.

If you are ever asked if you are “for the poor” or “for the rich,” don’t go for the bait. Life is complex. Individuals are unique. Generalities are a trap. Reject the childish thinking of collectivists.

Knowing what the right thing is and possessing the mettle to do it are two distinct traits. They aren’t always present within the same person. A person’s character is what makes all the difference.

He kept the Christmas message deep in his heart, allowing it to help him make decisions big and small. He lived Christmas 365 days of the year.

If we let our politicians get away with endless lies and deceptions, to buy votes with other people’s money, or to intimidate others into silence, the ash heap of history awaits us around the corner. George Sutherland warned us.

He saw his job as upholding the Constitution and keeping the federal government in its proper place, not weakening “the bonds of common brotherhood” by robbing Peter to pay Paul.

No climate-change denier denies that climate exists. But socialists claim that if there’s such a thing as human nature, they can abolish and reinvent it. Humans are individuals, with no two alike in every way, but socialists believe they can homogenize and collectivize us into an obedient blob.

Vermont has a long history of fostering uncommon individuals. In the 1850’s, Elisha Otis of Halifax invented and dramatically demonstrated the first fail-safe for the elevator, ushering in the age of skyscrapers within a few decades. And who can forget Jake Burton, whose ski-career-ending car accident prompted him to launch Burton Snowboards in Manchester, jump-starting a global industry?

This was the same man who declared at his modest, unembellished inauguration that “Our most dangerous tendency is to expect too much of government.” In Harding’s own voice, you can listen to several of his speeches here: https://tinyurl.com/2hf2u8xu.

I am unaware of an Objectivist food pantry, soup kitchen, orphanage, hospital or blood drive but I would welcome any one of them should one ever spring up. Meantime, I am grateful that people, often of faith, are starting and managing such worthy causes every day.

Pitt spoke truth to power, but in this instance, power did not listen.