• Service Merchandise
• Best Products
• Foley’s
• Circuit City
• Builder’s Square
• Goldsmith’s
• Mervyn’s
• Montgomery Ward
• Sanger-Harris
• Stripling & Cox
• Venture Stores
• TG&Y (I remember going here with my Grandmother)
• Incredible Universe
• McDuff Electronics
• Computer City
• Chess King
• KB Toys
• Just For Feet
• Tweeter
• Mott’s Five and Dime
• Woolworth (I remember going to the one in downtown Fort Worth)
• Levitz Furniture
• Tower Records
• Sound Warehouse (I got Luciano Pavarotti’s autograph at the one in OKC)
• Circus World
• Warner Brothers Studio Store
• Western Auto
• Suncoast Motion Picture Company
• Payless Cashways
• Eckerd Drug
• Kinney’s Shoes

Charged with enforcing the law, Palmer trampled the Constitution instead. With the Bolshevik Revolution stoking fears over the spread of Communism, Palmer—using the 1917 Espionage Act and 1918 Sedition Act as justification—engineered the mass-arrest of left-wing individuals, dissidents and foreigners. He detained some without charge and deported others. Though Palmer meant to combat Communism, he instead helped usher in the civil liberties movement. The ACLU was formed partly in response to the “Palmer Raids.”

Now, quick, without looking it up, what political party would you assume he and the presidential administration belonged to? I included the entire blurb, editing nothing out.

Nope, sorry – you’d probably guess wrong (I’m guessing that’s on purpose). Palmer served under Woodrow Wilson and they were both long-time Democrats. The Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition act of 1918 were passed at the urging of Woodrow Wilson.

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion….

To deliver an opinion, is the right of all men; that of constituents is a weighty and respectable opinion, which a representative ought always to rejoice to hear; and which he ought always most seriously to consider. But authoritative instructions; mandates issued, which the member is bound blindly and implicitly to obey, to vote, and to argue for, though contrary to the clearest conviction of his judgment and conscience,—these are things utterly unknown to the laws of this land, and which arise from a fundamental mistake of the whole order and tenor of our constitution.

Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament.

-Edmund Burke, 18th Century Member of the British Parliament

• They are long. They look like they must have taken a couple hours each. And there were seven!
• As a consequence, not a lot of “soundbite” answers
• No questions from preening reporters, at least not in the bland style we have today. I’m often troubled by the fact that the media seems to think that the candidate “owes” them something.
• The audience interaction with the candidates is great! The responses of the audience are noted in the transcriptions: “Cries of ‘Yes, yes’”, “he answered that already”, “Rake him down”, “he can’t do it”. They add a realism so often absent from modern debates. The interaction between the audience and the candidate is much more rich and satisfying.
• It goes to show that politics then is not that different than politics now.

Now regarding the state of Georgia and flags – there is something about their current flag that has bugged me and I wonder how many other people have noticed it. A few years ago, there was a great deal of hubbub about people trying to get rid of any U.S. state flag that featured the infamous Confederate “Stars and Bars” battle flag. You know, this one:

Now I don’t have a problem with that at all. The only place I want to see that flag is in museums or an occasional Civil War reenactment. That’s not what bugged me; it was something else. Oh and by the way, note that the flag is darn near square, not the big rectangle as it is often portrayed today.
This is where a history lesson comes in. The Confederate States of America did not only have just the one flag. They had basically four, though not all at one time. The Confederate Battle Flag, the one that caused all the controversy and pictured above, was the battle flag – the flag carried in battle; not the national flag. The Confederate States of America had official national flags that were different and apparently little known to people today.
The first one is here (remember what this one looks like):

Then they came up with this one that looks way too much like a surrender flag:

Then they realized their mistake and changed it to this one:

But by then it was basically too late. Soon after, the South surrendered and the Civil War was over.

There’s a reason for this flag history lesson, and it’s coming. But first let’s take a look at the state of Georgia’s flags after the Civil War. These were obtained from the Georgia Secretary of State’s website.
Heres 1879-1902:

1902-1906:

1906-1920:

1920-1956:

Are you noticing a pattern here? They bear a remarkable resemblance to the first Confederate national flag. This of course was intentional. Then came a new flag design from 1956-2001:

This fairly obviously depicts the Confederate battle flag. Apparently the people of Georgia had forgotten what the Confederate national flags looked like. Well, not all of them. More about that in a moment. Near the turn of the 21st century, many people started to get upset that the Georgia flag featured the Confederate battle flag and protested it. In response, the State of Georgia came up with this rather uninspiring banner which was used from 2001-2003:

And then came the big con (or it seems that way anyway). In 2003, the Georgia legislature came up with a new flag design which I’ll show you in a second. Then in 2004 a referendum was held to decide what was to be Georgia’s new flag the boring 2001 flag or the “new” 2003 flag. The flag that won was this one, and it has been Georgia’s flag to this day:

And here’s the first Confederate national flag again:

They’re practically identical! The only difference is the addition of the seal of the state of Georgia. They got rid of a flag that only featured the Confederate battle flag and replaced it with one that looks almost exactly like the original Confederate national flag! Some Georgia southerner is probablystill laughing about it to this day.

There are two lessons here:
1. The power of a symbol, in this case the Confederate battle flag. It was not even the national flag of the C.S.A. but it has somehow captured the emotions of a nation much more effectively than any of the Confederate national flags.
2. This is what happens when you don’t know your history. What’s the old saying – “Those that don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it.” This is an excellent example.

Ages of the constitutions of the United States, Germany, France, Spain & Italy:
US Constitution – Sep 17, 1787
German Constitution [Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland] – 1949
French Constitution [Constitution of the Fifth Republic – The previous constitution of the Fourth Republic being an alarming 12 years old] – October 4, 1958
Spanish Constitution [Constitución española de 1978] of 1978 (It’s younger than I am)
Italian Constitution [Costituzione della Repubblica Italiana] – 22 December 1947

The United States Constitution is older than the above four European national constitutions (I’ll even add Switzerland’s [1999]) put together and there is no serious movement to eliminate, replace or even significantly alter it. It’s that good – something to be thankful for.