THE NATURE OF THIS GOVERNMENT

I found this at American Thinker. These things that President Trump doesn't do strike me as profoundly different from just about every President prior to him in the last 100 years. Most of them veered along the lines of the imperial presidency and one of them darted to the humble john corner for his brief tenure of unbearable shame. In fact, President Trump comes closest to President Eisenhower for his approach to the presidency which doesn't come as much of a surprise. Ike wasn't a politician either.

To demonstrate this fact, I will provide examples of what Trump has not done and what King Barack H. Obama and King George W. Bush did.  Here is a list:

1.  Trump does not invite singers and performers to the White House to sing and perform for him and his family, while Obama and Bush did.  They sat like kings and used our tax money to be entertained.
2.  Trump does not go to Kennedy Center honors or Mark Twain prize ceremonies to sit in a special place and be watched by the crowd as a king.
3.  Trump does not perform at the White House Correspondents' dinner as the chief of the country.  He does not care about entertaining the media and being praised by them.
4.  Trump calls media as they are (biased and unprofessional) without violating their rights.  He does not need them to praise him as King Obama and King Bush did.  All dictators love to be praised.
5.  Trump does not care about the elite's expectations. Trump is focused on results and delivering his promises.  He does not keep people in office who do not deliver.
6.  Against all leftists' propaganda, Trump has not gained any personal benefit from being in power.  All reports show that his business is not as good as before 2016.
7.  Trump did not bow to the king of Saudi Arabia as Obama did.  He did not praise Putin as Bush did.  He did not try to normalize a relationship with Cuban dictators and did not write personal nice letters to the dictator of Iran, as Obama did.
8.  Trump is not writing fat checks to people who chant "death to America" (like Hamas).
9.  Trump did not need any praise from Europeans and pushed them to pay their fair share in NATO.
10. Trump did not budge to socialists, Islamists, and fascists, while both Obama and Bush were lenient toward them.  Their failures were effective in giving a boost to those groups. 

The reasons Trump does not do these things are less important than the not doing them itself.  Trump, whatever he is, is the elected leader of American people and has behaved as an elected leader. 

Nobody is perfect. Democratically elected leaders are supposed to be average — average government by average people.  Our founding fathers never wanted (fake) philosopher-kings as our leaders.

Sitting here today and mulling things like this over I was struck by the first article of the day. One of the things people nowadays are talking about is the vestiges of slavery. I would argue that it isn't so vestigial in places like Africa or the middle east. Thanks to Hillary and Obama, arab slave markets opened again in Libya and openly trade in African slaves. The thing is though, there has been no slavery in America for way more than a hundred years and the nation convulsed and tore apart fighting for and against it. The losers lost. The only slaves in this country are covert slaves kept by pimps and various muslim dignitaries who bring their slaves with them when they come here to visit or work.

Which gets me to wonder about the men who were sent by the various colonies to the Constitutional Convention over 200 years ago and who labored long and hard and communicated their thinking on the nature and the type of government they meant to form in well thought out and reasoned discussion not only amongst themselves but with the citizens of the new nation. Today these discussions are called the Federalist Papers and oddly enough, The Anti-Federalist Papers. 

I doubt one in a hundred Americans have even heard of them and fewer than one in a thousand have read them. The Federalist Papers are the keystone supporting the Constitution and define what each Article and Clause was meant to accomplish. Both are available online and you can, of course, buy them from Amazon or practically anywhere. I bought my last copy at the little shop under the Jefferson Memorial.

Thomas Jefferson Memorial Inscriptions:

Rotunda 

"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." 

Southwest Portico 

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men. We...solemnly publish and declare, that these colonies are and of a right ought to be free and independent states...and for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour."
-Excerpted from the Declaration of Independence, 1776. 

Northwest Portico 

"Almighty God hath created the mind free. All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens...are a departure from the plan of the holy Author of our religion...No man shall be compelled to frequent or support religious worship or ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion. I know but one code of morality for men whether acting singly or collectively."
-Excerpted from A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, drafted in 1777. First introduced in the Virginia General Assembly in 1779, after he had become Governor. Passed by the Virginia Assembly in 1786, while Jefferson was serving as Minister to France. The last sentence is excerpted from a letter to James Madison, August 28, 1789, as he was returning to America to assume his position as Secretary of State. 

Northeast Portico 

"God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever. Commerce between master and slave is despotism. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Establish the law for educating the common people. This it is the business of the state to effect and on a general plan."
-Excerpted from multiple sources: "A Summary View of the Rights of British America," "Notes on the State of Virginia," "The Autobiography," letter to George Wythe (1790), letter to George Washington (1786). 

Southeast Portico: 

"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as a civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."

The men that gathered in Philadelphia were of similar mind, education and background. I shudder to think what a modern Constitutional Convention would look or sound like and I suspect most of what it put out to the people would be lies and damned near unreadable.

It strikes me that we have been letting down our side on the religious, education and tyranny fronts. We don't even teach this sort of thing anymore.