The Sunday August 28 issue of The Kansas City Star, a McClatchy newspaper, devoted several pages of section A to the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. Among the stories was "The Civil War at 150: The past in the present?" by David W. Blight, a professor of history at Yale. Mr. Blight begins his essay asking: "Why can't we just get over the Civil War in America?" [I]deologically, many of the issues of 2011 are much the same as in 1861. Given the hold the tea party seems to have on the base of the Republican Party, we should take notice when some in the group invoke the Confederate constitution as a model for anti-tax, anti-centralization libertarianism. One can easily find scoundrels and wacko nut jobs in any group, including the Democrat Party and, especially, university faculty lounges. But what animates the vast majority of the Tea Party is its allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, not the Confederate one. But Blight is not satisfied; he goes on to compare his...(Read Full Post)