Editor’s note: This column was published March 2, 2023, in the Pine Belt News of Hattiesburg, Miss., and is republished here with slight edits to fit the remembrance of Jimmy Carter. In Jimmy Carter’s boyhood autobiography, An Hour Before…
Rule No. 1
Rule No. 1 in Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny is “Do not obey in advance.” The subtitle of the Yale historian’s handbook on dictatorship is, “Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.” And they are as relevant today as they were in…
Looking for America
Here it is, five weeks since the election, and I’m still looking for America. The new administration isn’t shaping up like any America I recognize. Principles of governance thousands of American soldiers fought and died for have been set aside…
This year, I’m a single-issue voter
I used to think single-issue voters were totally off-base. I mean, everything’s connected. Political issues never stand alone. The solution to whatever problem motivates the single-issue voter will always affect other problems and other citizens. A good example is an…
Running an operation
It’s not a political campaign the Republican Party is running; it’s an operation, a plan to put their candidate into office regardless of the vote. At least that’s what it looks like to me. The clues are many. As one…
Dissent and resistance
In my last column, I held up as a worthy example for us all, a textile worker in a small North Carolina town — the one in the floral shirt and white scarf, who chose to follow the urging of…
Be No. 2
I’m no movie buff, but there is this list of films in my head that I return to from time to time. One of them is African Queen (Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn, 1951). I saw it at Fair Park…
Authentic patriotism
Recently, my wife and I were glued to the TV, watching the return of the three U.S. citizens who had been falsely imprisoned in Russia. The hour was late, but we couldn’t pull ourselves away. It was a truly rare…
Our most basic freedom — deciding one’s own religion
My most recent column was on Christian nationalism and the threat that movement poses to religious freedom. Some would say that is our most basic freedom — to make our own way through the thicket of religions that clamor for…