I Could Be Wrong.

 The law is the law. I am pretty sure almost all of us have heard that saying. We have been told that the foundation of our Republic is equal justice under the law. That just doesn’t seem to be working today. John Adams, our second President believed in that principle when he defended the British Soldiers against murder charges arising from the Boston Massacre. Here is one of the leaders of our independence movement defending the very people that he wished to leave. Why would he do that? Could it be that he believed in the principles of “Right to Counsel” and that all people are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law? Those are a couple of the grand ideals that this country was founded on. Today it seems that our courts are more like a rich mans competition than what John Adams envisioned. In today’s court a case against the soldiers would have been pleaded down and never gone to trial. Why? For the simple reason that I no longer think that the goal of our justice system is...

  Can a person have a debate with a Trumpster? From my experiences to that question the answer is “no”. For the most part I try to remember that but every once in a while I mess up and try. Whether it is on my blog or on any of the social media platforms I use I learned a long time ago to not get into arguments with a Trump supporter because they just quote the already debunked conservative talking points. In most cases they don’t even look at what I have researched and written about. In some cases, their in your face stupidity just shines through, in other cases you know you are talking to smart people that for whatever reason they don’t want to look for the truth. Those are the people I will have trouble looking at in the same way ever again.   Not that they really care what I think of them because I am sure most don’t.   Some of them were people I really kind of idolized and thought they were some of the smartest people in the room. What saddens me the most is where I ...

  Another Super Bowl and another controversy, are you surprised? What would be Monday after the Super Bowl without some made up controversy that has to dominate the air waves. This time it is a political and racial divide that has created the controversy. That, and the fact people have no sense of a history or appreciation of history is what will always amaze me. During the pregame ceremony they had a performer sing what many call the Black National Anthem . Being White I never paid attention to the fact that there was anything that was considered the Black National Anthem . Being who I am I decided to look it up. The so called Black National Anthem is actually a hymn that was first was poem written by James Weldon Johnson, chairman of the Florida Baptist Academy in Jacksonville, Florida around 1900. The poem was supposed to be written to commemorate Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. Instead it was written about the ongoing Civil Rights movement and the struggles of African Americans ...

  DeSantis wants to have a law making it illegal to camp in public parks. To some this is just another attack on the homeless. I have mixed emotions on that. I don’t like the fact that we have people sleeping in our parks because it makes me feel unsafe while in the park. The reason that I have a problem with a law like what DeSantis is suggesting - it doesn’t solve the problem of homelessness. What is being proposed is that counties would be required to ban homeless from sleeping in public places, and instead have all of them to stay in designated camps with security, sanitation and access to behavioral health services. To some this may sound great but to some this may sound scary. Putting people into camps should always sound scary to all of us. We have had camps in the past and they were disastrous. In a statement that was released by DeSantis he said “We cannot allow any city in Florida to become like San Francisco, where homeless, drugs, and crime have disseminated the quali...

  We were taking a little tour around Charleston, South Carolina before we started heading home to Florida. We were told to see Battery Park on our way out of town. I thought that Charleston was a beautiful town with a great shoreline with beautiful old homes overlooking the harbor. Battery Park was built in 1670 is a defensive seawall and promenade along the lower end of the peninsula. Large caliber guns were placed here to protect the town from the British during the War of 1812. Cannons were placed during the Civil War to protect the City from a Union assault which never happened. The whole area is beautiful and I can see why it would be a historical tourist attraction. While we were there, there appeared to be a protest going on. We had two men with a big pickup truck with a big flag pole attached to the bed of the truck. Being Charleston, South Carolina you can already imagine what the flag they were flying was. The battle flag of the Confederacy of course. Right across from t...

  My wife and I just drove up from Fort Myers to Savanna Georgia for a U.S. Sailing conference at the DeSoto. Great place and such a beautiful setting. It’s a 7 hour drive but because the Interstate was shut down by Ocala because of an accident it took us an extra hour. Because having to detour off Interstate 75 and come up through Florida we got to see a side of Florida that isn’t what the normal tourist sees. As we drove along U.S. 301 we notice a lot of businesses that were closed and all boarded up. It is easy to see where U.S 301 was at one time the major road through the area similar to U.S 231 in Georgia. The interstates changed all that but you do get a sense of history when driving what now are the “back roads”. These roads were at one time the roads that kept the nation tied together. The old U.S. Highway system connecting towns and states together. I saw areas that were at one time very prosperous are now what I would call run down and depressed. I kinda think of them as...