In Alice in Wonderland the King said “Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”

It is often difficult to see where beginnings may lead you, so sometimes it makes more sense to begin at the end in order give the beginning some context and then going on to the end is not so hard.

So to end with, last week the Democrats held their convention to nominate for President a person that should be a convicted felon.  They did this at a convention center (named for a bank) in Philadelphia and around it the DNC saw fit to construct a four mile long, eight foot high fence.  Even though Democrats often tell us that fences won’t keep anyone out, I guess they had their reasons.

Protesters outside burned American flags while inside the convention, there were no American flags, at least not at first. There were however, plenty of  Communist flags, Palestinian Flags and North Korean flags.  And sorry Mississippi, but your state flag looks a little bit too much like a Confederate flag. It had to go.

Inside the convention center police were not allowed to wear their uniforms.  A Dallas Sheriff who was speaking at the convention requested a moment of silence in observance of their fallen officers, but it was interrupted (alas) by two people shouting “black lives matter.” The invocation at the start of the convention was met with booing.

And lastly, the DNC had the mothers of people that had been shot in altercations with police tell their stories, including the mother of Michael Brown, whose run-in with the police gave birth to the “Hands up, don’t shoot” mythology.

All of this sounds very tolerant, pro-american, and hopeful right?

It makes you want to ask:  How did a major political party in America become so anti-American and how do we go about understanding all of these examples given above?

Next time we will begin at the beginning.