Thoughts: American History Revised:Wartime

Source: American History Revised  by Seymour Morris Jr. Copyright 2012

The most interesting parts of history, I think, are the little known parts that we don't get in school.

• The cement used to make Hoover Dam took 20 months to set.
• FDR's grandfather Delano was a giant in the China opium trade.
• America is a Constitutional Republic, not a democracy. A democracy is a rule by the masses, where majorities exercise power without accounting for the interests of the minority wishes, not a balanced distribution of power, but rather a "mob" run society.
• The cost of the Civil War turned out to be about 3 times the cost of paying Southerners for their slave's freedom, yet at the time the $2 Billion cost for slaves freedom was considered too high and yet it would have been cheaper in so many ways--lives, money, etc.
• Calvin Coolidge was asked for more planes for the Army Signal Corps to use. His response, "Why can't they buy just one airplane and take turns flying it?"
• Karl Marx thought the US should have annexed all of Mexico.
• Washington's army at Valley Forge was starving, not because there was no food, but because the farmers could get more money from the British in Philadelphia.
• The fatality rate for white Confederacy soldiers was 25%.
• The Confederacy had to use urine to make nitrate which was used to make gunpowder because of being short of chemicals to make gunpowder. Confederate women would even save their urine to be picked up by wagons.
• Before battle, the troops were told to use the "facilities" since getting hit in the gut would be worse if excrement was present.
• 75% of all white families in the South owned NO slaves.

Query: How does the Anti-Terrorism Act impact us?

During the time we were hearing so much about Osama Bin Laden, President Bill Clinton passed into law the Anti-Terrorism Act. This Act defines as illegal and worthy of punishment any actions that "appear to be intended toward violence or activities which could intimidate or coerce a civilian population; or to influence the policy of a government."

I have been thinking about what that could mean. Would that mean that some of the activities we have been hearing about in the news, would fall under the Act? Black Lives Matter, for example, might be considered to be "intended toward violence or activities which could intimidate or coerce a civilian population". Also, included may be those who are upset about the new North Carolina law concerning LGBT people. I'm sure if any of us think just a little, we could come up with instances that could fall under the purview of this Act. It also concerns me that the Act could be used to take away whatever is left of our Constitutional rights by labeling something as Terrorism.

What do you think? What might be the implications?If I don't see everything your way, could you accuse me of being a terrorist? Could groups of people, intent on protesting whatever, be considered terrorists? Could this be interpreted to mean that a person with an unpopular opinion be seen as trying to influence the policy of government? Lots of questions here, people and some of the answers are downright frightening.