Funny how history is so tied together. This week I got an email from a friend of mine who lives and breathes politics; and history, too, as a matter of fact. Guy’s well read, about my age. To say that the current state of America is driving him crazy would be an understatement. Here’s part of his email, the opening part, which quotes one of the greatest and wittiest of all-time American newspaper columnists, H. L. Mencken (1880 – 1956): 'All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him ...