To "bear arms" is, in itself, a military term. One does not bear arms against a rabbit.

Leadership - mobilization toward a common goal.

Religion embarrasses the commentators. It is offbounds. An editor of the old Life magazine once assigned me a book on religion with remark that I was the only 'religious nut' - his term for a believer - in his stable of regular reviewers.

There is a particular danger with a war that God commands. What if God should lose?

If a nation wishes, it can have both free elections and slavery.

Term limits mean that you don't trust the voters. 'Stop me before I vote again.'

Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) moved from a legitimate to a charismatic role, reversing the course followed by Washington. Yet therewere surface similarities in their careers. Both led military rebellions against English monarchs--Cromwell against Charles I, Washington against George III. Each took local militia--the "train bands" of Cromwell, the colonial levies of Washington--and forged professional armies on a national scale. Each infused a new ethos in his troops--a religious spirit in Cromwell's case, a post-colonial American identity in Washington's.