I’m going to guess that most of the readers here have a vague recollection of who Tony Spell is. I’ll refresh that recollection by noting that Spell was the Pentecostal pastor in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who got himself in trouble for refusing to close his church despite having been ordered to by Louisiana’s tyrannical Democrat governor, John Bel Edwards, during the latter’s COVID lockdowns. Spell ultimately won that fight, as he should have. He’s back in the news over another fight that he won this week. Specifically… Louisiana pastor beats up a man who allegedly threatened to r*pe and kill his wife and grandchildren. Pastor Tony Spell of Life Tabernacle Church says he was working on a church bus when the neighbor’s son started shouting at him. Spell said that it is his job as the natural… pic.twitter.com/v2ThlOEo3t — Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) June 24, 2026 Depending on how you’ve had this filtered to you by the mainstream media, you could well be outraged beyond measure that a man of the cloth would engage in fistic encounters with the neighbors of his church. And it is certainly an unconventional bit of ministry. That can’t be denied. You don’t have to feel guilty for being uncomfortable with the idea of ministers throwing hands on a public right-of-way. But this was Spell’s side of the story… Well, if nothing else, we can say he got his answer. There has been a problem with the family across the street from Spell’s Life Tabernacle Church for years. Here’s just a taste of that… Scott Sherwin wasn’t the man involved in Tuesday’s fisticuffs with the pastor — he’s the father of the 20-year-old who found himself madeth to lie down on the green pasture of the right-of-way. It’s fair to say that Sherwin created the situation, though — his own long-standing behavior toward Spell and his church metastasized into his son’s screaming threats and vulgarities. Which Sherwin denies. And some 1,000 members of Spell’s congregation seem pretty adamant about supporting the pastor’s allegations. It was reported several years ago that Sherwin installed cameras all along his property to surveil the church, possibly in concert with the FBI, as insane as that sounds, after Spell refused to close his church or limit attendance during the COVID lockdowns. Assumedly, it was one of those surveillance cameras that shot the video of the confrontation, which has surfaced all over the internet. But the question is, if the younger Sherwin didn’t provoke Spell, if Spell is lying about the threats and provocations, then why would he so urgently cross the road? Tony Spell isn’t a stupid man. He’s spent a good amount of time in the public eye and has generally acquitted himself well. For him to have thrown himself into this current situation, there had to be something that created that conflict. And on the video of the fight, there’s a good telltale sign, which was that the son was holding up his phone and filming Spell. You generally don’t do something like that unless you have good reason to believe you’re going to capture something interesting — like the reaction to a provocation. I don’t relate all of this as a call for Spell to escape prosecution, though, from the local reaction since his arrest, I’m going to predict that no serious charges are going to be brought against him, or if any are, the prosecutors are going to have a very tough time getting a conviction. And that’s despite the fact that the last few seconds of that video come off as… regrettable. Particularly with respect to the kick the pastor delivered to his opponent’s skull. It’s not outlandish to say that the excessive force at the end could be problematic for the preacher. What I find more interesting than the litigation of this incident is the pattern it fits into. Because Tony Spell whaling away at a radical atheist — I’m given to understand that’s the box the Sherwins fit into — isn’t happening in a vacuum. It should be understood in a wider context. Belfast, for one example. And not just Belfast. (RELATED: On Belfast) The Irish have started finding the locations of illegal migrant HMOs and are forcing them out of their houses and out of Ireland. pic.twitter.com/ykkiQCTlHg — Knights Templar International (@KnightsTempOrg) June 25, 2026 The two recent incidents in New Jersey, where anti-ICE protesters blocking roadways have found themselves moved out of those roadways by drivers of cars, are another. There are multiplying incidents caught on viral video where shoplifters, muggers, and others are jumped by store employees or intended victims. You’d see them here and there; now there’s a flood of these videos. It almost seems like civilization is manufacturing antibodies. This week, a low-budget, highly viral movie called Citizen Vigilante came out. Written and directed by Uwe Boll and starring Armie Hammer, it’s about an American landlord in Europe who decides he’s had enough of migrant rapists and street criminals in whatever city he’s in, and he leverages his military training and don’t-care-anymore Death Wish mentality to become a one-man wrecking crew against Muslims and other undesirables. It’s not quite V for Vendetta or Death Wish — it won’t measure up on that scale — but after the German government banned the film, Boll dumped it out on X, where it was immediately shared by Elon Musk on his own account, and now everybody’s watching it. It almost seems like civilization is manufacturing antibodies. Another way to see the Spell incident is that it’s an example of what it can look like when an honor culture is confronted by a victim culture. The 20-year-old provoked Spell and recorded his reaction. Spell wasn’t interested in the perception his actions would create — he crossed that road to confront the verbal aggressor, and quite justifiably so if his statement is accurate that the 20-year-old was threatening to rape and kill members of his family. Victim culture confronts honor culture and insults its honor so that it can either score points as the victim when provoking the correct reaction or humiliate the honor culture by noting its failure to respond to the provocation. This is now a very old game. But what happened on that right-of-way, whether it’s punished or not by the legal system, was what you get when the honor culture understands the game and breaks the rules anyway — because if you threaten to rape a man’s wife and grandchildren, an honorable man will punish you regardless of the consequences. We have a lot of people in this country and elsewhere in the world who don’t understand those basic precepts of civilization. There are signs that’s about to change. READ MORE from Scott McKay: Where Are the Bill Kristols and Michael Steeles on the Democrat Side Today? A Defense of Generation X As Its Moment Approaches Five Quick Things: Drones From Dreamers?

Gone is the day when elderly statesmen govern. Here is the day when eligible bachelors rule. In recent years, there has been an increase in candidates marketing themselves as “dateable.” Leaning into their attractiveness (and singleness), these politicians have ridden the social media wave to the forefront of election discourse. See John F. Kennedy’s grandson, Jack Schlossberg, who just recently lost his congressional primary race but won adoring media coverage, and Beau Bayh, fighting to be elected Indiana’s Secretary of State. Boyfriends We Deserve is a social media account that promotes and endorses attractive liberal politicians. Although self-labeled as a parody account, it’s operated by Democratic strategist Monica Venzke, whose goal is to make hot male Democrat candidates appealing to women. She told USA Today she wants to “make it sexy to be a Democrat again.” I have never checked out a single person more https://t.co/TEVIi2T4zO pic.twitter.com/L4tfL8cxuh — Boyfriends We Deserve (@BFsWeDeserve) June 25, 2026 This conversation is also front of mind after the win of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who soared to victory on the wings of marketing his hipness and youth, and as everyone expects California governor Gavin Newsom, whom Vogue called “embarrassingly handsome” earlier this year, to run for president. (RELATED: Newsom Practically Demands to Be the Democratic Candidate) Good looks and a fun social media persona trump wisdom as the criteria for a desirable politician. Many Americans now consider potential political leaders as they would options on a dating app and not as competent elected officials. X posts with hundreds of thousands of views rank the attractiveness of each congressman in a tier list. Popular Instagram reels make fun of this trend, like this video by user @ericsaymore, which mocks a generic Democratic candidate shamelessly asking for votes because “he’s YOUNG.” The comments (“the accuracy,” “Jack Schlossberg moment”) reveal people are catching on. Of course, to some degree, it has always been this way. Going as far back as 2007 — before the social media boom — a Princeton study found that “a split-second glance at two candidates’ faces is often enough to determine which one will win an election.” First impressions have always played a huge part in how humans make decisions, and beauty has always played a huge part in our first impressions. No one is going to contend that man is a perfectly rational creature. However, there is no doubt that social media has exacerbated our worst tendencies. This latest surge of young, attractive political candidates — particularly Democratic ones — leaning into their dateability is just the most recent manifestation of what Neil Postman warned us about 40 years ago: the medium is the message. As we move farther away from what Postman called “word-centered culture” to an “image-centered culture,” good looks and a fun social media persona trump wisdom as the criteria for a desirable politician. Before the digital age, Postman wrote, “Public figures were known largely by their written words … not by their looks or even their oratory. It is quite likely that most of the first fifteen presidents of the United States would not have been recognized had they passed the average citizen in the street.” Famously, JFK was elected president over Richard Nixon in 1960 after the first-ever series of televised presidential debates. Kennedy’s young, tan visage appealed to viewers much more than Nixon’s pale, sickly complexion. The Democrats were the first to capitalize on this human weakness in the electorate, and recent campaigns show they have continued to target this failing in the social media age. Now, we picture images of public figures and do not call to mind the things they have written. We are inundated with visuals of potential and actual politicians, and we spend more time watching clips of them than we do reading their policy positions — if they have even published such things. This is a problem, Postman said, because the written word reveals a person’s ability to rule far more than their physical attributes. Clavicular would not have been possible before social media — neither his ideology nor his popularity. The looksmaxxers may induce our pity, our disgust, or simply our bewilderment, but they are a symptom of a societal problem: we are way too obsessed with physical beauty. This obsession drives up anxiety rates, feeds narcissism, and could cause us to have pretty but incompetent rulers. (RELATED: The Spectacle Ep. 401: Men and Women Both Suck: The Woes of ‘Looksmaxxing’) Humans aren’t built for caring about our looks this much, nor is a republic meant to be governed solely by beauty pageant winners. Drawing upon Plato, Roger Scruton argues in Beauty: A Very Short Introduction that we must be careful to treat humans as persons and not merely bodies. True beauty is the beauty of an embodied, relational soul and not “an assemblage of body parts.” While certainly important for lovers to remember, it’s also critical for voters to keep in mind. Politics ought to be very personal. The constituent-to-representative relationship must be one where both sides listen to one another. Thus, the ethos, not the mere aesthetics, of a candidate is the thing under consideration. How can we fight this destructive worldview? First, by reducing time on social media, which encourages us to overemphasize physical beauty. Second, as a society, we must return to reading fairy tales and heeding their lessons. I know that sounds cheesy, but hear me out. The father of conservatism, Edmund Burke, argued that each person possesses a moral imagination that furnishes their worldview. This moral imagination forms our ethical sense of the world that allows us to understand events and make decisions. Russell Kirk, building upon Burke, contends that literature is the primary way that the moral imagination is shaped. Fairy tales have long been instrumental in building up a strong moral imagination — particularly in children. How many classic fairy tales teach us the lesson that apparent physical beauty is not to be valued over the quality of character? Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, and The Princess and the Frog contain this lesson. In fact, these stories instruct us that true beauty, as Scruton reminded us, is not purely external. This is a basic lesson we once knew, but apparently we need to learn it again. The best way to learn this lesson is to catechize our children with fairy tales. Hence the title of C.S. Lewis’s famous essay “Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s to be Said.” Along with fairy tales, our culture could use a heavy helping of biblical stories. Saul is described in 1 Samuel as tall, dark, and handsome. Ok, maybe not dark, but he is called tall and handsome. However, he was also proud, and a poor king. David, the least in appearance of all his brothers, is the man after God’s own heart. When we elect politicians in the mold of King Saul, we have lost the plot. Television changed politics and societal discourse forever. Social media has now done the same to an ever greater degree. If our democracy is to produce the kind of people up to the task of governing America, the people of this country must return to that ancient font of wisdom, fairy tales, and drink deeply. READ MORE: The Spectacle Ep. 401: Men and Women Both Suck: The Woes of ‘Looksmaxxing’ Newsom Practically Demands to Be the Democratic Candidate Cooper Cobbs is a 2026 Chesterton Media Fellow at New Guard Press. A rising junior at Patrick Henry College, he is the incoming student body president and will be the editor-in-chief of PHC’s student newspaper, the Herald, this fall. Follow Cooper on X at @CobbsCooper. Image licensed under Attribution 2.0 Generic.

Revolution: The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World By Eric Metaxas Skyhorse Publishing, 640 pages, $30 If you read one book about the American Revolution during the celebrations of our country’s 250th birthday, make it Eric Metaxas’s Revolution: The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World. In it, Metaxas recounts “the glorious events of [the nation’s] conception,” in a fast-paced, insightful, and original assessment of what he accurately describes as a “world-changing event.” And the brilliant and courageous men who brought about that revolution frequently looked to a providential Christian God for comfort, solace, inspiration, protection, and victory. For most of our Founders, liberty and faith were two sides of the same coin — God and man made this revolution. Metaxas shows that the American Revolution had its ideologues and its practical leaders. John Adams, Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Paine were the brightest ideologues who shone a light on British tyranny and fed the flames of liberty, while George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Henry Knox, and Benjamin Franklin, among others, waged war and diplomacy to make liberty and independence a reality. Yet, Metaxas also shows that the American Revolution was a close-run thing. The upstart colonials were taking on the world’s most powerful empire, and that empire had many loyalists in the colonies who opposed independence. General Washington waged war with an undisciplined and untested army against British regulars and a navy that ruled the seas. The odds favored Great Britain, but the revolutionary generation in America followed the inspiring words of Patrick Henry: “Give me liberty or give me death.” The colonists began this glorious crusade wanting only to enjoy the rights of British citizens, but two principal factors caused them to rebel: a stubborn, arrogant, and inflexible British elite and a long tradition of being left alone by the mother country to govern themselves, which made the colonists recoil from the king’s and parliament’s attempts to exercise greater control over their lives. Metaxas goes over familiar ground, highlighting England’s taxes on stamps, tea, and other goods; the dispatch and quartering of British troops; the denigration of the colonists’ Christian faith by British soldiers and some of their leaders; the Boston Massacre; and the so-called “Intolerable Acts.” King George III thought that such measures would crush the Massachusetts rebels, but Metaxas notes they had the opposite effect — the other colonies came to Massachusetts’ defense. England’s repression resulted in the convening of the First Continental Congress at Carpenter’s Hall in Philadelphia. The Congress opened with a prayer. “Something extraordinary was afoot,” Metaxas writes. There was a “Christian atmosphere [in] Congress — and the frank belief among most of its members that their fate lay in God’s hands.” Metaxas quotes letters and speeches among the founding generation that invoke God or Providence or the Creator. Patrick Henry implored the Virginia House of Burgesses that “an appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us.” John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail that millions of colonists “will be on their knees … before their Creator imploring … His smiles on American councils and arms.” Christian preachers joined and sometimes led the chorus for liberty and independence. England’s response was to send more troops to America, which led to the war’s beginning at Lexington Green and Concord Bridge on April 19, 1775. Metaxas writes: “If there was a clear bright line at which the Revolution we call the American Revolution began, the events at that bridge on that day were it.” It was the beginning of the evolution of a Continental Army — an army of volunteers that would seize Forts Ticonderoga and Crown Point, fight the British in Boston at places called Bunker Hill and Breed’s Hill, unsuccessfully attempt to seize Quebec, suffer defeats in Brooklyn and Manhattan, retreat to New Jersey and Pennsylvania, famously cross the Delaware and rout Hessian forces at Trenton, defeat the British at Princeton, surprise the world by its victory at Saratoga, suffer through cold and hunger at Valley Forge, move south and with the help of the French Navy win the war at Yorktown. Then there is the political side of the Revolution, with John Adams leading the way in Philadelphia, with help from Virginian Richard Henry Lee, and the compromise over slavery to win over the southern colonies for independence. The move toward independence was also aided by the sheer cruelty and brutality of British troops. Metaxas notes that by July 2, 1776, independence carried the day in Congress, and Jefferson’s Declaration, which claimed that “all men” had “unalienable rights” that came from their Creator, and was read outside Carpenter’s Hall on July 4th, wasn’t actually signed by all delegates until August 2nd. If John Adams was the political hero of the Revolution, the overall hero was Washington. The “indispensable man” of the Revolution made sure by his words and his actions that the Revolution for liberty would not be in vain. At New Windsor, New York, Washington broke up a planned coup by army officers who had not been paid by Congress, reminding them all that he had grown not only gray but nearly blind in service to his country. Then, at a dinner with his officers at Fraunces Tavern in New York City, he bid them farewell and traveled to Annapolis to resign his commission. In America, Washington demonstrated that the triumphant general in war doesn’t cling to power in peacetime. When King George heard about this, he called Washington “the greatest character of the age.” Metaxas closes this great book with the observation that the American Revolution, unlike so many other revolutions, succeeded because the founding generation of Americans lived in a culture of religious faith and virtue, even when they fell short of living up to that culture’s ideals. It is a culture, Metaxas notes, that is often scorned by today’s American elite class, which has become so secularized and anti-religious. Let us hope that when celebrating our country’s 250th birthday, we are mindful of the religious roots of our liberty. READ MORE from Francis P. Sempa: In the Iran War, Trump’s Role Model Should Be Bismarck D-Day, Just War, and Pope Leo The Serpent’s New Promise

I didn’t intend to see Supergirl. I knew it would be infantile, dark, and woke — three of my biggest kryptonite rocks — and I had a book to finish, already late due to a medical trauma. But a critic buddy called me with an extra screening pass, and I wanted to see him. Now, the reason he had a ticket for me tells you all you need to know about the box-office prospects for Supergirl, and the mentality of Hollywoke, what’s left of it. My liberal friend has a like-minded 12-year-old daughter who loved the Sam Raimi Spider-Man pictures. She took one look at the Supergirl trailer depicting a depressed, drunk, nihilistic heroine and told her dad she had no interest in it. If the moviemakers can’t lure an impressionable pre-girlboss into the theater, just imagine all the boys and young men the film will attract. (RELATED: Declawing Feminism) So, I sat there in a soon-to-be-empty seat, hoping to at least enjoy some mindless superhero action worthy of a $170-million production, based on a comic-book universe I’d loved as a kid. And I didn’t even get that. The film is dark, all right, but not just in thematic mood. It’s so underlit, it makes Night of the Living Dead look like The Wizard of Oz by comparison. When we can finally make out the first scene, we get introduced to the main character, Kara, yes, drunk and disorderly as in the trailer, partly depressed by the media celebration of her cousin, Superman. We’re supposed to understand her melancholy as a semi-pretty young white girl with (ridiculously) unrealized potential in a cruel masculine world, or worlds, since Kara is on a self-imposed exile from Earth. Thankfully, her cute super dog, Krypto, provides some badly needed energy for the audience. In no historic or believable universe would a little girl seek help to find the powerful leader of a murderous savage band in order to execute him herself, except in feminist fairyland. The unbearable darkness of being in the theater only got worse from there. Enter brutish villain, Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts), who could be a refugee from the Mad Max franchise, only less original. In fact, most of the alien characters in Supergirl would have fit in the Star Wars cantina scene, which was clever half a century ago, and is now tiresome. Krem and his colorless Brigands kill a master swordsmith — Asian because white men aren’t craftsmen — and his wife, leaving alive the young adult daughter, Ruthye, played by plain Filipina-English actress Eve Ridley. Predictably, Ruthye shows up at Kara’s bar, bearing a sword she plans to kill Krem with, never mind his hundred brigands. And that’s where and when the movie abandoned all hope of reason and tolerability. In no historic or believable universe would a little girl seek help to find the powerful leader of a murderous savage band in order to execute him herself, except in feminist fairyland. In fact, most boys wouldn’t do it, knowing their limitations against the odds. Even the brave Mexican farmers in the classic The Magnificent Seven understood they needed the titular Seven to get rid of the preying bandits, which inspired Charles Bronson’s wonderful speech to the hero-worshipping village boys: “You think I am brave because I carry a gun? Well, your fathers are much braver because they carry responsibility — for you, your brothers, your sisters, and your mothers…” DC Studios mogul James Gunn, director Craig Gillespie, and starlet-turned-novice screenwriter Ana Nogueira try to imitate the Western trappings of the Seven and the Sergio Leone films, but with no idea of what makes them work. For one thing, and most unacceptable to them, real men. If the vengeance seeker was a boy — afraid of his task but bound by family and warrior honor — the dimension and his relationship to Supergirl would have been fascinating. But that’s the difference between the talented white male writers who helped build Hollywood, and the feminist hacks destroying it. (RELATED: The Wreck of Feminist Hollywood) Kara takes on a ruffian who seized Ruthye’s sword, revealing her prowess to the girl. And demonstrating to us that all the action scenes would be quick-cut, confusing, and undistinguishable messes, with every punch, strike, or fall a CGI nightmare, depriving us of even the satisfaction of a good fight. Kara refuses to aid Ruthye until Krem shoots Krypto with a slow-acting poison dart. That’s right. The villain who decapitates people without blinking gives a dog three days to die. And he just happens to have the antidote, conveniently allowing Kara to go after him and help Ruthye in the bargain. The movie goes to hell from there, or rather, the viewer does, with no idea of pacing, storytelling, or logic. The barbaric Lobo shows up, well played by Jason Momoa, injecting a bit of welcome testosterone into the girl-power screed. In the most cringeworthy scene, Ruthye — in a jail cell with Lobo — pretends to be a frightened little girl to a monstrous Brigand guard. When he opens the cell door, she literally jumps on his back and somehow knocks him out after a long fight sequence. How? We can’t tell, since the fight beats are visually unclear and confusing. This leads to a major indecipherable CGI battle, Kara and Lobo versus the Brigands, which the comic-book “heroes” appear to be winning. Krem couldn’t care less that his men are getting routed, being more interested in chasing down and killing a little black captive girl and her parents. To our horror, Krem escapes, signifying that we must endure a lot more of the movie, including additional angst from Kara. And something we thought we’d escaped — her origin story and odyssey from Krypton to Argo to Earth, guest starring David Corenswet as Gunn’s Tom Hanks-like Superman. Finally, Kara dons the Supergirl costume and enters the last battle as a bona fide superheroine, alongside Lobo. The best thing I can say for the film is that I didn’t mock actress Milly Alcock the way many of us did Rachel Ziegler, who deserved it. But I did feel sorry for her. She’s not pretty or formidable enough to play an iconic action lead, even if better written. Gunn didn’t want to indulge the Male Gaze with a Sidney Sweeney, even though it basically popularized comic books (see Wonder Woman, Catwoman). But Alcock’s likable and sincere, and she’d grace a good, realistic female role. Hollywoke may not know how to make those anymore, but some of us do. READ MORE from Lou Aguilar: The Great American Cultural Stalemate The Left’s Trillion-Dollar Nightmare Eastwood: The Last Man Standing

And so. America awakens. Anti-American socialist zealots have now managed to get the attention of the American people through, of all things, by damaging the iconic reflecting pool that stretches out in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Fox News headlines with, “‘Deranged’ vandals fuel Mall sabotage trend, from blood writing to Reflecting Pool damage,” with the subtitle, “Razor-blade-like slashes damaged over 300 feet of the pool’s liner the same day it reopened after Trump-ordered repainting.” The story reports: FIRST ON FOX: Vandals have targeted the National Mall with multiple separate “8647” markings, a blood-written message on the Washington Monument and damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, prompting federal officials to warn of a growing trend. “Unfortunately, this summer has seen a significant increase in vandalism to the National Mall — for example, several 8647 markings, a person writing words in their own blood on the Washington Monument and the cutting of fuel lines around the Great American State Fair,” Interior Department communication director Katie Martin told Fox News Digital. The pattern emerged after President Donald Trump ordered a restoration and repainting of the reflecting pool, which was met with protestors leaving multiple “razor-blade cuts” and removing fencing to then toss in water. Got that? There is the president of the United States taking a moment from his, shall we say, “busy” job,  to make sure the nation’s capital is beautified. Pristine. And for those who have been to Washington over the decades and seen the reflecting pool close up, not to mention know its history, it is a job more than worthy of being done. (RELATED: Five Quick Things: Drones From Dreamers?) Periodically, there is a remembrance of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. The speech is quite legendary, serious American history delivered on live television in 1963. I was (ahem!) a history-loving kid at the time, and watched it on Mom and Dad’s black and white TV. In fact, Dr. King’s speech was one of the first of the newly aborning television age events to be carried by live TV. So my young self sat in front of the TV on that hot August day and watched, never forgetting the “I Have a Dream” words that captured the televised attention of the nation. And, yes, the crowds Dr. King was speaking to were easily seen crowded around the Reflecting Pool, beautiful even on black and white TV as the Pool sparkled in the sunlight. The point here is decidedly simple. History is an ongoing event — whether the history sites it marks are good, bad, or indifferent. Or, sometimes, horrendous. They are to be remembered — not trashed. A few years back, I had the opportunity to attend a conservative event in Dallas, Texas. I had some time to myself, and used it to visit one of the most horrendous, historical crime sites of my youth — the infamous Texas School Book Depository that overlooked a Dallas freeway that, on Nov. 22, 1963, had one Lee Harvey Oswald perched in a sixth floor widow with a rifle, ready to assassinate President John F. Kennedy as JFK’s open air limo passed below him. What struck the most was the diligence Dallas and federal government officials had applied to ensuring the site of the assassination was preserved to its historical exactness. Making an obvious point not to damage it. Which brings us back to the Reflecting Pool stretching out in front of the Lincoln Memorial, where, on a happier occasion, Dr. King stood looking out at the pool and crowd of thousands gathered around it to hear what became instantly recognized as a decidedly historic speech. The Pool was not disturbed that day. Everyone was concentrated on the event at hand — hearing Dr. King’s words in the middle of the tumultuous drive for civil rights for all Americans. Which brings to mind an obvious point. The Reflecting Pool that stretches out in front of Abe Lincoln’s famous memorial should be admired — not treated like a garbage dump — by protestors. No matter the cause of the protestors. Which appears to be, in this case, socialism. In the nation’s capital, it should not need to be said, there needs to be a basic, fundamental respect for American history. An appreciation for what happened at various locations, as well as a real effort to preserve them for future generations. Safe to say, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is one of those historic sites. And anyone who goes there with the intent of damaging or destroying one of those sites — no matter their political views — should pay the price. Leave the Reflecting Pool alone. READ MORE from Jeffrey Lord: Jennifer Siebel Newsom vs. Conservative Women Memo to the Atlantic League, York Revolution Baseball Team Owners Trump — and America’s — Birthday Party Image licensed under Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International.