Hello! This is Darrell Castle. Today we’re going to continue our discussion of “how the rule of law in Western civilization met its demise in the west, and how that’s a terrible thing from which the United States may never recover.”

I was going to use the president’s State of the Union speech as a backdrop this week, much as I did last week with his speech announcing his new gun measures, but after listening to the speech and reading over the transcript, I just can’t do it. I can’t discuss it.

All the self glorifying pretentious preening is more than anyone can stand. The best evaluation of the speech was a tweet by David Burge who blogs under the name “Iowa Hawk.” Mr. Burge said, “Once again, a quarterback doing a touchdown dance after being tackled for a safety.”

Instead of that, we journey back in time 800 years to the signing of the Magna Carta. In June of the year 1215, which was 800 years ago last June, much of what we take for granted in our lives had its origin in that great charter of liberty, with such concepts as trial by jury, with a jury made up of people like us, not people of the king’s own choosing; the right to due process of law before any criminal or civil penalty could be imposed upon us; the right of citizens to be armed and not just the king’s men; the right of equal protection of the law, which is another way of saying, “We are all equal under the law, presidents and ordinary citizens alike.”