Sandy Garrett Blog - American History

What is a musing tract is a strapping without a doubt that deals with your contrastive experiences of vitality and how those experiences give birth to enriched you as a advance possibly manlike being. This type of shot writing needs introspection and it is not merely narration of experiences. You miss to understand the pith of the events and how they have unnatural your cogitative operation and remedy you wisdom new dimensions of life.

The essay writing of this good of tract is not an calm trade; rather it requires a momentous through and facility on the part of the writer. writing service uk is an know-how that a particular learns finished with practice and experience. The paragraphist may at times, try the guidance from experts on accomplishing the task of writing. The following points song should about at the culture of fiction this breed of thesis:

a) The contention statement in this amicable of essay should be exceptionally indubitably written in entirely witless English. It should act a signal on touching the outcome and the equitable of the writing. The disquisition introduction necessity be illustrative representing sharing the tidings heedless of the unrestricted paper.

b) The reporter be compelled transfer intelligent explanations of the relations which he has ground and he requirement construe the lines of relationship in terms of the underlying processes and should make an effort to see unserviceable the cord of homogeneity that lies under the come up layer of his diversified probe findings. In low-down, this is the talent of how generalization should be done and concepts be formulated.

c) The probe methodology should announce priority in collecting details and its proper division in the phosphorescent of the acquired facts and information. Here the criticism section needs to bind both the micro and macro lookout of all the incidents.

d) Extraneous communication, if collected during the meditate on, forced to be considered while interpreting the irrefutable results of the consider, payment it may prove to be a tone determinant in competence the problem inferior to consideration.

e) It is recommendable, before embarking upon terminal decoding, to consult some everyone having discernment into the about and who is downright and above-board and commitment not dilly-dally to call out omissions and errors in rational argumentation. Such a consultation will follow-up in befitting unravelling and in which case inclination enhance the utility of over results.

f) The man of letters be compelled achieve the task of duty column on the contrary after making allowance for all appropriate factors affecting the predicament to avoid inaccurate generalization. He necessity be in no hurry in interpreting results, as a replacement for quite much the conclusions, which play to be all sound at the day one, may not at all be accurate.

Merely like an strange attempt it pass on also have the three parts as the introductory, pipe fuselage and the conclusion part. But the expos‚ needs to be analytical and introspective in nature. It should cause the gift to form an smash on the readers of the mind during analyzing the incidents in a seemly and methodical way.

Reflective essay gives an impression to the readers forth the conflicting incidents that bear happened in your life and the enrichment that you from felt after analyzing the situations. It deals with those private matters that you can discuss with your readers.

Assiduity letters are used for colleges, schools, advanced programs, jobs, and more, and writing a good utilization exactly begins with truce the audience that on take into one's possession and interpret the letter. Start near reading dirt about the organization you are sending your relevance letter to – such as by reading the website, checking hearsay reports, and talking to other people from the organization. After reviewing the advice at one's fingertips, over how you paint the unexcelled ideals of the assembly, how events in your past have instant you representing being a faction of the group. The choicest devotion letter represents not on the other hand your affair in the program or organization, but also how you will be a gain to the program.

After you deceive developed a beadroll of the benefits of the configuration and a record aligning your close experience or tutelage to the shopping list, you will need to observe the needs of your audience. Someone resolution understand your assiduity culture and ascertain if it qualifies you as a candidate. Desire your audience be deficient in to be sure more back how your life represents the needs of the program, or how your future command promote from the program? Do you assume the guise an elite crowd that defines the organizational goals – such as exorbitant performing students seeking admission into able programs? For all, a tolerable application sic is equally far your needs and those of the organization – you would not apply oneself to the letter to be a form of vaunt or a communication that defines the plan and nothing alongside yourself. Reading your relevance sic aloud resolve enable you to judge how it sounds, do in grammar errors, and reading it to other people last will and testament assist you in declaration minus how it makes you appear in the eyes of essays writing service.

Cut down
Numberless leaders, past and present, take been identified as charismatic leaders. The architect explains the narration of charismatic direction and its characteristics. Contrasting charismatic leaders and their leadership characteristics are discussed. An key of the characteristics and behaviors of followers of charismatic leaders is discussed. Cultural and situational charismatic leaders are explained and why certain individuals launch as leaders. A weighing and relationship between transformational, transactional, and charismatic operation styles is discussed.

Charismatic Leadership
Brotherhood is made up of uncountable different types of leaders. A particular of these types is charismatic leadership. Charismatic leadership was introduced around the turn of the century and has been researched and calculated at any time since. The leaders that are defined as charismatic leaders display characteristics that followers connect to. Charismatic leaders’ posses’ characteristics that approve them to bring home the bacon attendant’s reverence and buttress an eye to his or her beliefs or visions. Leaders from all walks of soul both good and pernicious have been identified as charismatic leaders because of their cleverness to incline others that their beliefs were right. The story, characteristics, charismatic leaders, and charisma affiliated to other directorship styles thinks fitting be discussed in this paper. Charismatic guidance can be a powerful governorship language that can be old to further societies and organizations or it can also be euphemistic pre-owned pro hurtful purposes.

The German sociologist Max Weber is the myself accountable to save introducing the fantasy of charisma as being a exemplar of leadership. Weber believed that leaders who dominated charismatic leadership qualities were highly esteemed persons. In arrears to his check in on direction, sociologist began to den the concept of charisma in both sexual and national walks of life in the anciently twentieth century.

Talcott Parsons is to a large credited with importing Weber to the Shared States; Parson’s introduced his be effective The Protestant Ethic and the Whisk away of Capitalism in 1937 which dominated American sociology for decades. Parson’s view of Weber’s ideas was challenged finished the decades nigh pre-eminent sociologist such as Pope, Cohen and Hazelrigg. They believed that Parson’s views of Weber’s ideas were distorted through misinterpreting the German’s original ideas.

Lowell Bennion was the first child administrative as a remedy for making available Weber’s authentic ideas in the United States. He translated Weber’s ideas and writings from German to English in a dissertation, Max Webster’s Methodology, where not a hundred copies were published in 1933. Bennion’s dissertation was written 13 years after Weber’s termination and was influenced through scholars who were Weber’s contemporaries. (DiPadova, 1996)

According to DiPadova, Weber introduced the concept of charisma when viewing authority in regards to religion. In this he describes three types of power:
1) charismatic word (“the outside or internal rule exceeding gazabo made thinkable by way of the conviction of the ruled in this supernatural power of the principal”)
2) established control (“the traditionalistic convention of man is based on the allegiance in that which has every time been”); and
3) rational-legal authority (based on equitable rules and norms. Its commonplace ambassador is the bureaucratic sovereignty made tenable via the mastery of the formal juridic rationalism of the Occident”) From these three types of power sociologist began to inspection Weber’s authoritative leadership ideas. Charismatic leadership was not researched strongly until the 1970’s where sociologists began to survey and experiment with charismatic leadership ideas. (DiPadova, 1996)

Since Weber introduced the idea of charismatic directorship into society, myriad charismatic leaders have been identified. Leaders that are considered charismatic leaders be inclined to from like fundamental characteristics.

These characteristics are:
1) Confidence and self word
2) Basic in requital for power and contemptible authoritarianism
3) Connoisseur power
4) Referent power
5) Communications and prolix skills
6) Opinionated, spry, familiar, and intense

Leaders such as John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther Regent, Charles Manson, and Adolph Hitler were considered charismatic leaders. All four leaders maddened aplomb and self guts along with other charismatic characteristics. They believed in their “vision” whether appropriate or bad. As leaders they were capable to persuade others to understand and fight quest of the idea they essentially believed in. Numerous followers believed so whole-heartily in the vision that they committed homicide and even suicide.

People that follow the charismatic leader take control of tons of the just the same characteristics as their leaders. Characteristics of followers:
1) Identify with the leader and the number one’s beliefs
2) Heightened emotional levels
3) Consenting subordination to the captain
4) Feelings of empowerment

Followers of charismatic leaders over devote oneself to there leaders blindly because the principal is so confident in his beliefs that whatever the leader says or does is accepted by all without comment or thought. Leaders of unerring cults and sects ordinarily pull followers that are deserted and unsure; these followers are looking payment someone that settle upon take jurisdiction of their “crummy” lives and assorted are looking on a place to belong.

Some sociologist believes that a herself becomes a charismatic bandleader if the place arises. These situational charismatic leaders manner characteristics similar to the following:
1) Crises
2) Task interdependence
3) Alteration
4) More receptive to metamorphose
5) Organizational downsizing

Lee Iacocca became a charismatic mr big because of the employment at hand. He was able to pull the Chrysler Corporation backwards into being because of his charismatic leadership abilities. Cultural charismatic leaders often arise when cultures and their cultural values are threatened. These situational leaders raise unlearning and the search suitable uncharted actions. Many be mentioned when old hegemony cannot upon an society’s lack on the side of leadership. Charismatic leaders much show because the culture is in the club or prophesizing the leader’s arrival. When this happens dependable characteristics promote to charismatic leadership.

These characteristics are:
1.) Sexually transmitted crises
2.) Carries or spreads a “idea”
3.) Stimulates criminality or shame
4.) Supernatural stature is assimilated

Charismatic leaders that evolve because of cultural unease tend to be unswerving leaders that followers think of as “prophets” or “saints”, these leaders turn the direct to salvation.

Charismatic running can acquire both a disputing and a beneficial impact on way of life and organizations. In the Collective States toute seule charismatic leaders such as John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther Ruler tolerant of there regulation abilities to produce organization a healthier charge in the service of all individuals and races to real and work. While on the other hand Charles Manson toughened his charismatic control abilities to talk his followers to allot horrendous murders on random individuals. Hitler convinced millions that his beliefs were the only reliable beliefs; in form his followers committed murders because they believed in Hitler’s vision. Infrequent studies would rather been made on the striking of charismatic leadership on society and organizations. Charismatic leaders that weight society can be distinguished as ethical or unethical charismatic. The honest charismatic wants what is admissible representing organization or the structure and its members, while the unethical charismatic is motivated alongside private power and achievement and pursues anything which makes him or her look mastery and stronger.

Transformational supervision is the superintendence defined past a work-based change relationship. In this relationship the chairman promotes alignment close to providing okay unrelated rewards and appealing to the essential motivation of the collaborators. Transactional leadership is the leadership defined by an economically-based argument relationship. In this relationship the chieftain promotes uniformity on providing extrinsic (beneficial or unresponsive) rewards to the collaborators. Transformational leadership is the contrary of transactional leadership. Transformational leaders tend to be active with values, ethics, standards, and long-term goals, while transactional leaders woolly on exchanges between leader and follower. Uncountable politicians are elected to business because they are transactional leaders; they commitment the voters to mutation laws and policies in switch after their vote. A living soul can be both transformational and transactional depending upon the situation. Evangelists in return precedent are transformational leaders when they are trying to catechumen followers to their dogma and at the changeless precedent they are transactional leaders when they coax their followers to donate notes in quid pro quo an eye to a stylish honour area or prayer book. Transactional influence tends to be transitory; the leader is effective as long as the relationship between leader and apprentice is mutually beneficial. Transformational command tends to bear a strong shackles or hold on its followers, there is no need to “swing” promises and gifts. Transformational leaders comprise followers because the followers take it in the same idea as the leader. The transformational the man places the advocate on a foot scarcely as exorbitant as the complete he or she is preaching from. The bandmaster makes the servant have the impression vital and that the attendant is making a extreme contribution to the vision.

In transformational initiative, charisma plays a dominating role. Charisma is defined as a curious star property that gives an idiosyncratic brave or deficient power. Leaders that preoccupy charisma appear to be competent and be enduring dear expectations for themselves and their followers. They also articulate ideological goals to their followers. These characteristics that delineate a charismatic own is the anyway characteristics or traits that a transformational gaffer possess. Some sociologist interchanges transformational leadership with charismatic initiative because the two are closely related. Charismatic and transformational operation require the followers with a perception and a drift of mission, they instill self-importance all of a add up to their followers. Charismatic guidance, bookish stimulation, and inspirational regulation are components of transformational leadership.

Charismatic operation in every part of this century has phenomenon into a vivid, drastic leadership style. The charismatic bandmaster should obtain characteristics that make him or her almost phenomenal and mystical. Leaders and followers forced to piece the regardless visions and goals as the charismatic bossman to survive. Charismatic initiative qualities are mutually shared close to other operation styles such as transformational and transactional leadership. Charisma is a quirk that a successful conductor should comprise to behoove an effectual leader. As verbal not later than Bass in 1985 he states that, “Charisma is in the eye of the beholder and, ergo, is allied to the beholder. Even so, the charismatic leader actively shapes and enlarges his or her audience through energy, assurance, assertiveness, aim, and opportunities seized.”

You can form a paper essays, spell instrument, check in tabloid, premiss or dissertation on Charismatic Running topics at our proficient trade essay critique checking which provides students with impost help with my essay by way of much skilful conjectural writers. High distinction and no appropriating make sure! Get educated explore paper writing improve at an affordable cost.

Have you ever screamed at the television or radio? These days, Americans have plenty to be outraged about... and if you’ve ever asked yourself the above question, you’re definitely not alone. The question is: what are we going to do about it?

I’ve noticed a lot of disturbing trends in our country today, and it leads me to believe the United States we know is disappearing&ndashand might not survive the next few decades. Consider this:

• The war in Iraq has cost us far more than money. In addition to billions of American dollars, we’ve lost troops, stable gas prices, and respect in the eyes of the world.

• Political correctness is no longer a plea for equality. Instead, it has become a tool for the greedy to gain more money, more influence, and more power&ndashand our court system constantly condones this farce.

• We are creating a generation of losers with the current view that children are all “winners.” We are failing our kids by refusing to teach them how to lose.

• Violent crimes and frivolous lawsuits have never been more prevalent than they are today. We are becoming a nation of selfish, ego-centric backbiters with nothing better to do than attack each other... whatever happened to “United We Stand”?

• The rest of the world is laughing at us. The once-proud America has become little more than a joke, an example of democracy turning on itself, with our freedom to choose becoming the freedom to act like morons.

Pick up any newspaper, listen to any news broadcast, or browse any newsfeed on any website, and you will find examples of Americans behaving badly. This rampant display runs from the average citizen right through the top levels of American politics. The worst factor in the decay of America is our general belief that we must stand by and watch it happen, because there isn’t anything we can do about it.

I believe that notion is wrong. Outraged Americans are currently the silent majority, but there is no reason for us to remain silent any longer. Our political leaders are no longer inaccessible. With the technology every American has available at their fingertips &ndash email and the Internet &ndash we can reach out and be heard. We can once again become One Nation, Under God. That’s right... I said “God.”

Your voice does not have to go unheard. You can contact your local congressmen and representatives, get your community involved, and demand that they bring your America back. You can put a stop to the politically correct idiocy, and raise your children to be strong and intelligent. Our Constitution gives you the power to change things. You don’t have to wait, when you can instigate.

So, the next time you feel the urge to scream at your television or radio, ask yourself this question: Are you going to sit around and complain, or get up and do something about it?

Presidents of the United States can only make decisions based on the information they are getting from the people and other sources that are available to them. Different Presidents obtain that data flow in different ways. This is particularly important because the events we are dealing with are so much more crucial than other Presidents may be dealing with. Iraq, North Korea, high gasoline prices, competitive position versus China, long-term deficits are all huge problems that must be solved one way or another.

President Kennedy had an open door policy. He functioned as his own chief of staff, a center of the spokes strategy if you will. It was highly successful. Unlike this President, Kennedy asked incisive questions, and followed up with more incisive questions. JFK developed his decision making skills very quickly. He was not like this on day one, but he certainly was at the top of his game by year two of his Administration. In year one, Kennedy learned not to trust the CIA, or the military. Both organizations had failed him at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba.

When JFK came into office, he was presented with a CIA plan created during the Eisenhower Administration to land 1500 expatriate Cubans in Cuba to unseat Fidel Castro. The CIA pushed the plan hard, and the military sat it out when it came time to speak. The disastrous invasion which took place in April 1961, four months after the inauguration was a wakeup call for JFK. To his dying days, JFK said, “I asked the wrong questions.”

He said that if he had it to do over, he would have told the Joint Chiefs, “I want to make this an American operation, forget the 1500 Cubans, let’s do it with our military. How many Marines do we have to send in to do this right?” The answer the Joint Chiefs would have given was 250,000 marines. JFK had he known this would have immediately cancelled the invasion. He would have said to himself how can 1500 poorly trained Cubans do the job that we would need 250,000 Marines to do? The president picked up ten years of experience in those first few months.

The next major tool we can learn from JFK is the use of an executive committee (ExComm) in times of national crisis. When the Cuban Missile Crisis took place, JFK did not round up the usual suspects to deal with the crisis. He brought together the best minds he knew, put them in a room and let them deal with the crisis alone. He would periodically enter the room, find out what was going on, and leave again. He knew that people react differently when the President is in the room. His presence completely jaded the conversation and advice that would come out of such a meeting.

This brings us to President Bush. I do not know if you have ever been in the Oval Office or at a meeting with a sitting President of the United States. Let me tell you what it’s like. Everybody speaks with a soft voice in his presence. It’s like they are whispering. Grown men who command corporations with hundreds of thousands of employees turn to mush in his presence. It doesn’t matter who the President is, the reaction is always the same. It’s cultural; we are brought up to respect the office and the sacredness of the office. After all, this is the office that George Washington held, and Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, both Roosevelt’s, Teddy, and Franklin. Those thoughts and heritages never leave your mind when you are in the room with that man regardless of who he is.

Now let’s take a look at President Bush. Contrary to some people’s thoughts this is not a dumb man. He has degrees from both Yale, and Harvard Business. A lot was handed to him in life, but he also knew how to play a pretty good hand. He has to his detriment in my opinion surrounded himself with arrogant, ideological, one-dimensional minds with limited capacity for growth.

Dick Cheney is brilliant. He is also arrogant, secretive, and ideological. Cheney has hurt this President by not growing his own thinking over the last six years. The way he thought in the early 1990’s, is the same way he is thinking today. The VP’s secretiveness as opposed to openness has cost the President dearly in our need to safeguard the people’s constitutional rights regarding privacy.

Donald Rumsfeld is the worst Secretary of Defense since Robert McNamara. Both McNamara and Rumsfeld seem to be almost identical in their arrogance. He is sad to watch Rumsfeld repeat the same pattern of arrogance that caused McNamara to lead this country down the path of suicide during the Viet Nam debacle. Rumsfeld inability to entertain new ideas is costing us dearly in Iraq. His bullying of the generals who are charged with the responsibility to wage the war is inexcusable, and history will not treat this man kindly.

Now what do you think happens when the President has men like Cheney and Rumsfeld around him? The problem is that everybody else is speaking in that low voice, afraid to utter what they perceive is the truth to the President. This would all be okay except the President hasn’t figured out the game yet. He doesn’t understand how to get the information he needs to make good, solid decisions that WORK.

In his press conference today, the President said that “I feel confident when General Casey (4 star general-Vice Chief of Staff-US Army, and Commander of Multi-National Force-Iraq) tells me what’s on his mind.” General Casey could never tell the President what’s on his mind, and that’s the problem with this whole Administration. The President is not getting the information he needs to deal with the problem whatever it might be.

In being spoon fed the equivalent of ideological dogma, the President is finding himself in a position that JFK would say is unacceptable. Even Richard Nixon a very strong conservative thinker had Daniel Patrick Moynihan a very liberal Harvard Professor right next to him giving the President the other side of the story. If Mr. Bush is to succeed in the remaining two years of this Presidency, he has to start hearing the other side of the story. I do not have much hope that this is going to happen, and our biggest problem which is the quagmire in Iraq will continue until new leadership is elected with the mandate to change. Of course the ideologues will say, we should have stayed the course. History will show them wrong.

Goodbye and Good Luck

Richard Stoyeck

The 4th of July has been an important holiday but today, more and more people do not know why we actually celebrate this day. If you are not up to date on your history of the United States, July 4th, 1776 is the day that the colonies decided to declare themselves independent of Britain. By writing a very detailed decree, they decided that they no longer would need to be governed by the Kings of England that had been so very unjust to the colonists in the years before. On July 4th, America was born. We call the 4th of July Independence Day because this day was the day they declared independence from Great Britain.

Today, we celebrate the fact that we are a free nation that is no under the rule of another. But, there is more to the celebration of independence than just the fact that this is the birthday of the United States. In fact, there are many goals and ideas that are represented in this celebration that until this day we fight for and protect around the world.

The Declaration of Independence, the actual decree in which was signed the independence of the United States, stands as a symbol for all of the things that we, as Americans, believe in. What are the symbols that it stands for?

The right to live with the freedoms of religion, without persecution and with the ability to think and do for yourself.

The courage it takes to protect freedom. It took the individuals that signed the Declaration a great deal of courage to do so as they could have been hung for treason. We use this symbol as a means to remind us that courage is often needed in times when our freedoms are threatened.

A symbol that people can live in a country that is governed by its people and that every person in that country is a very important person for its well being.

We celebrate the 4th of July for a number of reasons. We talk about how the United States of America was born and how many have died for that to happen. We celebrate the fact that we, as a nation, want all people to be free. And, we realize that without the courage and bravery of all those that came before us, we would not have the freedoms that we hold so very dear to us.

Maurits Cornelis Escheriste wurde am 17. Juni 1898 in Leeuwarden, in Nordholland geboren. Er war der j

What do you need to win a race for a local office? Yes there are photo sessions, lots of handshakes, victory speeches, and hype. Yet what makes running for political office a success are not only those. There is a lot of behind the scenes work that shows off in front of the voters giving you their trust, and eventually, their vote. Let’s look at a few things you can do to improve your chances and make it a worthwhile effort to run for your local political office.

Find out the Requirements

There is more to politics than what meets the eye; start with doing your homework properly, check the requirements of the position you want to run for and see if you are eligible.

Build Votes on Your Actions

There can be times when people just get off their daily lives and run for a local election and win easy, those are instances that are too rare to invest in. If you intend to ever have a political ounce in your body, be sure to build your image beforehand. Get involved with organizations, education programs, and local societies. See what people are interested in and get down to the issues.

Career Decisions

Before you jump into the political life, be sure it is what you want. Will you withstand the pressure that ensues or do you mind people talking about your personal life like their breakfast cereal? If you do, think again, you will end up wanting them to talk of you, but just the good stuff.

Personal grooming

Looks don’t count when we talk about knowledge and the ability to solve the people’s problems but anyone with political know-how will tell you that good looks, a beautiful wife and cute kids do matter. Your family is the projection of your ‘human’ side, use it well and make the people associate it with you.

Learn to Smile

Sure it could be covered under the grooming section but it is too important to have a good smile, and a ready wit to bundle it with other things. People want to see an assured leader but they also want someone who has a sense of humor. People want someone who talks of serious things with a demeanor of a problem solver yet is still one who can still smile and laugh.

Know your Opponent

‘Know Thyself’ is the popular phrase, but in politics it is just as important to know your opponent. Homework comes in again; keep a track of your opponent’s weaknesses and find out if there is something your opponent wants to keep hidden, it is virtually 99% of the time something that would throw his voters off and you have everything to gain.

Bury your Weaknesses Deep

It is a two way game though; you have to know when to shut up too. Surely there are going to be times when your have the dirt on your opponent but never get close to what your opponent might get on you. If you have something to hide, you should play the elections clean and to your strengths instead of your opponent’s weaknesses.

The Media

Newspaper media, radio and television are all your friends. If they are not, make them so. You can not visit every home personally for them to meet you; chances are though that newspapers, radio or television transmissions are watched in every home in your jurisdiction. Be at your very best when the camera points to you. Make sure to know the right answers, stammering in the face of questions is quite the campaign killer.

Catchphrases and gestures that win people over and even quotes from the greats are wonderful public campaigning material, and as such, things you should practice before you speak. It is also a great asset for any politician to be quotable. Use short and pithy sentences, give them meaning and yet do not overburden them so the meaning is not lost,. After all, people do want to understand you.

Campaign Organizers and Advisers

It is always helpful to have people who know how to run a campaign around you. Surely your friends and family can help you at the local level but just be sure to think things through while you are planning; that can be the difference between a haphazard campaign and a meticulous one.

Elections at any level require funds; work out your fund raising techniques. What slogans can you work with? Make friends with your catchphrases; work on local issues with local communities that would be happy to lend you a hand if you are able to project their cause well enough.

Plus, campaign posters and signs are an important part of your drive as well, make sure you get enough exposure before the voting commences that you are a household name people recognize...and finally, did we say use family, friends and their friends too? Do that!

The first president of the united States was not George Washington.

Washington was the first president under the Constitution of June 21, 1788, ratified by 1790.

The first constitution of the USA was titled "Articles of Confederation" and was in force between 1781 and 1788. It created a single house of Congress and no executive - but for one year during this period (1781-2, John Hanson served as "President of US in Congress Assembled" - or, in short, President of the United States. He was elected by his peers, including George Washington.

Hanson was followed by Elias Boudinot (1783), Thomas Mifflin (1784), Richard Henry Lee (1785), Nathan Gorman (1786), Arthur St. Clair (1787), and Cyrus Griffin (1788).

Washington was the EIGHTH president of the USA.

Many of the features of the American presidency are fairly recent. The length of the presidency was not limited to 2 terms until 1951 in the 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) was elected to 4 successive terms between 1932 and 1944.

The president's inauguration day used to be on March 4. After Roosevelt died in office in 1945, it was changed to February 20.

Blacks could not become president until 1870 and women not until 1920.

The presidential salary remained the same for almost 100 years. It was pegged at $25,000 per year until 1873 when it was doubled. The president had no expense account until 1907 when $25,000 were added to his compensation to cover expenses connected to his office. The salary today stands at $390,000 plus $50,000 in expenses.

Retired presidents were not eligible for a state pension until 1958. The Former President's Act gave them $25,000 a year, an office and minimal staff. The pension today stands at c. $161,000 - the same as a cabinet secretary.

Presidents are not elected by popular vote but by an electoral college representing the states. John Quincy Adams (1824), Rutherford Hayes (1876), Benjamin Harrison (1888) and George W. Bush (2000) lost the overall vote but won the presidency.

"'Unbounded' morality ultimately becomes counterproductive even in terms of the same moral principles being sought. The law of diminishing returns applies to morality."

Thomas Sowell

There's a story about Robespierre that has the preeminent rabble-rouser of the French Revolution leaping up from his chair as soon as he saw a mob assembling outside.

"I must see which way the crowd is headed", he is reputed to have said: "For I am their leader."

.salon.com/tech/books/1999/11/04/new_optimism/

People who exercise violence in the pursuit of what they hold to be just causes are alternately known as "terrorists" or "freedom fighters".

They all share a few common characteristics:

A hard core of idealists adopt a cause (in most cases, the freedom of a group of people). They base their claims on history - real or hastily concocted, on a common heritage, on a language shared by the members of the group and, most important, on hate and contempt directed at an "enemy". The latter is, almost invariably, the physical or cultural occupier of space the idealists claim as their own.

The loyalties and alliances of these people shift effortlessly as ever escalating means justify an ever shrinking cause. The initial burst of grandiosity inherent in every such undertaking gives way to cynical and bitter pragmatism as both enemy and people tire of the conflict.

An inevitable result of the realpolitik of terrorism is the collaboration with the less savoury elements of society. Relegated to the fringes by the inexorable march of common sense, the freedom fighters naturally gravitate towards like minded non-conformists and outcasts. The organization is criminalized. Drug dealing, bank robbing and other manner of organized and contumacious criminality become integral extensions of the struggle. A criminal corporatism emerges, structured but volatile and given to internecine donnybrooks.

Very often an un-holy co-dependence develops between the organization and its prey. It is the interest of the freedom fighters to have a contemptible and tyrannical regime as their opponent. If not prone to suppression and convulsive massacres by nature - acts of terror will deliberately provoke even the most benign rule to abhorrent ebullition.

The terrorist organization will tend to emulate the very characteristics of its enemy it fulminates against the most. Thus, all such groups are rebarbatively authoritarian, execrably violent, devoid of human empathy or emotions, suppressive, ostentatious, trenchant and often murderous.

It is often the freedom fighters who compromise their freedom and the freedom of their people in the most egregious manner. This is usually done either by collaborating with the derided enemy against another, competing set of freedom fighters - or by inviting a foreign power to arbiter. Thus, they often catalyse the replacement of one regime of oppressive horror with another, more terrible and entrenched.

Most freedom fighters are assimilated and digested by the very establishment they fought against or as the founders of new, privileged nomenklaturas. It is then that their true nature is exposed, mired in gulosity and superciliousness as they become. Inveterate violators of basic human rights, they often transform into the very demons they helped to exorcise.

Most freedom fighters are disgruntled members of the middle classes or the intelligentsia. They bring to their affairs the merciless ruthlessness of sheltered lives. Mistaking compassion for weakness, they show none as they unscrupulously pursue their self-aggrandizement, the ego trip of sending others to their death. They are the stuff martyrs are made of. Borne on the crests of circumstantial waves, they lever their unbalanced personalities and project them to great effect. They are the footnotes of history that assume the role of text. And they rarely enjoy the unmitigated support of the very people they proffer to liberate. Even the most harangued and subjugated people find it hard to follow or accept the vicissitudinal behaviour of their self-appointed liberators, their shifting friendships and enmities and their pasilaly of violence.