"The Cherokee people exercised the most basic democratic right, the right to vote," said Chad Smith, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.

How are you going to argue with an Indian Chief named Chad Smith? Besides, what better weekend to exercise this right than the first weekend in March?

When marchers gathered at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 1965, to demand voting rights, the nation was forced to acknowledge the depth and breadth of racial discrimination and bigotry that existed in the United States.

Sounds like a success story to me. I mean, an historically disenfranchised nation that has suffered discrimination and hardship on a truly epic scale should be proud they have overcome the odds. Free at last, free at last, free to embrace their heritage by exercising their rights to determine their destiny.

Before you start doing a victory dance, you might want some background information about the Constitutional Amendment they are voting on....

On this 4th of July I am remembering the words of Thomas Paine in The American Crisis, written to inspire nascent America in its darkest hours of 1776:

THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, i