During an interview with the Christian Broadcast Network last month, the Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain was asked whether he was ready to answer questions on international affairs.

In June 1964, in a conversation with the Greek ambassador to Washington, President Lyndon Johnson gave free rein to his views on Greek sovereignty. “Fuck your Parliament and your Constitution…. We pay a lot of good American dollars to the Greeks, Mr. Ambassador. If your prime minister gives me talk about democracy, Parliament and Constitution, he, his Parliament and his Constitution may not last very long.”

On the night of 28 October, more than 100 Tennessee highway patrolmen made their way down the steps of Nashville's war memorial in single file. Above them, embossed in stone, a quote from President Woodrow Wilson: "America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured." Below them, in the plaza, supporters of Occupy Nashville, who believe too much treasure is concentrated in too few hands, corrupting the principles on which their nation was founded.