Sousa day

Today is the birthday of one of America's greatest musicians, and one who is often overlooked when people make lists of great musicians: John Philip Sousa. I am reminded of an incident I saw on Firing Line once. Ira Glasser of the ACLU said something to the effect that conservatives like Buckley wanted to turn back the clock to the 19th century. Buckley then got up and said "I don't know what's so wrong with the nineteenth century. We produced art you could  look at, music you could listen to, we spanned the continent in mere decades, and did it all while taking less than one percent of the GDP in taxes." (Paraphrase, of course. And it has to be read in Buckley's voice.)