Review of The Man Without a Country

. . . for 56 YEARS to carry out the spiteful whimsy of some backwoods fort commander? At least Lt. Philip Nolan's court martial judges were not busy frittering away taxpayer money on solid gold toilet seats like their present day counterparts (most likely because toilets were yet to be invented in 1805, when this tale begins). So well into 1861, U.S. president after president maneuvers the American fleet so that Lt. Nolan can be kept in foreign or international waters. Lt. Nolan's crime was not being born a "Real American," otherwise known as a One Per Center. When a member of the Upper Crust fills his head with dreams of escaping the Iron Caste System of the U.S. into a new meritocracy based upon the Principles of True Democracy, Lt. Nolan tries to Carpe Diem. He's so crushed when his pipe dream turns out to be a cruel hoax that he fails to grovel sufficiently for his station, given his status as a tiny cog in the gears to which the 99% are relegated. Poor Phil's "betters" decide to spare no effort or taxpayer expense to prove such old American adages as "The nail sticking up gets hammered down the hardest" and "Ask not if the country is yours, but ask who are you to deserve the country?" Lt. Nolan's punishment lasted just 56 years, but the 21 minutes of THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY have been pounded into U.S. school kids for 78 years and counting.