Bangladesh, July 17 -- Townahll commentator Larry OConnor has mentioned on a number of occasions that the current rebellion against enforcing the nations immigration laws is reminiscent of South Carolina Senator John C. Calhouns 1832 doctrine of nullification, that a state could nullify Federal laws within its boundaries, an issue that was supposedly settled by the Civil War. The comparison has led me to contemplate how many more contemporary issues are revivals of past episodes in American history, to the point where I now regard the flow of history symbolically as a helix, that is, motion in a circle superimposed on forward motion. Certain patterns keep recurring, such as the rise and fall of empires – Babylonian, Persian, Roman, ...