I've been delighted to hear so many US broadcasters take a closer look at their country's founders as they celebrate 250 years since the Declaration of Independence. Yes, it was a nasty civil war that was more of a coup than anything else. Concepts like Liberty were a con. Americans just swapped remote masters in London for equally unsavourary local homegrown versions. Egality and Equality were good catch phrases but once the British were out many of those who fought the redcoats found that's all they were. Worries about the future of slavery within the British Empire were more pressing concerns for the men behind the declaration. And London's ban on settlement west of the Appalachians was an even bigger worry. Slave owner George Washington had been involved in illegally selling Indian land and unless London was taken out of the picture, he, like several other leading "Patriots" was going to jail. And it was the French who beat the British by forcing them to divert military resources to defend their far more lucrative Caribbean colonies rather than the bunch of buckskin-clad tobacco-chewing backwoods marksmen of legend. It's important to know where and what we really came from. It's fitting that Trump is president for the 250th anniversary. He's a real chip off the Founders' block.