Blessed Independence Day

After Christmas and Thanksgiving, I miss family, friends, and country most on the 4th of July--given that this is, naturally, my 3rd favorite holiday.

Similar to those two holidays, Independence Day causes me to pause and reflect and give thanks for those who have gone before and given so much that I and those I love may be free.

I am grateful to the Founders, pictured above, who laid out the principles on which rest this, the greatest of all countries, ever. I am also grateful to those who have fought to defend her and our principles--in wars past and present.

In addition to the Declaration of Independence, may I suggest that you read Calvin Coolidge's Speech on the Occasion of the One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It is brilliant.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

6 June 1944: D-Day

Signatures on the ceiling of the Eagle Pub in Cambridge, UK. The Eagle was a favorite hang-out of American Airmen stationed in Cambridge. Many of these are theirs.

Another picture of the Eagle Pub ceiling. IIRC, they would "write" their signatures using a lighter--by burning them into the ceiling. The pub owner was not impressed.

My brother, Matt, in a German bunker I believe at Pont-du-Hoc, Normandy, France. August 2007.

Matt, again, at Pont-du-Hoc. Pont-du-hoc was a middle section of cliffs splitting the two American D-Day beaches, Utah & Omaha. Army Rangers, in an amazing feat of arms, took these cliffs and took out the large enemy guns firing on our soldiers on Omaha.

Pont-du-Hoc

My brother, Matt, on Utah Beach, Normandy, France. August 2007.

American Cemetery at Omaha Beach.

American Cemetery at Omaha Beach.

IIRC, Extreme right of American position (between American & British beaches). Looking back towards Omaha Beach.

French people enjoying freedom on Omaha Beach.

Remember also the Battle of Midway.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Memorial Day 2010

As a citizen of the freest, greatest country in history, I express my gratitude for those who throughout our history, have paid the last full measure so that we, collectively, could enjoy the fruits of liberty.

Thank you also to the many men and women--among them, some of my friends--who even now defend the freedoms I hold so dear. May we, collectively, never take our liberty, or those who defend it, for granted.

Congressman Sam Johnson, Air Force vet, on what you can do (broken link) to support the troops this Memorial Day.

Via Ace, a great video of our last WWI vet. Watch & learn.

Army vet & Yale alumnus Flagg K. Youngblood (my kind of name) has a great article up at the Young America's Foundation website (also broken link) about military service. From that piece, a few interesting stats:

At last count, the Department of Veterans Affairs found 41,891,368 Americans have served in uniform during times of war since 1775.

651,030 Americans have died in battle to protect liberty at home and abroad, and an additional 539,079 Americans have died in the line of military duty.

3,447 of the United States’ bravest have been awarded the Medal of Honor, our nation’s highest tribute to military valor, since Congress authorized the decoration in 1861, per the Congressional Medal of Honor Society.

At The Corner, Pete Hegseth quotes John Stuart Mill:

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse.

Remember Jason Dunham, American, Marine, Medal of Honor recipient.

There is something worse than war; there are things more important than life.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Glenn Beck At CPAC 2010

See for yourself what all the complaints/hype was about.

I liked it.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Michael Barone On President Obama's Populism

Lots of this going around lately (populism, that is).

Why has the politics of economic redistribution had such limited success in America? One reason is that Americans, unlike Western Europeans, tend to believe that there is a connection between effort and reward and that people can work their way up economically. If people do something to earn their benefits, like paying Social Security taxes, that's fine. But giving money to those who have not in some way earned it is a no-no. Moreover, like Andrew Jackson, most Americans suspect that some of the income that is redistributed will end up in the hands not of the worthy but of the well-connected.

Last year Mr. Obama and his policy strategists seem to have assumed that the financial crisis and deep recession would make Americans look more favorably on big government programs. But it turns out that economic distress did not make us Western Europeans.

(h/t Scott L.)

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Roger Kimball On Howard Zinn & American History

Pretty accurate, I'd say.

With Howard Zinn, contemporary American academia found its court historian. Zinn, who died January 27 at 87, was like a gigantic echo chamber, accurately reproducing—and actively reinforcing—every left-wing cliché with which the academy has abetted its sense of election these past several decades. . . . Zinn's biography tells us that he was the author of "more than 20 books." But only one matters: A People's History of the United States. Published in 1980 with appropriately modest expectations—it had, I read somewhere, an initial print run of only 5,000 copies—the book went on to sell some 2 million and is still going strong. Its Amazon sales rank as of February 1, 2010, was 7. Seven. That's a number most authors would climb over broken bottles to achieve 30 days after their books were published. Here it is 30 years on.

How to explain such phenomenal success? The publisher had doubtless assayed the book's intellectual merits and proceeded accordingly. Left out of account was the presumption of its political message. The extremity and consistency of that message—that America is and always has been an evil, exploitative country—guaranteed its success among the tenured radicals to whom we have entrusted the education of our children. More to the point, this history "from the perspective of the slaughtered and mutilated" nudged out all other contenders for the prize of becoming the preferred catechism in American—that is to say, anti-American—history.

(via the WSJ, natch)

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Jonah Goldberg, Defender Of American Principles

Wednesday night I attended a debate between Jonah Goldberg and Peter Beinart at Salt Lake Community College. It was a great debate from which I came away thinking: I wish John McCain would shrug off his native populism and be a strong advocate of conservatism like Jonah Goldberg.

Probably the most impactful thing I heard from Goldberg was a point he made regarding "rights." The Bill of Rights is a negative guarantor of rights--as in, it limits what government can do to the individual. Liberals have turned rights into "positive" things. The right to health care, a job, etc.

As Goldberg pointed out, anything the government gives, it can take away. And rights that are native to the individual--inalienable, God-given--cannot be given or taken away by government.

This is classic liberalism at its best.


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Happy Belated Constitution Day

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention something about yesterday's Constitutional anniversary. I'll quote the ConSource anniversary email which in turn quoted Benjamin Franklin:

I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such....For when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an Assembly can a perfect production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does....Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best.

Freedom. Liberty. Majority rule. Rule of Law. Checks & Balances and Separation of Powers. These are the things outlined by the Constitution and are the principles in which I believe.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.