The Dougout

Captain Harry Butcher served as General Eisenhower's naval aide from July 1942 until the war's end. He also served for a period in SHAEF's public relations department. In 1946 Butcher published My Three Years with Eisenhower. The book is made up of Butcher's official military diary during the entire period. Although quite long at nearly 900 pages it provides fascinating insights into Eisenhower's strategy.

The book also provides many interesting asides and tidbits, such as this one of December 10, 1942:

[Robert] Murphy and [Julius] Holmes had been sent by Ike to perk up [French Admiral Francois] Darlen on his liberalization of Nazi-inspired decrees in the form of a new ordinance, which is supposedly being rewritten. Darlen had shown Murphy and Holmes a letter from a rabbi in Constantine, urging that reform of the hard and unjust laws against the Jews in Africa be modified slowly. If done too rapidly, the rabbi reared reprisals against Jews by Arabs. Ike had heard from London that it would be helpful to have the revised ordinance there before the secret debate re Darlen comes up in the Commons Thursday ... What tickled me was the shuttling between the two groups: in one we were liberating the Jews, at least as far as the Moslems would permit; in the other, General Patton was figuratively racing through Spanish Morocco like a gay caballero on the back of a tank. [Page, 219-20]

It appears that the Arabs supported the Nazi inspired laws aimed at oppressing the Jews of North Africa. I wonder how the usual apologists will blame this on Israel.

Guest Commentary by Edward Cline:

This is an adaptation of an address I will make at the Richmond, Virginia Tea Party on July 25, 2009:

First, some background. On December 16, 1773, Bostonians and other locals roughly dressed as Mohawk Indians, boarded three American merchant vessels in the harbor, the Dartmouth, the Eleanor and the Beaver recently arrived from Britain with 342 chests of tea, and tossed the chests into the harbor. The tea nominally belonged to colonial American consignees, by appointment by the British East India Company (two of them sons of the royal governor, Thomas Hutchinson). The Tea Act of 1773 replaced the repealed Townshend Act duties on other commodities, and gave the East India Company a legal monopoly to hire other merchantmen to take the tea to North America.

The three-pence per pound tax remained on the tea. This tea would have been cheaper than the Dutch tea being smuggled into the colonies, even with the tax, which the colonial American consignees were obliged to pay. Sam Adams and the Sons of Liberty put pressure on the consignees to not pay the tax and order the tea back to Britain. Hutchinson, however, persuaded the consignees to stand firm. (His salary was derived from import duties and other taxes.) The customs officer refused to allow the vessels to leave the harbor without paying the duty.

The impasse had to be resolved, one way or another. The Crown or the patriots would need to give in. The Crown’s position was the status quo, and inaction. So the Americans took action, the only action open to them if they were to remain loyal to their convictions: they destroyed the tea as a demonstration that they would not pay the tax or submit to arbitrary Crown authority.

Lord North, prime minister, after receiving news of the Boston Tea Party and the actions of Americans in New York and Philadelphia, was faced with a dilemma linked to that authority: Use it, or lose it. He chose to use it, against the advice of some of his subministers, but in timid concordance with the outrage expressed in Parliament. He endorsed the Coercive Acts; that is, he agreed that reason must be answered with force. Of what use was power, if it were not exercised?

Why did the Americans decide to trespass on the three vessels and destroy their tea cargos when not only would they not have to pay the tax, but have cheaper tea, even when its retail price would have reflected a small percentage of the tax? Was it a matter, as some historians claim, of the legal, taxed tea underselling the illegal, smuggled tea? Did the patriots act on emotion, or on principle? Did they know, as apparently Lord North did not, that such an action would set in motion a course of events that would lead to war and independence?

Because the consignees were American, and because none of the colonies was represented in Parliament, it was a matter of taxation without representation. However, it was more than a matter of political principle. It was the application of a moral principle. If the colonists sanctioned the tea tax by paying it, it would be an acknowledgement that the Crown had a right to tax them on any commodity or service. The tea was merely a symbol. It could just as well have been any other commodity formerly covered by the repealed Townshend duties: glass, nails, or paint. The colonists did not grant that sanction over their lives. If they recognized the Crown’s authority to tax them, the wisest among the colonists pointed out, that authority could just as well in time be extended over every particular of their lives.

The original Tea Party was a revolt against the power of government to regulate one’s life and dictate how it would be conducted and at what price. It was an affirmation by the colonists that they owned their own lives, and retained the right to delegate necessary political power to their elected representatives. It was an affirmation of the moral principle that no government had a right to dispose of or expropriate one’s property, and, by implication, one’s life. All political principles -- good or bad, pro-freedom, or socialist, or fascist -- are grounded on specific moral principles.

One ostensive difference between the original Tea Party and the Tea Parties of 2009 is that while the Americans who took part in the original Tea Party disguised themselves as Indians to prevent identification by the authorities, we, the new Sons of Liberty, do not disguise ourselves to protect our identities. We dare any authority to take action against us for exercising our First Amendment right to free speech, which includes criticizing our government and accusing it of behaving like George III and Parliament.

The Crown’s response to the Boston Tea Party was to legislate the Coercive or Intolerable Acts as punishment. Today, the current administration, in partnership with Congress, has passed, and continues to pass, a Medusa’s head of acts vastly more extortionate and repressive than the original Coercive Acts, and the Tea Parties have been a response to them.

It is time for Americans to understand that it is not merely a political fight they have on their hands, but a moral one. They must reject the moral code that asks them to live for the sake of other men -- what else could TARP, or the takeover of General Motors, or of the tobacco industry, or of the energy industry, of the insurance industry, or of the health care business mean, but for you to sacrifice your right to your life and your money and property for the sake of others -- and proudly, loudly proclaim the selfish virtue of individual rights, which has been the source of all the wealth and prosperity that we enjoy but which Obama and Congress seek to destroy through socialist redistribution.

Americans must understand that what Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence applies no less today than it did in July of 1776. To paraphrase his eternal words: When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object -- which is complete control of the economy and our lives -- evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is our right to throw off such government -- or to vote its agents out of office, or to raise such a protest that they dare not act lest they set in motion a similar train of events.

To further paraphrase Jefferson’s words: A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the president of a free people. Our princely president has repeatedly demonstrated that he is unfit for the office.

Let us not treat this day, or any future Tea Party or any other kind of protest, as just another tea party. Let us solemnly regard it as a chance and a first step to finish the American Revolution, to protest the omnivorous and indiscriminate appetite of federal power to consume everything in its path, to assert the right to our lives and property and futures, to work on a course of action that will ultimately correct the errors present in the Constitution and repeal its freedom-destroying amendments. Americans must act to finish the American Revolution -- before Obama and Congress finish this country.

Disgraced ex-judge Alcee Hastings can hardly wait to throw his political opponents into concentration camps. As the Washington Examiner reports:

Rep. Alcee Hastings - the impeached Florida judge Nancy Pelosi tried to install as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee until her own party members rebelled - introduced an amendment to the defense authorization bill that gives Attorney General Eric Holder sole discretion to label groups that oppose government policy on guns, abortion, immigration, states' rights, or a host of other issues. In a June 25 speech on the House floor, Rep. Trent Franks, R-AZ, blasted the idea: "This sounds an alarm for many of us because of the recent shocking and offensive report released by the Department of Homeland Security which labeled, arguably, a majority of Americans as 'extremists.'"

Another Hastings bill (HR 645) authorizes $360 million in 2009 and 2010 to set up "not fewer than six national emergency centers on military installations" capable of housing "a large number of individuals affected by an emergency or major disaster." But Section 2 (b) 4 allows the Secretary of Homeland Security to use the camps "to meet other appropriate needs" - none of which are specified. This is the kind of blank check that Congress should never, ever sign.

I wonder if Hastings plans on transporting his victims in boxcars, with a shower at the end of the trip. This could be why the Democrats can hardly wait to empty Gitmo. Progressives are master of projection. They spent eight years attacking Republicans for the Patriot Act. They spent eight years attacking George W. Bush for allegedly planning to gut the Bill of Rights. And when the Democrats get into power they set out to do everything they accused the Republicans of. H.R. 645 is the fruit of Hate Crime legislation that has wide support on the left. Everyone they hate will now be declared a "domestic terrorist."

Update: Yes, very evil. The anonymous reporter Zombie provides this expose on what passes for science in the Obama Era:

"Forced abortions. Mass sterilization. A "Planetary Regime" with the power of life and death over American citizens.

The tyrannical fantasies of a madman? Or merely the opinions of the person now in control of science policy in the United States? Or both?

These ideas (among many other equally horrifying recommendations) were put forth by John Holdren, whom Barack Obama has recently appointed Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and Co-Chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology -- informally known as the United States' Science Czar. In a book Holdren co-authored in 1977, the man now firmly in control of science policy in this country wrote that:

• Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not;
• The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation's drinking water or in food;
• Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise;
• People who "contribute to social deterioration" (i.e. undesirables) "can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility" -- in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.
• A transnational "Planetary Regime" should assume control of the global economy and also dictate the most intimate details of Americans' lives -- using an armed international police force."

Here is just one quote from Holdren's Mein Kampf:

If some individuals contribute to general social deterioration by overproducing children, and if the need is compelling, they can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility—just as they can be required to exercise responsibility in their resource-consumption patterns—providing they are not denied equal protection.

Just another reminder that the eugenics movement of the twentieth century was a respectable Progressive cause; just as today, it's a respectable environmentalist cause. The above quote should be read with the so-called Cap and Trade bill in mind. The book in question is titled: Ecoscience. Its call number is: HB871 .E35 1977. The K-State university library has a copy, but it is checked out. I'll be checking it out next.

Guest Commentary by Edward Cline:

To grasp the scope of the national debt Obama (and his Republican predecessor) has been ringing up, a comparison should help illustrate the task. Bernard Madoff’s robbery and defrauding investors of some $50 billion can be represented by the diameter of the solar system. The federal government, using the same scamming tactics, is amassing a debt about the diameter of the Milky Way galaxy. Madoff’s scheme can be measured in millions of miles. The federal government’s, in almost limitless parsecs. That measurement ought to suffice to dramatize the scale of the hole he is deliberately digging for the country in his role as Community-Organizer-in-Chief.

Since it is only productive work -- whether in a factory making widgets, or in a research lab creating new medicines or computer software -- that gives the dollar bill its value, Obama’s galactic debt will be expected to be funded from taxes paid from the productive, private sector. I make that distinction because the government is non-productive; it produces nothing, not even the paper its one hundred thousand commandments are printed on, not even the pens with which presidents sign legislation into law. That growing, astronomical debt, however, will serve to shrink the productive sector and make it less productive in exponential leaps and bounds -- off a cliff. It must inexorably reach a point that the productive sector can no longer sustain the debt it is expected to pay. Then we will have reached the economic status of, say, Zimbabwe.

The sentencing of Madoff to 150 years in prison for his crime elicited an outpouring of sanctimonious news coverage, complete with quotations from angry victims of his scheme and a sated passion for justice. Of course, Madoff deserved his sentence. Given his age, 71, perhaps he will serve just ten of it before dying in prison.

What clashes with the news media coverage of Madoff’s trial, conviction and sentencing for his crime is the studied obtuseness of the news media for the same crime being committed by the government. Madoff, you see, was “greedy” or “avaricious,” and that, according to the morality of altruism and selflessness, is immoral and antisocial. The government, however, is committing the same crime, but that is in order to “do good.” So its orgy of debt-creation, its extortionate policies of roping all Americans into a “dog-eat-dog” welfare state, and its targeting the most productive and the wealthiest in society for special punishment, are all acceptable and laudable.

Even though the news media has knowledge of this multi-trillion dollar scam, that knowledge elicits not an iota of outrage among the photogenic news anchors and highly paid print pundits. No respectable TV or print journalist even thinks of the scam in terms of a continuing and expanding bilking of Americans from their wealth, investments and taxes. (Except, perhaps, John Stossel of ABC, whose “20/20” report on the cost and dishonesty of the proposed socialist health care program was conveniently cancelled and replaced with a special on the life and death of Michael Jackson -- as though we weren‘t already gagging on the nonstop adulatory and scandal sheet coverage of this very disturbed person.)

"There is no plea agreement,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Marc Litt said at the hearing, meaning Madoff must plead guilty to 11 counts that he now faces in a criminal information filed today. Madoff is charged with securities fraud, investment advisor fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, false statements, perjury, false filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and theft from an employee benefit plan, Litt said.

No one is calling for the indictments of Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, Christopher Dodd, Henry Waxman, and all the usual suspects in Congress and the White House, even though they are all parties to the same crime. Examine the definitions of each of the counts with which Madoff was charged and convicted of, and ask how the actions of the co-conspirators differ any from what Madoff was found guilty of. One fundamental difference between Madoff’s crime and the federal government’s is that Madoff did not employ direct, legalized force to take his victims’ money. Another is that it was not in Madoff’s agenda to make his victims dependent on his benefice. In court, when he faced his victims, he (rather belatedly) apologized to them, and did not say, “But I did it for your sakes.”

The U.S. government gets funds in three ways. It can look for increased revenues (through higher taxes). It can look to cut expenses (through lower spending). Or it can borrow by issuing new Treasury bonds. Replacing old bonds with new bonds is called “rolling over the debt,” and is done every day by households, businesses, and governments.

Which of these ways will the Obama administration adopt to raise revenue? Count out number two. The productive sector of the economy will be expected to fund numbers one and three -- for as long as it survives.

On July 4th, President Barack Obama sent a holiday greeting to his supporters, via the Democratic National Committee. Obama’s presumptuousness, of course, knows no bounds or limits. His July 4th greeting was all about the importance of Independence Day. This commentary will examine the fallacies and fabrications contained in his greeting. At first glance, the message appears vacuous and commonplace. But beneath its blandness is poison.

This weekend, our family will join millions in celebrating America. We will enjoy the glow of fireworks, the taste of barbeque, and the company of good friends. As we all celebrate this weekend, let’s also remember the remarkable story that led to this day.

The story that led to the 4th of July is not merely “remarkable,” it is epochal. It is the story of men who decided that the idea that they owned their own lives, and not a tyrant, must be taken seriously enough to severe all political ties with that tyrant. What is Obama doing today? Taking actions to guarantee that our lives are tied to his whims and wishes, just as they were with Old World tyrants. If he had any valid recollection of that “remarkable story,” he would see that he is the villain.

Two hundred and thirty-three years ago, our nation was born when a courageous group of patriots pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to the proposition that all of us are created equal.

No. They pledged themselves to the proposition that men (not politically correct “all of us”) should exist in a state of freedom and not in one of subservience. Here is an instance of how disconnected Obama and his allies in Congress are from not only history, but from reality -- and how indifferent or hostile they are to that history and to reality. It is precisely the lives, fortunes and sacred honor of Americans that they are so busy expropriating, redistributing or destroying. The certain rights of life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and property are to them not unalienable, but disposable and eminently open to violation in the name of the “public good.” It is their operating premise that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of the ends of government, that is, to securing individual rights and deriving its limited powers from the consent of the governed, the people have no right to alter or abolish that government, or even to criticize it.

Our country began as a unique experiment in liberty -- a bold, evolving quest to achieve a more perfect union. And in every generation, another courageous group of patriots has taken us one step closer to fully realizing the dream our founders enshrined on that great day.

No, the United States did not begin as a “unique experiment in liberty.” It began as an assertion of that liberty. No, a “more perfect union” was not the end of the Founders, but the establishment of a government that could best guarantee life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. A “more perfect union“ to Obama is all Americans marching in lockstep to an ideal collectivist state. “Quests” do not “evolve,” not unless one is not certain of one’s end. And ever since the Civil War, generations of politicians and political thinkers have been moving away from the end that our Founders sought to achieve. It takes no courage to advocate slavery and servitude to a confused and ignorant citizenry.

Today, all Americans have a hard-fought birthright to a freedom which enables each of us, no matter our views or background, to help set our nation’s course. America’s greatness has always depended on her citizens embracing that freedom -- and fulfilling the duty that comes with it.

It is that “hard-fought birthright” which Obama the constitutional “scholar” is busily cheating us out of with the skill of a shyster lawyer. Ideas set a nation’s course and determine its future or its fate. Freedom and duty are literal antipodes. No one has a duty to sanction his own servitude or slavery, which is what Obama is advocating as the “price” of the freedom he is hurriedly destroying and which he hopes we do not embrace so selfishly that we will not relinquish it to satisfy the democratic mob and to perpetuate the comfort and peace of mind of a corrupt, prostituted Congress.

As a free people, we must each take the challenges and opportunities that face
this nation as our own. As long as some Americans still must struggle, none of
us can be fully content. And as America comes ever closer to achieving the
perfect union our founders dreamed, that triumph -- that pride -- belongs to all
of us.

Obama’s challenges and opportunities to expand federal power are not those of Americans who value their freedom. Americans must always “struggle” to achieve their personal happiness, and can be content with having achieved it without being asked to live for the sake of others. That happiness cannot be achieved if men are chained to each other’s needs.

So today is a day to reflect on our independence, and the sacrifice of our troops standing in harm’s way to preserve and protect it. It is a day to celebrate all that America is. And today is a time to aspire to all we can still become.

With very best wishes, President Barack Obama July 4th, 2009

Yes, many Americans are reflecting upon their independence, not only on that of this country, but on their independence from each other as individuals who own their own lives and pursue their own happiness -- which is not what Obama is asking of either our troops or any Americans. Sacrifice for unselfish, altruist ends is what he promotes -- not the defense of this country, not its prosperity, not its freedom. That reflection by many thoughtful, concerned Americans has been deemed “right wing extremism” by the Department of Homeland Security deserving of surveillance, scrutiny, and police action.

In summary, one must agree in spirit with conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer that is not Obama’s words that one must pay attention to, but what he does. But one must disagree with Krauthammer because collectivism is what he and the Democrats have been quite obviously preaching for the last two years. One merely needs to read between the lines and the lies.

It is appropriate that the Democrats in the Senate would spring their nationalized medicine scheme on America just before the Fourth of July. This AP story provides this interesting twist on how they intend to deal with recalcitrant serfs:

WASHINGTON – Americans who refuse to buy affordable medical coverage could be hit with fines of more than $1,000 under a health care overhaul bill unveiled Thursday by key Senate Democrats looking to fulfill President Barack Obama's top domestic priority.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated the fines will raise around $36 billion over 10 years. Senate aides said the penalties would be modeled on the approach taken by Massachusetts, which now imposes a fine of about $1,000 a year on individuals who refuse to get coverage. Under the federal legislation, families would pay higher penalties than individuals.

In a revamped health care system envisioned by lawmakers, people would be required to carry health insurance just like motorists must get auto coverage now. The government would provide subsidies for the poor and many middle-class families, but those who still refuse to sign up would face penalties.

Called "shared responsibility payments," the fines would be set at least half the cost of basic medical coverage, according to the legislation.

The legislation would exempt certain hardship cases from fines. The fines would be collected through the income tax system.

Hat tip: Steve

Yesterday, I gave a short speech before approximately two-hundred people at City Park here in Manhattan. My speech was well received. As we were running late, I had to do some impromptu editing as I was giving it. However, I was still able to make my main points. Below are my notes for the speech as planned. The caps are for readability:

I.

Introduce Sgt. Joseph Plumb Martin.… He Served from 1776 to 1783 in the Connecticut Line. Much Later, in 1830, He Wrote the Classic Soldier’s Memoir of the Revolution, Ordinary Courage.... Describe Privations Suffered by him and his Fellow Revolutionaries….

II.

What They Were Fighting For: Much More Than Just Political Independence. The Founders Created a Nation without Historical Precedent Based on Natural Law and Natural Rights.

From Jefferson’s Last Letter to Roger C. Weightman on 24 June 1826:

That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man.

What Are These Rights of Man?

The Right to Life, which means, your life is your property, the right to choose your own values, and to preserve your own independent existence—what the Founders Called the First Law of Nature: Right to Self-Preservation.

The Right to Liberty, which is the right to act to achieve your values, without coercion by other men, while respecting their rights also.

The Right to the Pursuit of Happiness, to act to achieve your own success, your own prosperity, and your own happiness, for your own sake.

And the Right to Property—the right to gain, keep, and enjoy, the material products of your efforts.

III.

Contrary to the Historical Revisionists, Jefferson Meant What He Wrote … While Fighting to Remove the Cancer of Slavery From the Republic, Lincoln Had to Deal with Such Rewriters of History and Philosophy in His Day.… They Referred to the Republic’s Founding Principles as “Glittering Generalities.”

From Lincoln’s Letter to Henry Pierce on 6 April 1859:

All honor to Jefferson--to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression ... The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society.

IV.

It is these Principles that We Must Regain and Support and Fight for if We Are to Restore America as the Land of the Free.

Another Anti-Freedom Cancer Has Infected the Republic. It Goes by Many Names, Most Commonly, “Progressivism.” The Founders’ Ideal of government as the protector of individual rights has been replaced with the Progressives’ authoritarian philosophy of government as provider of special privileges. The Progressive idea that the Government personifies society as a collective entity has become entrenched in our schools, universities and the mainstream media.

Our New Ruling Elites Now Claim Virtually Unlimited Power to Dispose of Our Lives, Liberties and Property in the Name of What They Assert to Be the “Greater Good.” The Elites Have an Enemy: Capitalism or Economic Liberty. They Claim it is the Cause of the Nation’s Problems.

As the Philosopher Ayn Rand Observes, Capitalism is the Source of Our Prosperity. The End of Capitalism Will Be the End of the American Dream.

From Ayn Rand’s Essay “What Is Capitalism?”, First Published in 1965 in The Objectivist Newsletter:

America’s abundance was not created by public sacrifices to “the common good,” but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America’s industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages, and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance – thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way.

The Cancer Has Another Name: Fascism. That is not hyperbole, but a Statement of Fact. The Supporters of the “Cap and Tax” Bill believe it is the Purpose of Government to Control Private Capital Investment in order to Indulge in Central Planning in an Unholy Alliance of Big Government and its Pet Corporations. Cap and Trade is a Textbook Example of Fascism.

Our Current Leaders believe it is their right to order a private company (one that should be completely private) to build windmills instead of coal power plants. It is a Mentality that Assumes the Individual Is Nothing More than Chattel.

V.

The Heart of this Economic and Political Crisis is a Moral Problem. This Dilemma Revolves around a Single Question: Does the Individual Human Being Have a Right to Exist? The Obamas Have Given the Nation Their Answer. As Michelle Obama Said on Her Husband’s 2008 Campaign Trail,

Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved,
uninformed.

The Ruling Elites Believe that Your Life Is Their Property. Their Aim Is Not Just to Grab Some More Tax Dollars. Their Target Is Your Identity as a Sovereign American Citizen. For example, The Purpose of Their National Service Act Is to Inculcate a Servile Mentality among Americans.

This Is why the Ruling Elites Are so Hostile to These Tea Parties. They Do Not Wish to Be Reminded that They Are Dealing with Americans. They Are Getting a Wake up Call Today, nonetheless. They Are Not Dealing with Complacent Cattle but with the Heirs of Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams and Thomas Jefferson. We Have a Great Heritage to Live Up to. Never Surrendering the Fight for Our Rights Is the Best Possible Way to Honor This Republic’s Founding Fathers.

Thank You.

Long may it remain America.

Cartoon strip "Diversity Lane" by Zack Rawsthorne:

Zack Rawsthorne was interviewed a few days ago by Kansas State University grad student Paul Ibbetson on his radio show The Conscience of Kansas.

Check at this website for the locations of Tea Parties around the country. It's time to take action to stop the systematic destruction of what's left of freedom in America. Party as if your life, liberty and property depends upon it. It does.

This year's Feast of Fools lived up to its name:



President Obama at the annual White House Congressional picnic invited guests to dunk Robert Gibbs, Rahm Emanuel and Peter Orszag. The President also joined in the fun. June 25, 2009.

The Medieval custom of the Feast of Fools was best dramatized in the opening chapters of Victor Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris:

It was, in fact, somewhat hard, and we have already hinted at it on the second page of this book,--for him, Charles de Bourbon, to be obliged to feast and receive cordially no one knows what bourgeois;--for him, a cardinal, to receive aldermen;--for him, a Frenchman, and a jolly companion, to receive Flemish beer-drinkers,--and that in public! This was, certainly, one of the most irksome grimaces that he had ever executed for the good pleasure of the king.

In the meantime, all the beggars, all the lackeys, all the cutpurses, joined with the scholars, had gone in procession to seek, in the cupboard of the law clerks' company, the cardboard tiara, and the derisive robe of the Pope of the Fools. Quasimodo allowed them to array him in them without wincing, and with a sort of proud docility. Then they made him seat himself on a motley litter. Twelve officers of the fraternity of fools raised him on their shoulders; and a sort of bitter and disdainful joy lighted up the morose face of the cyclops, when he beheld beneath his deformed feet all those heads of handsome, straight, well-made men. Then the ragged and howling procession set out on its march, according to custom, around the inner galleries of the Courts, before making the circuit of the streets and squares.

With President Mountebank, everyday is a carnival of liberty's destruction. The key difference is that in a more honest time, the Prince of Fools - Quasimodo - was grotesque on the outside, while being pure of heart on the inside. On the other hand, while the nation's leaders of today look (somewhat) as if they are normal men, their souls are hideously deformed and corrupted beyond all redemption by the malignant evil they have willingly chosen.

The supporters of Obama, Pelosi and their agenda are the fools, or worse.

Guest Commentary by Edward Cline:

A good friend wrote me about the speed with which the government is erasing freedom and establishing a fascist regime, and the despair this phenomenon can cause: “If presented with an existential crisis, I don‘t see a modern day Sons of Liberty around to fight for liberty.”

I will reply that we are the new Sons of Liberty. We’re all over the place. You will recall that the Sons of Liberty, for about ten years leading up to Concord and Bunker Hill, communicated with each other all over the colonies through committees of correspondence, trading intelligence, ideas, strategies, and progress reports. The new committees are facilitated by the Internet. Fundamentally, there is no difference between their functions, except the element of time. It might have taken two weeks for correspondence from Boston and Sam Adams to reach Richmond and Richard Henry Lee. Now, it takes mere seconds for anyone‘s communications to reach a hundred times the number of addressees.

Another chief difference is that the committees of yore were guided in their policies and actions by many of the Founders, who acted as intellectual workmen. Today, many of the movers behind the Tea Parties are acting in the same capacity. They are not especially intellectuals, but they will come around eventually, out of necessity, in order to present arguments, and not just stage ad hoc demonstrations of anger and disgust. Objectivists are making their presence known at the Tea Parties, and they are attracting lots of attention, especially from protestors looking for moral and intellectual guidance and not more of the “same old, same old.”

Here’s another parallel: In the Founders’ time, before the Declaration, opposition to Crown policies was expressed by a number of groups. Call them 18th century “libertarians,” religious based groups, conservatives, and the like. But by the time of Bunker Hill and the second Continental Congress, most of them were agreed on the fundamentals of why the colonies should separate from the Crown. We are in the same situation today. Religious groups, libertarians, conservatives, and other groups opposed to Obama and the Democratic Congress’s policies are all vying for attention and trying to dominate especially the Tea Parties. But Objectivism is the only philosophy that offers a consistently rational politics. None of the other forces do.

If Yaron Brook and ARI don’t exhaust themselves with speeches and appearances, in time Objectivism will come to dominate the political thinking. All the other groups are capable of compromise, whereas Objectivism is not. This stops the rationalizers and compromisers cold, and they have nothing to say, nothing to add, nothing to refute. You’ve heard especially Yaron on TV and on the radio expound the philosophy of individual rights and handily discard or rebut objections and reservations about the necessity of a consistent policy of individual rights, that is, a moral philosophy based on the nature of man, and not on religion or utilitarianism (capitalism and freedom promote the greatest good for the greatest number, etc.). He doesn’t give an inch. He doesn’t concede the fallacies of any of his opponents.

I agree with you that many Americans are now emerging tentatively from what Jack Frake and Hugh Kenrick [the heroes of Sparrowhawk] might have called their “Plato’s caves.” Some are blinking, others are shutting their eyes or sidling back into the caves. They don’t matter. And some are bravely moving ahead. But it is we, the new Sons of Liberty, who never inhabited those caves, who are the point men in this conflict. Objectivists are now running and contributing to dozens of “committees of correspondence” today.

Remember also that all throughout the pre-Revolutionary period and during the war itself, the population here remained roughly divided in thirds: one-third loyalist, one-third neutral dross, and one-third that fought for independence or supported it. You cite the overwhelming number of people in the “masses.” The “masses” don’t count. Look what happened in Iran. For days hundreds of thousands of Iranians took to the streets and had running fights with the mullahs’ armed thugs and their “thought police,” but the numbers of the protestors didn’t matter. They probably outnumbered the thugs. They were moved not by radical ideas, but by emotions. Their protests had to peter out. They have only a vague glimmering of “freedom” and worse yet some notion of “democracy,” which they associate with freedom. Well, “majority rule,” or those who support Ahmadinejad, spoke, and that was “democracy.” I haven’t observed any evidence, through the news, that anyone there has grasped that. (And I think that the U.S.’s Voice of America broadcasts to Iran and other countries ruled by dictatorships do more harm than good, because in a mealy mouthed way, they also promote “democracy”; this is the confused confusing already confused minds.)

Of course, victory for us isn’t guaranteed. It wasn’t guaranteed for the Founders, either. How it will all end, and when, is an open question. If Obama and the Democrats move to their final folly, which is censorship (and we know they very much would like to silence any and all moral opposition), then we may see actual rebellion against government force, and that may or may not be a good thing, given the state of the culture. It could backfire, as some Objectivists elsewhere have noted, and only provoke the government to impose even more stringent controls, and possibly result in the arrest of the most outspoken and rational critics. The statists are too close to their final goal, a “democratic” dictatorship in which everyone exists in support of and for the sake of the state, to concede rationality in any quarter or on any issue. If that end can only be achieved by becoming bestial, they’ll have nothing to lose and won’t hesitate to bloody a few heads (and that may be their undoing -- or not).

One thing we should not doubt -- and I noted this in “Obama contra Churchill” and in past commentaries -- is that if they cannot exercise complete political power over the country, they would rather see it die or descend into anarchy. That’s their death premise. No one should underestimate their viciousness. The obvious glee with which they legislate our freedom away will be matched by their bottomless malice for any resistance. Fundamentally, it’s as much “either/or” for the statists as it is for the advocates of a philosophy of reason, who act on the life premise. You can see it in their faces and hear it in their words. Their capacity for evil is sustained only by the confusion and mixed premises of their current and future victims. Atlas Shrugged dramatized that in no uncertain terms.

A major problem is the state of the American spirit. Generations of dumbing-down and educational indoctrination can’t be undone during a single repressive administration (which is how the Obama administration can only be characterized). Perhaps Americans will wake up quickly to their peril, perhaps not. They must be taught the value of freedom. Many do not even know what it is, and many don’t put a value on it. Where the Founders had the advantage of the spread of Enlightenment ideas, and a population receptive to them, we have the disadvantage of the decline of those ideas, and a population largely indifferent to or ignorant of them. This is quite an obstacle.

All we can do for now is keep on arguing, talking, writing, and protesting, to get as many people on our side as possible. To paraphrase Rand, by fighting for our future, we are living it now. For the moment, this is all that is within our power to do.

Long Live Lady Liberty!