Heritage Quote

"If men of wisdom and knowledge, of moderation and temperance, of patience, fortitude and perseverance, of sobriety and true republican simplicity of manners, of zeal for the honour of the Supreme Being and the welfare of the commonwealth; if men possessed of these other excellent qualities are chosen to fill the seats of government, we may expect that our affairs will rest on a solid and permanent foundation."

-- Samuel Adams, 1780 - letter to Elbridge Gerry

Support the troops

Lone Survivor

An interview with the only survivor of a Navy SEAL unit that was overrun in Afghanistan . . .

I'm going to have to order that book, methinks . . . .

UPDATE: Done . . .

Heritage Quote

"Liberty is a word which, according as it is used, comprehends the most good and the most evil of any in the world. Justly understood it is sacred next to those which we appropriate in divine adoration; but in the mouths of some it means anything, which enervate a necessary government; excite a jealousy of the rulers who are our own choice, and keep society in confusion for want of a power sufficiently concentered to promote good."

-- Oliver Ellsworth (A Landholder, No. III, 19 November 1787)

Who's gouging?

It seems that every time gas prices go up, Congress talks about the "price gouging oil companies". This particular cartoon was originally posted at RedPlanet in March, yet it puts the politically-motivated price gouging rhetoric into proper perspective . . .

Surge ops

David Kilcullen, currently serving as Senior Counterinsurgency Adviser, Multi-National Force—Iraq, has an informative essay explaining the current 'surge' operations in Iraq.

It will be a long, hard summer, with much pain and loss to come, and things could still go either way. But the population-centric approach is the beginning of a process that aims to put the overall campaign onto a sustainable long-term footing. The politics of the matter then can be decisive, provided the Iraqis use the time we have bought for them to reach the essential accommodation. The Embassy and MNF-I continue to work on these issues at the highest levels but fundamentally, this is something that only Iraqis can resolve: our role is to provide an environment in which it becomes possible.

All this may change. These are long-term operations: the enemy will adapt and we'll have to adjust what we're doing over time. Baq’ubah, Arab Jabour and the western operations are progressing well, and additional security measures in place in Baghdad have successfully tamped down some of the spill-over of violence from other places. The relatively muted response (so far) to the second Samarra bombing is evidence of this. Time will tell, though....

A major element in the equation is the political class in America -- will they do what it takes to help us win this war? Or will they continue to go barrelling down their tawdry path of self-destruction?

Heritage Quote

"[The President] is the dignified, but accountable magistrate of a free and great people. The tenure of his office, it is true, is not hereditary; nor is it for life: but still it is a tenure of the noblest kind: by being the man of the people, he is invested; by continuing to be the man of the people, his investiture will be voluntarily, and cheerfully, and honourably renewed."

-- James Wilson, 1791 - Lectures on Law

Well said

DJ Drummond at Wizbang! has a good post up about the war we are fighting against terrorism.

This war is right. Those who blame President Bush are short-sighted or liars. This war began when the nations of the Middle East gave way to the despots and extremists, who foolishly thought that the terrorists they created would not attack anyone in their number, but only go after external enemies, to dismay the West and make them leave the region and its treasures to the men who already held palaces and arrogant titles. This war was not declared by anyone in America, Republican or Democrat, but by the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979. It grew and consumed first Iran, then spread through the Middle East, converting terrorists from greedy rabbles and craven opportunists, into religious monsters such as we have not seen in any country which keeps religious leaders and government power separate from each other. The enemy used oil as an early weapon, then added hijackings, kidnappings, the odd assassination and random murders in its arsenal, all the while proclaiming its victimhood to the media, which defected from the West and renamed itself the arbiter of the co-called 'Global Village' in order to collect more international subscribers.

The men who hijacked airliners, flew them into buildings and murdered thousands of innocent people in one day, they were not Americans nor did they love anything about America. It was not any American's fault that 9/11 happened, but it fell to America to answer in force. Because nothing but force would suffice.

Go read the whole thing . . .

Kick me

Heritage Quote

"The executive branch of this government never has, nor will suffer, while I preside, any improper conduct of its officers to escape with impunity."

-- George Washington, 1795 - letter to Gouverneur Morris

War News

Travesty

The U.N. body charged with monitoring global human rights (in the form of the newly minted U.N. Human Rights Council) once again disregards clear indications of widespread violations of human rights in the world in order to call out Israel as the country to watch.

Where does the global human rights movement stand in the seventh year of the 21st century? If the first year of the United Nations Human Rights Council is any indication, it's grown sick and cynical -- partly because of the fecklessness and flexible morality of some of the very governments and groups that claim to be most committed to democratic values.

At a session in Geneva last week, the council -- established a year ago in an attempt to reform the U.N. Human Rights Commission -- listened to reports by special envoys appointed by its predecessor condemning the governments of Cuba and Belarus. It then abolished the jobs of both "rapporteurs" in a post-midnight maneuver orchestrated by its chairman, who announced a "consensus" in spite of loud objections by the ambassador from Canada that there was no such accord.

While ending the scrutiny of those dictatorships, the council chose to establish one permanent and special agenda item: the "human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories." In other words, Israel (or "Palestine," in the council's terminology), alone among the nations of the world, will be subjected to continual and open-ended examination. That's in keeping with the record of the council's first year: Eleven resolutions were directed at the Jewish state. None criticized any other government.

Go read the whole thing. It's a global disgrace.

[Via Instapundit.]

Heritage Quote

"All see, and most admire, the glare which hovers round the external trappings of elevated office. To me there is nothing in it, beyond the lustre which may be reflected from its connection with a power of promoting human felicity."

-- George Washington, 1790 - letter to Catherine Macaulay Graham

American philanthropy

What makes this country so great? American citizenry.

"It tells you something about American culture that is unlike any other country," said Claire Gaudiani, a professor at NYU's Heyman Center for Philanthropy and author of The Greater Good: How Philanthropy Drives the American Economy and Can Save Capitalism. Gaudiani said the willingness of Americans to give cuts across income levels, and their investments go to developing ideas, inventions and people to the benefit of the overall economy.

Gaudiani said Americans give twice as much as the next most charitable country, according to a November 2006 comparison done by the Charities Aid Foundation. In philanthropic giving as a percentage of gross domestic product, the U.S. ranked first at 1.7%. No. 2 Britain gave 0.73%, while France, with a 0.14% rate, trailed such countries as South Africa, Singapore, Turkey and Germany.

Good on you, America. May it always be so.

A loss of confidence

Mark Tapscott has a sobering op-ed about the crisis of public confidence in America's political class. This is how he starts:

Nothing is so critical to the continuing health of a republic than the confidence of people that their elected representatives have their best interests at heart in their decision-making. Once that confidence is lost, a revolution of one sort or another becomes likely. In America, such a crisis could be right around the corner.

Consider the latest Gallup Poll, which finds only 14 percent of the American people have "a great deal of" confidence in Congress or "quite a lot," compared to 19 percent a year ago. That is the lowest confidence rating Gallup has ever recorded for Congress since the survey firm began measuring public opinion on major American institutions in 1973.

Congress is far from alone in suffering plummeting confidence ratings. The presidency dropped from 33 percent to 25 percent and the Supreme Court from 40 percent to 34 percent during the same period. The trend line for all three branches has been downward since 9/11.

The "fourth branch" of government, the mainstream media, also has declining public confidence ratings. Television news dropped from 31 percent to 23 percent, while newspapers were down to 22 percent, compared to 30 percent a year ago.

Go read the rest.

Heritage Quote

"On the other hand, the duty imposed upon him to take care, that the laws be faithfully executed, follows out the strong injunctions of his oath of office, that he will "preserve, protect, and defend the constitution." The great object of the executive department is to accomplish this purpose; and without it, be the form of government whatever it may, it will be utterly worthless for offence, or defence; for the redress of grievances, or the protection of rights; for the happiness, or good order, or safety of the people."

-- Joseph Story, 1833 - Commentaries on the Constitution

Battle for Baqubah: Drilling for Justice

Michael Yon's latest dispatch about the battle to eliminate Al Qaeda in Baqubah. In addition to a progress report, he also discusses what the enemies do to innocent civilians in areas under Al Qaeda control.

Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) had tarnished its name here by publicly attacking and murdering children, videotaping beheadings, all while imposing harsh punishments on Iraqi civilians found guilty of violating morality laws prohibiting activities like smoking. The AQI installed Sharia court had sanctioned the amputation of the two “smoking fingers” for those who violated anti-smoking laws. In part because local sentiment was shifting against it, AQI synthesized with other groups and undertook an image makeover, christening itself “The Islamic State of Iraq.” But the new name was just lipstick on a pig here.

On the evening of the 24th I spoke with a local Iraqi official, Colonel Faik, who said the Muftis would order the severance of the two fingers used to hold a cigarette for any Iraqis caught smoking. Other reports, from here in Diyala and also in Anbar, allege that smokers are murdered by AQI. Most Iraqis smoke and this particular prohibition appeared to have earned the ire of many locals. After an American unit cleared an apartment complex on the 23rd, LTC Smiley, the battalion commander, reported that residents didn’t ask for food and water, but cigarettes. In other parts of Baqubah, people have been celebrating the routing of AQI by lighting up and smoking cigarettes.

Other AQI edicts included beatings for men who refused to grow beards, and corporal punishments for obscene sexual suggestiveness, defined by such “loose” behavior as carrying tomatoes and cucumbers in the same bag. These fatwas were not eagerly embraced by most Iraqis, and the taint traveled back to the Muftis who sat in supreme judgment. Locals, who are increasingly helpful in pointing out and celebrating the downfall of AQI here, said that during the initial Arrowhead Ripper attack the morning of the 19th, AQI murdered five men. Townsend’s men found the buried corpses behind an AQI prison, exactly where they’d been told to look for the group grave. Locals also directed Townsend’s men to a torture house. Peering through a window, American soldiers saw knives, swords, bindings and drills. AQI is well-known for its macabre eagerness to drill into kneecaps, elbows, ribs, skulls, and other parts of victims.

If we don't fight this kind of evil abroad, then we will end up having to fight it here.

It sounds impossible that people would do this to other people, doesn't it? Yet this has very recently been a reality in Baqubah, and in many other places throughout human history.

We must not forget that.

Thank you, Pelosi/Reid

New Gallup data show confidence in Congress at all time low

Heritage Quote

"There is little need of commentary upon this clause. No man can well doubt the propriety of placing a president of the United States under the most solemn obligations to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution. It is a suitable pledge of his fidelity and responsibility to his country; and creates upon his conscience a deep sense of duty, by an appeal, at once in the presence of God and man, to the most sacred and solemn sanctions, which can operate upon the human mind."

-- Joseph Story, 1833 - Commentaries on the Constitution

The new House

Heritage Quote

"If, for instance, the president is required to do any act, he is not only authorized, but required, to decide for himself, whether, consistently with his constitutional duties, he can do the act."

-- Joseph Story, 1833 - Commentaries on the Constitution

Climate change is not well understood

Despite the rhetoric, climate change is not a well-understood scientific field. R. Timothy Patterson, a Canadian climate scientist provides some insight into the study of Earth's climate. Here's his conclusion:

In some fields the science is indeed "settled." For example, plate tectonics, once highly controversial, is now so well-established that we rarely see papers on the subject at all. But the science of global climate change is still in its infancy, with many thousands of papers published every year. In a 2003 poll conducted by German environmental researchers Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch, two-thirds of more than 530 climate scientists from 27 countries surveyed did not believe that "the current state of scientific knowledge is developed well enough to allow for a reasonable assessment of the effects of greenhouse gases." About half of those polled stated that the science of climate change was not sufficiently settled to pass the issue over to policymakers at all.

Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe solar cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth. Beginning to plan for adaptation to such a cool period, one which may continue well beyond one 11-year cycle, as did the Little Ice Age, should be a priority for governments. It is global cooling, not warming, that is the major climate threat to the world, especially Canada. As a country at the northern limit to agriculture in the world, it would take very little cooling to destroy much of our food crops, while a warming would only require that we adopt farming techniques practiced to the south of us.

Meantime, we need to continue research into this, the most complex field of science ever tackled, and immediately halt wasted expenditures on the King Canute-like task of "stopping climate change."

Go read how he arrived at that conclusion. This is a fascinating article, and there are many other related articles referenced.

Heritage Quote

"In times of peace the people look most to their representatives; but in war, to the executive solely."

-- Thomas Jefferson, 1810 - letter to Caeser Rodney

Update: Baqubah

Michael Yon has posted an encouraging update about Operation Arrowhead Ripper. He's telling like it is -- warts and all.

The combat in Baqubah should soon reach a peak. Al Qaeda seems to have been effectively isolated. The initial attack on 19 June achieved enough surprise that al Qaeda was caught off guard and trapped. They have been beaten back mostly into pockets and are surrounded and will be dealt with. Part of this is actually due to the capability of Strykers. We were able to “attack from the march.” In other words, a huge force drove in from places like Baghdad and quickly locked down Baqubah.

LTG Ray Odierno visited Baqubah on the 21st. Odierno clarified that this battle is to be final: we are not going to do this again. Odierno stressed to our commanders that they need to be thinking of an end-state that results in Iraqis taking charge, but that Iraqi commanders should not be given the reins until they are ready, so that the result is we set them up for success. Odierno’s timing was remarkable: even before he arrived, the commanders here were talking about end-state daily and, on a more sour note, our commanders have their hands full with the local Iraqi commanders who seem less competent (to be kind) than those I have seen elsewhere, such as in Mosul.

Go read it all.

Battle for Baqubah

Michael Yon is one of two journalists who are actually in Baqubah and who have access to what is really going on. He reports on the first day of Operation Arrowhead Ripper.

The heat is intense for the enemy and for us. Soldiers, during any chance, would lay-down during the heat of day, and in complete body armor and helmets, fall asleep in the dirt. I took photos of course. Our guys are tough. The enemy in Baqubah is as good as any in Iraq, and better than most. That’s saying a lot. But our guys have been systematically trapping them, and have foiled some big traps set for our guys. I don’t want to say much more about that, but our guys are seriously outsmarting them. Big fights are ahead and we will take serious losses probably, but al Qaeda, unless they find a way to escape, are about to be slaughtered. Nobody is dropping leaflets asking them to surrender. Our guys want to kill them, and that’s the plan.

A positive indicator on the 19th and the 20th is that most local people apparently are happy that al Qaeda is being trapped and killed. Civilians are pointing out IEDs and enemy fighters, so that’s not working so well for al Qaeda. Clearly, I cannot do a census, but that says something about the locals.

Read the whole thing.

On Christianity

Gates of Vienna has an excellent essay on the impact of Christianity through history upon our present-day civilization. Here's a taste:

The Italian Renaissance philosopher Machiavelli was more attached to Roman than to Christian culture, and held the view that Christianity was totally unsuited as the basis for any empire. His ideas were echoed by the 18th century English historian Edward Gibbon, who stated in his work The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire that the preceding advances of Christianity were responsible for the downfall because it made the Romans too soft. But the eastern half of the Empire, centered around Constantinople, was just as much Christian, and yet survived for another thousand years after the fall of Rome in the West. The collapse of civil society in Western Europe in the 21st century has been preceded by the retreat of Christianity. There is a strange kind of irony in this that might have surprised Mr. Gibbon.

It's a keeper.

Sowell on unfinished business

Thomas Sowell points out some loose ends in the Duke non-rape case since prosecutor Nifong has been disbarred. Here's how he begins:

The disbarment of Durham District Attorney Michael Nifong should be just the first step in remedying the gross and cynical fraud of last year's "rape" case against Duke University lacrosse players.

Not only is Nifong still liable to civil lawsuits from the three young men whose lives he tried to ruin, and criminal prosecution for his obstruction of justice and making false statements to a judge, there are many other people who disgraced themselves in hyping a lynch mob atmosphere when this case first broke last year.

The New York Times, which splashed these Duke students' pictures on the front page, along with inflammatory charges against them, and went ballistic on its editorial page, carried the story of Nifong's disbarment for prosecuting them on page 16.

The 88 Duke University faculty members who took out a hysterical ad, supporting those local loudmouths who were denouncing and threatening the Duke students, have apparently had nothing at all to say now.

Go read the rest . . .

Heritage Quote

"The second office of this government is honorable & easy, the first is but a splendid misery."

-- Thomas Jefferson, 1797 - letter to Elbridge Gerry

Melting pot

Mary Katharine Ham does a good job of promoting the 'America as a melting pot' perspective.

The movement to make English the official language of America is, in part, a response to the Left’s active discouragement of assimilation. Even the idea of the “melting pot” went out of style when I was in grade school, replaced in text books by the less offensive “mosaic.” You see, now we don’t do anything so gauche as melt into one, cohesive society. Instead, we are all obligated to hold onto our various ethnic and cultural identities and languages, building little barriers between communities, lest we be accused of “selling out” or trying to be too “white.”

There is certainly a way to assimilate without losing all touch with one’s culture. Being American does not mean being “white.” “American” is, by definition, many colors and characteristics. But the strength of America has always been in creating Americans of all colors and characteristics, not all colors and characters who happen to live in America.

The English language and cultural assimilation are unifying forces, economic passports, essential parts of preserving the American dream and all its blessings for everyone who comes to our shores.

She also cites Jessica Alba, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Al Pacino as Americans who immigrated here, or whose parents/grandparents immigrated here.

The common theme is that the immigrants came to America to become Americans, and though they brought elements of their previous culture with them, they largely abandoned it for the American 'melting pot' culture. They put aside their previous lives as citizens of other countries, and took on new lives as citizens of the United States of America. This is something that we present-day Americans should expect from immigrants to our country -- unapologetically, and without exception.

It's good reading. Recommended.

Aid and comfort to the enemy

Fred Thompson has some interesting things to say about the Dishonorable Harry Reid's false and inflammatory statements about Iraq. Mr. Thompson echoes what I've been saying about our disgraceful Senate Majority Leader:

But Reid's comments are not meant for logical analysis. He proclaimed the war lost some time ago, and the surge as a failure even before the additional troops were on the ground. The problem is that every one of Reid's comments I've noted here has also been reported gleefully by Al Jazeera and other anti-American media. Whether he means to or not, he’s encouraging our enemies to believe that they are winning the critical war of will.

Heritage Quote

"A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever may be its theory, must be, in practice, a bad government."

-- Alexander Hamilton, 1788 - Federalist No. 69

Keep the home fires burning

Sarah, over at trying to grok, has a post up that all Americans should read. It's about making America a country worth defending, worth sacrificing for, worth dying for.

I'm answering her call, and spreading the quote. But also, and more importantly, I will work more diligently to make this country worth the sacrificial efforts of the men and women in our military who fight for it every day. I want them to be proud of their country when they return home. They deserve that.

Please, just go read Sarah's post . . . and then go do your part in making America worth fighting for.

Victory is more than a body count

J.D. Johannes, embedded with some of our Marines in Anbar province, Iraq, provides some insight into the strategy and tactics behind the current successes in Iraq.

In 2005 and 2006 the Marines started engaging in census/data collection operations to build a directory of the AO they worked in.

Now in 2007 the best databases are a combination phone book, DMV and genealogical record complete with photos.

When squads and platoons go on patrol they know who lives in an area and who does not.

This started to give Marines in certain areas an upper hand against the insurgents--it was now harder to hide among the people.

The second leap forward in removing the oxygen from the sea was the spontaneous and coaxed rise of the Anbar Awakening.

In some AOs like Khalidiyah, the awakening was not very spontaneous. Marine Battalion Commanders worked with respected members of the community and tribal leaders to bring it about.

The Awakening added the last ingredient needed for an Anbar variant to the Briggs plan--the home guard and an invigorated police to man all the entry control points.

Read the whole thing.

Heritage Quote

"The injury which may possibly be done by defeating a few good laws, will be amply compensated by the advantage of preventing a number of bad ones."

-- Alexander Hamilton, 1788 - Federalist No. 73, on the Veto Power

HDTV: fact vs. fiction

Popular Mechanics has a good article about the basics of High Definition Television.

It's the 10-step plan for those who need to know more about the subject.

High-definition television (HDTV) has evolved from an early-adopter indulgence to a mainstream technology in less than a decade. Enthusiasm for HD everything is driving the sales of flat-panel TVs and has inspired a next-gen DVD format war. It’s showing up in camcorders and on your local TV news.

Yet HDTV remains a widely misunderstood technology, muddled with misconceptions and half-truths born of marketing mumbo jumbo and senseless jargon. The advertised specifications read like bewildering math­ematical equations with “variables” such as 1080i, 720p, 4:3, 1080p and 16:9. To clear the air of confusion we’ve examined some of the most wrongheaded bits of received wisdom in the world of HD.

It makes for good reading . . .

Heritage Quote

"In the midst of these pleasing ideas we should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections."

-- John Adams (Inaugural Address, March 1797)

SITREP: Iraq

Senator Joe Lieberman has recently returned from the Middle East and reports on what he saw in and about Iraq.

I recently returned from Iraq and four other countries in the Middle East, my first trip to the region since December. In the intervening five months, almost everything about the American war effort in Baghdad has changed, with a new coalition military commander, Gen. David Petraeus; a new U.S. ambassador, Ryan Crocker; the introduction, at last, of new troops; and most important of all, a bold, new counterinsurgency strategy.

Fatherhood

Yes, this should have been posted yesterday, but I just read it yesterday and didn't have a chance to post it then.

The Patriot Post has an excellent article about the importance of fathers.

I've reprinted it in the extended entry.

“How is it possible that Children can have any just Sense of the sacred Obligations of Morality or Religion if, from their earliest Infancy, they learn their Mothers live in habitual Infidelity to their fathers, and their fathers in as constant Infidelity to their Mothers?” —John Adams

PATRIOT PERSPECTIVE
Fatherhood: Facts and Fiction

“Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” (Ephesians 6:4)

Father’s Day has been observed for about 100 years, and its inspiration was Mother’s Day, which has been celebrated in one form or another since the 16th century.

It has always seemed fitting to me that we honor mothers, but odd that we honor fathers, for as any devoted husband and father can attest, there is no greater responsibility or reward than the blessing of children, no greater privilege than the blessing of fatherhood.

The good news is that there is a resurgence of men who are honoring their wives and children as responsible husbands and fathers. Unfortunately, there are too many men who will never know that reward because they have abdicated their responsibility as fathers.

At the invitation of a national ministry to families, I am writing a guidebook about arrested emotional development (AED)—a condition afflicting adults whose emotional maturity was arrested due to either acute or chronic abuse during their childhood.

After researching this topic, one might reasonably conclude that the most common and severe wounds inflicted upon children are not necessarily physical. Children internalize emotional abuse and rejection—particularly rejection by their family of origin—parental separation or divorce, or dissociation from a chemically dependent or emotionally disabled parent.

In other words, in defiance of adult logic, children believe they are somehow responsible for the harm that came to them, whether it was circumstantial, accidental or intended. In the case of divorce, children often believe they must have caused parental dissolution, or were deserving of it.

Divorce is the most common denominator associated with arrested emotional development in children—and the emotional disabilities that they carry into adulthood.

It is no small irony that divorced parents were, in all likelihood, themselves the child-victims of generational patterns of familial dissociation and dissolution. In this respect, the sins of our fathers are, indeed, visited upon generations that follow.

Marriage is the foundation for the family, which in turn, serves as the foundation for society. In 295 BC, Mencius wrote, “The root of the kingdom is in the state. The root of the state is in the family. The root of the family is in the person of its head.”

Broken marriages lead to broken families, which lead to broken societies. The most successful fathering is rooted in a healthy marriage. Thus, to be good fathers, we must first be good husbands.

Dr. Jim Lee, a pastor and director of Living Free ministries, writes that the Christian marriage paradigm is built on a foundation of five principles: First, God is the creator of the marriage relationship; second, heterosexuality is God’s pattern for marriage; third, monogamy is God’s design for marriage; fourth, God’s plan for marriage is for physical and spiritual unity; and fifth, marriage was designed to be permanent.

When this paradigm is broken, the exemplarity for children is broken, and the consequences are staggering. Consequently, the greatest affront to the Body of Christ is the most common injury to the family of man—marital infidelity and divorce.

Divorce, which typically results in the absence of fathers from their headship role within the family, is the single most significant common denominator among all categories of social and cultural entropy.

“Maturity does not come with age, but with the accepting of responsibility for one’s actions,” writes Dr. Edwin Cole, a fatherhood advocate. “The lack of effective, functioning fathers is the root cause of America’s social, economic and spiritual crises.”

Currently, only one in three children—and only one in five inner-city children—is in a home with a mother and father. Nearly 25 million children live absent or apart from their biological fathers.

“Children who grow up with their fathers do far better—emotionally, educationally, physically, every way we can measure—than children who do not,” notes family researcher David Blankenhorn. “This conclusion holds true even when differences of race, class and income are taken into account. The simple truth is that fathers are irreplaceable in shaping the competence and character of their children... [The absence of fathers] from family life is surely the most socially consequential family trend of our era.”

Indeed it is.

Here are some sobering statistics: According to the Center for Disease Control, Department of Justice, Department of Health and Human Services and the Bureau of the Census, the 30 percent of children who live apart from their fathers will account for 63 percent of teen suicides, 70 percent of juveniles in state-operated institutions, 71 percent of high-school dropouts, 75 percent of children in chemical-abuse centers, 80 percent of rapists, 85 percent of youths in prison, 85 percent of children who exhibit behavioral disorders, and 90 percent of homeless and runaway children. In fact, children born to unwed mothers are ten times more likely to live in poverty as children with fathers in the home.

The causal link between fatherless children and crime is “so strong that controlling for family configuration erases the relationship between race and crime and between low income and crime,” notes social researcher Barbara Dafoe Whitehead. More to the point is the following comment from a counselor at a juvenile-detention facility in California, which has the nation’s highest juvenile-incarceration rate: “[If] you find a gang member who comes from a complete nuclear family, I’d like to meet him... I don’t think that kid exists.”

Concerns about marital infidelity, and the consequences for children, are not new. As Founding Father John Adams wrote in his diary on 2 June 1778, “The foundation of national morality must be laid in private families... How is it possible that Children can have any just Sense of the sacred Obligations of Morality or Religion if, from their earliest Infancy, they learn their Mothers live in habitual Infidelity to their fathers, and their fathers in as constant Infidelity to their Mothers?”

On this Father’s Day, all of us who have been blessed with children should pause not only to count our blessings, but also to commit ourselves to honoring those attendant obligations every day. We should examine the job we are doing as husbands first, then fathers. As my friend, Father Ted Hesburgh, observed early in his pastorate, “The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.” Consider then the words of William Shakespeare: “It is a wise father that knows his own child.” And of Homer: “It is a wise child that knows his own father.”

(Note to all those fathers who have been forcibly separated from their children: The call for fathers to honor their obligations, starting with our marriage, does not discount the fact that there are many women who live in constant infidelity to their husbands, women who subordinate the needs of their marriage and family life to their own desires—social relationships and activities, alcohol, media immersion, etc. Predictably, the vast majority of those women are, themselves, the victims of marital dissolution, or dissociation from a chemically dependent or emotionally disabled father.)

Quote of the week
“Our culture needs to replace the idea of the superfluous father with a more compelling understanding of the critical role fathers play in the lives of their children, not just as ‘paychecks’ but as disciplinarians, teachers and moral guides. And fathers must be physically present in the home. They can’t simply show up on the weekends or for pre-arranged ‘quality time’.” —Dr. Wade Horn, National Fatherhood Initiative

On cross-examination
"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years." —Mark Twain

Open query
“Sadly, the tentacles of radical feminist thought are poisoning the image of groups of males in different ways. If you watch a few commercials or sit-coms, you’ll see that dads are sloppy dolts who are always the last to know anything. Where’s the outrage? If you listen to the often foul and violent rap and hip-hop music of today, you’ll hear that young black and Hispanic men are hate-filled, selfish bigots who degrade women for fun. Where’s the outrage? If you’re a father-to-be, your preborn baby can be legally killed without your knowledge, much less your consent. For crying out loud, where is the outrage?” —Rebecca Hagelin

[The Patriot Post (PatriotPost.US)]

Heritage Quote

"When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground."

-- Thomas Jefferson (Second Inaugural Address, 1805)

Happy Father's Day

To new father, Matt, and veteran dads, Steve and Kerry.

“Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” (Ephesians 6:4)

That's quite a challenge to all of us fathers, isn't it? But God provides the tools to successfully carry out His instructions. Thankfully!

Heritage Quote

"May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us in all our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy."

-- George Washington, 1790 - letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport

Tanking the U.S. economy

Senator Judd Gregg has some sobering things to say about the Democrat approach to national fiscal responsibility. Here's how he starts:

The extraordinary success of the U.S. economy over the past several years is evidenced by 22 consecutive quarters of economic expansion, the creation of nearly eight million new jobs, and surging tax revenues that have outpaced projections by $300 billion. Recently, however, an enormous anchor was attached to the economy, in the form of the fiscal-year 2008 budget resolution.

This five-year budget blueprint, a partisan plan designed and passed by congressional Democrats with no input from Republicans, will weigh down the economy with the largest tax increase in U.S. history, hundreds of billions in new spending, and billions of dollars in new debt. Most egregiously, the budget completely ignores the $69 trillion long-term entitlement crisis that threatens to swamp future generations with debt and taxes.

Despite a solid record of success for the fair, pro-growth tax system put in place in 2001 and 2003, this budget chooses not to extend existing policies past 2010. That decision will cost hard-working American families, seniors, and businesses dearly — to the tune of $916 billion in new taxes. In putting us on a path to European tax levels, this budget is just like a French soufflé, except it will be the American economy which will collapse.

Read the whole thing.

Heritage Quote

"A State, I cheerfully admit, is the noblest work of Man: But Man, himself, free and honest, is, I speak as to this world, the noblest work of God...."

-- James Wilson, 1793 - Chisholm v. Georgia

Commonality

Nouri Al-Maliki, Prime Minister of Iraq, has posted an interesting essay about the struggle for freedom and national sovereignty that Iraq is going through.

It's in the extended entry.

Our Common Struggle
America had its civil war. Why expect freedom to come easy to Iraq?

BY NOURI AL-MALIKI
Wednesday, June 13, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

BAGHDAD, Iraq--Americans keen to understand the ongoing struggle for a new Iraq can be guided by the example of their own history. In the 1860s, your country fought a great struggle of its own, a civil war that took hundreds of thousands of lives but ended in the triumph of freedom and the birth of a great power. Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation signaled the destruction of the terrible institution of slavery, and the rise of a country dedicated, more than any other in the world of nation-states then and hence, to the principle of human liberty.

Our struggle in Iraq is similar to the great American quest, and is perhaps even more complicated. As your country was fighting that great contest over its unity and future, Iraq was a province of an Ottoman empire steeped in backwardness and ignorance. A half a century later, the British began an occupation of Iraq and drew the borders of contemporary Iraq as we know them today. Independence brought no relief to the people of our land. They were not given the means of political expression, nor were they to know political arrangements that respected their varied communities.

Under the Baath tyranny, Iraqis were to endure a brutal regime the likes of which they had never known before. Countless people were put to death on the smallest measure of suspicion. Wars were waged by that regime and our national treasure was squandered without the consent of a population that was herded into costly and brutal military campaigns. Today when I hear the continuous American debate about the struggle raging in Iraq, I can only recall with great sorrow the silence which attended the former dictator's wars.

It is perhaps true that only people who are denied the gift of liberty can truly appreciate its full meaning and bounty. I look with admiration at the American debate surrounding the Iraq war, and I admire even those opinions that differ from my own. As prime minister of Iraq I have been subjected to my share of criticism in that American debate, but I harbor no resentment and fully understand that the basic concerns of Americans are the safety of their young people fighting in our country and the national interests of their society. As this American debate goes on, I am guided and consoled by the sacred place of freedom and liberty in the American creed and in America's notion of itself.

---

War being what it is, the images of Iraq that come America's way are of car bombs and daily explosions. Missing from the coverage are the great, subtle changes our country is undergoing, the birth of new national ideas and values which will in the end impose themselves despite the death and destruction that the terrorists have been hell-bent on inflicting on us. Those who endured the brutality of the former regime, those who saw the outside world avert its gaze from their troubles, know the magnitude of the change that has come to Iraq. A fundamental struggle is being fought on Iraqi soil between those who believe that Iraqis, after a long nightmare, can retrieve their dignity and freedom, and others who think that oppression is the order of things and that Iraqis are doomed to a political culture of terror, prisons and mass graves. Some of our neighbors have made this struggle more lethal still, they have placed their bets on the forces of terror in pursuit of their own interests.

When I became prime minister a year and a half ago, my appointment emerged out of a political process unique in our neighborhood: Some 12 million voters took part in our parliamentary elections. They gave voice to their belief in freedom and open politics and their trust imposed heavy burdens on all of us in political life. Our enemies grew determined to drown that political process in indiscriminate violence, to divert attention from the spectacle of old men and women casting their vote, for the first time, to choose those who would govern in their name. You may take this right for granted in America, but for us this was a tantalizing dream during the decades of dictatorship and repression.

Before us lies a difficult road--the imperative of national reconciliation, the drafting of a new social contract that acknowledges the diversity of our country. It was in that spirit that those who drafted our constitution made provisions for amending it. The opponents of the constitution were a minority, but we sought for our new political life the widest possible measure of consensus. From the outset, I committed myself to the principle of reconciliation, pledged myself to its success. I was determined to review and amend many provisions and laws passed in the aftermath of the fall of the old regime, among them the law governing de-Baathification. I aimed to find the proper balance between those who opposed the decrees on de-Baathification and others who had been victims of the Baath Party. This has not been easy, but we have stuck to that difficult task.

Iraq is well on its way to passing a new oil law that would divide the national treasure among our provinces and cities, based on their share of the population. This was intended to reassure those provinces without oil that they will not be left behind and consigned to poverty. The goal is to repair our oil sector, open the door for new investments and raise the standard of living of Iraqi families. Our national budget this year is the largest in Iraq's history, its bulk dedicated to our most neglected provinces and to improving the service sector in the country as a whole. Our path has been made difficult by the saboteurs and the terrorists who target our infrastructure and our people, but we have persevered, even though our progress has been obscured by the scenes of death and destruction.

Daily we still fight the battle for our security. We lose policemen and soldiers to the violence, as do the multinational forces fighting along our side. We are training and equipping a modern force, a truly national and neutral force, aided by our allies. This is against the stream of history here, where the armed forces have traditionally been drawn into political conflicts and struggles. What gives us sustenance and hope is an increase in the numbers of those who volunteer for our armed forces, which we see as proof of the devotion of our people to the stability and success of our national government.

---

We have entered into a war, I want it known, against militias that had preyed upon the weakness of the national government and in the absence of law and order in some of our cities, even in some of the districts in Baghdad, imposed their own private laws--laws usually driven by extremism and a spirit of vengeance. Some of these militias presented themselves as defenders of their own respective communities against other militias. We believe that the best way to defeat these militias is to build and enhance the capabilities of our government as a defender of the rights of our citizens. A stable government cannot coexist with these militias.

Our conflict, it should be emphasized time and again, has been fueled by regional powers that have reached into our affairs. Iraq itself is eager to build decent relations with its neighbors. We don't wish to enter into regional entanglements. Our principle concern is to heal our country. We have reached out to those among our neighbors who are worried about the success and example of our democratic experiment, and to others who seem interested in enhancing their regional influence.

Our message has been the same to one and all: We will not permit Iraq to be a battleground for other powers. In the contests and ambitions swirling around Iraq, we are neutral and dedicated to our country's right to prosperity and a new life, inspired by a memory of a time when Baghdad was--as Washington is today--a beacon of enlightenment on which others gazed with admiration. We have come to believe, as Americans who founded your country once believed, that freedom is a precious inheritance. It is never cheap but the price is worth paying if we are to rescue our country.

Mr. Maliki is prime minister of Iraq.

[Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.]

Heritage Quote

"It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favors."

-- George Washington, 1789 - Thanksgiving Proclamation

Flag Day

The American Flag.

Remember what it stands for.

Vote fraud undermines democracy

John Fund has a good opinion piece up about the political posturing revolving around voter ID laws and the very real need for those laws right here in America.

It makes for some very interesting reading.

I've reprinted it in the extended entry.

Vote-Fraud Demagogues
Americans overwhelmingly support voter ID. Are they all racists?

Wednesday, June 13, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

Appointments to the Federal Election Commission rarely draw attention. But at a confirmation hearing today, there's likely to be some fireworks over Hans von Spakovsky.

Mr. von Spakovsky has already amassed an 18-month long, largely uncontroversial record at the FEC as a recess appointment. But that's not likely to stop Senate Democrats from grilling him about his time at the Justice Department during President Bush's first term. The aim will be to portray him as a partisan who mishandled voting rights cases. Exhibit A will be his support for state voter ID laws.

For months, since the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys sparked a mini scandal, Democrats have insisted that the president has improperly politicized the Justice Department. Specifically, the accusation is that, under Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, DOJ has pursued a political agenda by enforcing laws to curb voter fraud.

Last week, Judiciary Committee Democrats held a hearing aimed in part at discrediting a 2005 Justice lawsuit seeking to force Missouri to cull ineligible voters from its rolls. But while the Missouri case was thrown out by a district judge, similar Justice lawsuits in Indiana and New Jersey led to voter rolls being cleaned up.

---

There is no limit to the hyperbole directed at Mr. von Spakovsky. He has come under such vitriolic fire from Gerald Hebert, now with the liberal Campaign Legal Center, that even Bob Bauer, the counsel to the Democratic Senatorial and Congressional Campaign Committees, has called his criticism of the nominee's FEC record "an argument boiling over with personal contempt and so short on reasoned argument."

Other critics claim that Mr. von Spakovsky ignored concerns that a Georgia law requiring photo ID at the polls would disenfranchise poor and minority voters who have a hard time obtaining documentation. They note that a federal judge twice blocked the law from going into effect.

But yelling "voter suppression" in a crowded congressional theater should be done with caution. In the Georgia case, the federal judge didn't find evidence that the law was racially discriminatory. He struck it down on other grounds. Also, the Georgia Supreme Court on Monday unanimously threw out a separate challenge to the state's photo ID law.

Indeed, courts have tended to uphold voter ID laws. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturned a Ninth Circuit ruling that had blocked an Arizona ID law. In doing so, the Court noted that anyone without an ID is permitted to cast a provisional ballot that could be verified later. The court also noted that fraud "drives honest citizens out of the democratic process."

Voter ID laws are hardly the second coming of Jim Crow. In 2005, 18 out of 21 members of a federal commission headed by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker came out in support of voter ID laws. Andrew Young, Mr. Carter's U.N. ambassador, has said that in an era when people have to show ID to travel or cash a check "requiring ID can help poor people." A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll last year found that voters favor a photo ID requirement by 80%-7%. The idea had overwhelming support among all races.

One reason for such large public support is that the potential for fraud is real. Many people don't trust electronic voting machines. And in recent years Democratic candidates have leveled credible accusations of voter fraud in mayoral races in Detroit, East Chicago, Ind., and St. Louis.

Last week, election officials in San Antonio, Texas determined that 330 people on their voter rolls weren't citizens and that up to 41 of them may have voted illegally, some repeatedly. In 2004, San Antonio was the scene of a bitter dispute in which Democratic Rep. Ciro Rodriguez charged his primary opponent with voter fraud.

In Florida, a felon named Ben Miller was arrested last week for illegally voting in every state election over a period of 16 years. The Palm Beach Post discovered that in Florida's 2000 infamous presidential recount, 5,643 voters' names perfectly matched the names of convicted felons. They should have been disqualified but were allowed to vote anyway. "These illegal voters almost certainly influenced the down-to-the-wire presidential election," the Post reported. By contrast, only 1,100 people were incorrectly labeled as felons by election officials, the Post estimated.

---

Everyone has reason to be concerned about a politicized Justice Department. But to set up a cartoon version of reality in which principled career lawyers at Justice were battling Bush political appointees bent on voter suppression is absurd. The Civil Rights shop at Justice has been stuffed with liberal activists for decades. Many of the former career Justice lawyers complaining about Mr. von Spakovsky today now work at liberal groups such as People for the American Way. And their imaginative, hyperaggressive enforcement of the Voting Rights Act hasn't fared well in court. During the Clinton years, when their theories were allowed to be put to a legal test, courts assessed Justice over $4.1 million in penalties in a dozen cases where it was found to have engaged in sloppy, over-reaching legal arguments. In one case, the Supreme Court noted "the considerable influence of ACLU advocacy on the voting rights decisions of the Attorney General is an embarrassment."

Voter suppression and fraud both deserve to be vigorously addressed. But those concerned with the first who would paint those worried about the second as racially discriminatory are engaged in a form of willful blindness.

[Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.]

Heritage Quote

"The belief in a God All Powerful wise and good, is so essential to the moral order of the world and to the happiness of man, that arguments which enforce it cannot be drawn from too many sources nor adapted with too much solicitude to the different characters and capacities impressed with it."

-- James Madison, 1825 - letter to Frederick Beasley

Save the planet . . .

. . . eat a vegan.

Heritage Quote

"I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have you, and the State over which you preside, in his holy protection, that he would incline the hearts of the Citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to Government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow Citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the Field, and finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all, to do Justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that Charity, humility and pacific temper of mind, which were the Characteristicks of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation."

-- George Washington, 1783 - circular letter of farewell to the Army

Heritage Quote

"It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage, and such only, as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent both in order of time and degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society. Before any man can be considered as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the Universe."

-- James Madison, 1785 - A Memorial and Remonstrance

Dear Republican Party

I received a solicitation from the Republican Issues Campaign in the mail last week which, I believe, was prompted by a short, but noncommittal, phone conversation. I mailed my reply without sending any money. I doubt anyone but a mail clerk will actually read it, but it felt good . . .

I've reprinted it in the extended entry.

10 June 2007

Linda Chavez
Honorary Chairman
Republican Issues Campaign
PO Box 71437
Washington, DC 20024-1437

Re: My “pledge”

Dear Ms. Chavez,

About two weeks ago, I was contacted by phone for your Republican Issues Campaign. I agreed that I might give a small donation at some later, and unspecified, date. About a week ago, I received the enclosed acknowledgement of my “pledge”.

I must disabuse you of the notion that I pledged anything. In fact, I feel it important that you understand something here. I am one of a large number of independent voters who feel betrayed and abandoned by the Republican Party. I have consistently voted Republican over the last two decades because I believed the Republican Party advocated the conservative positions that I hold concerning social, economic, and foreign policy issues of importance to America.

Alas, I find that the Republicans in Washington DC are just as corrupt as the Democrats have been (and are proving to be once again). The breadth of earmarks and the dearth of transparency concerning them takes my breath away.

I also have trouble with the party abandoning its own President Bush on critical issues like the war against terrorism, Social Security Reform, and permanent tax rollback. What happened to loyalty and doing the right thing for our country? All I see amongst Republicans legislators in Washington DC are bottom-feeding, self-serving invertebrates.

Finally, the pathetic comprehensive immigration bill now being worked on Capitol Hill is nothing but another amnesty bill – and another attempt by spineless legislators to avoid doing the difficult-but-right thing for our country: seal our borders, deal with the illegal immigrants, and put together a workable package for all future immigrants.

When the Republican Party stands up to the difficult task of leading this country by addressing the difficult issues facing us with reason and resolve . . . is when I will begin supporting it financially, and when I will resume supporting it with my votes.

Regards,

Pollyanna-ism

Cox and Forkum have nailed it.

Heritage Quote

"And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever."

-- Thomas Jefferson, 1781 - Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 18

First-hand experience

I know exactly what J.D. Johannes is talking about in describing the Chinook's hydraulic characteristics.

The Blackhawk helicopter is a smooth, quiet ride but I prefer the CH-46--more leg room and luggage room.

The CH-47, the Army Chinook, is bigger, louder and smells even more like hydralic fluid than the CH-46.

If you ever get on a 46 and 47 and you can't smell the hydraulic fliud--get off that chopper because it is not airworthy.

They leak hydraulic fluid so badly that the only time they don't is when they're low on it . . .

Heritage Quote

"And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? or do we imagine we no longer need its assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time; and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this Truth, that God governs in the Affairs of Men. And if a Sparrow cannot fall to the Ground without his Notice, is it probable that an Empire can rise without his Aid?"

-- Benjamin Franklin, 1787 - Motion for Prayers in the Constitutional Convention

Evolution in weaponry

J.D. Johannes, embedded with our troops in Iraq, talks about the increasing sophistication of the terrorists' IEDs.

The IEDs and EFPs used now make the IEDs of 2005 look like firecrackers. The triggering devices used now are factory made, not the home-rigged devices of the past. The EFPs which shoot a fist-sized chunk of molten metal are precision explosives--milled and machined to a level of craftsmanship that is just not found in Iraq.

The strategy of ever spiraling countermeasures will never elminate the threat or achieve an end state. We add more armor, they make bigger bombs. We put radio jammers on humvees, they go to pressure plate or wire det by remote. We turn humvees into bank vaults they use EFPs. We will come up with a counter measure to the EFP, and they will build something else.

More evidence that the terrorists are being supported by one or more nation-states. Anyone care to guess which one?

Heritage Quote

"It is the duty of all men in society, publicly, and at stated seasons, to worship the SUPREME BEING, the great Creator and Preserver of the universe. And no subject shall be hurt, molested, or restrained, in his person, liberty, or estate, for worshipping GOD in the manner most agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience; or for his religious profession or sentiments; provided he doth not disturb the public peace, or obstruct others in their religious worship."

-- John Adams, 1776 - Thoughts on Government

Real news

Michael Yon provides an in-depth report about the arrest of a corrupt Iraqi police commissioner and it's aftermath. The tragedy of all this is that "General Hamid" was also one of the heroes who cleaned up the city of Hit.

Many people in Hit directly attribute the resurrection of this city in large part to the courage of Iraqi Police General Ibrahim Hamid Jaza (General Hamid), who took an aggressive stand against the Al Qaeda (AQI) terrorists who had brazenly made Anbar province a home base and slaughter pad with their marketplace car bombs, beheadings, and reputation for hiding bombs intended to kill parents in the corpses of dead children they’d gutted.

Over time, AQI provided ample demonstrations of their ruthless and reckless abuses of power over civilians, shooting people for using the Internet, or watching television, or other “moral transgressions” such as smoking in public. AQI’s claim of fundamentalist piety proved to be a thin veneer that was quickly eroded by blatant drug, alcohol and prostitute use. The people of Anbar rejected AQI, but AQI was still strong and well-armed, so rejection was only a first step.

AQI operatives are not amenable to change, so there was killing to be done. General Hamid was one of the brave souls who took an early stand and went for their throats. In doing so, he demonstrated that the terrorists were also vulnerable. Some soldiers in the Task Force 2-7 began to jokingly refer to the general as “Bufford Pusser” because Hamid literally carried a big stick. But AQI wasn’t laughing; they beheaded Hamid’s son on a soccer field in the center of Hit in 2005.

I highly recommend that you read the whole thing.

And, when you've finished, you can read an update on the aftermath of the arrest that Glenn Reynolds has posted. I've reprinted it in the extended entry below . . .

MICHAEL YON EMAILS:

Many readers are asking about the situation in Hit, Iraq after LTC Doug Crissman arrested General Hamid. http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/the-final-option.htm

In response to overwhelming reader inquiries, I asked LTC Crissman if he would address the public at home and give folks an idea of the outcome. LTC Crissman just responded via email. This posting is with his permission. The outcome is as fascinating as the arrest:

Mike,

The Hit City Council now unanimously stands behind the nomination for Gen Hamid's replacement. Though I haven't spoken to him myself, the Provincial Chief of Police reportedly also concurs and has forwarded our nomination to the Anbar Provincial Council for their final review/approval. We're still working hard to reschedule the visit by the Governor, Provincial Council Chairman and Provincial Chief of Police which was cancelled due to weather last Saturday. Through Coalition channels, we continue to encourage a sense of urgency for the Anbar Provincial Government so we can get a new guy into the seat ASAP. In the meantime, I've met with the incumbent several times already and truly believe he'll be the professional we need to get this Police Force on the right track. A career officer from the Iraqi Army, he thinks, looks, and acts like a soldier...which is exactly what we need here in Hit. Yesterday, he recommended 3 other retired/former members of the Iraqi Army to be hired as members of the Hit District Staff -- all of whom have impressive credentials and skill sets we've been trying to build ourselves.

After about 72 hours of increased Coalition Force presence and a stricter curfew in Hit, we've now returned to business as usual. There are still those who feel Hamid should have merely been fired rather than detained, but the overwhelming majority agrees what we did needed to be done...and I continue to remind them that they asked us to do it...repeatedly.

Doug

Heritage Quote

"If mankind were to resolve to agree in no institution of government, until every part of it had been adjusted to the most exact standard of perfection, society would soon become a general scene of anarchy, and the world a desert."

-- Alexander Hamilton (Federalist No. 65, 7 March 1788)

History Quote

“Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid. That’s why the Marxist vision of man without God must eventually be seen as an empty and a false faith—the second oldest in the world—first proclaimed in the Garden of Eden with whispered words of temptation: ‘Ye shall be as gods.’ The crisis of the Western world, Whittaker Chambers reminded us, exists to the degree in which it is indifferent to God... This is the real task before us: to reassert our commitment as a nation to a law higher than our own, to renew our spiritual strength. Only by building a wall of such spiritual resolve can we, as a free people, hope to protect our own heritage and make it someday the birthright of all men.”

—Ronald Reagan

Heritage Quote

"If our country, when pressed with wrongs at the point of the bayonet, had been governed by its heads instead of its hearts, where should we have been now? Hanging on a gallows as high as Haman's."

-- Thomas Jefferson (letter to Maria Cosway, 1786)

Calling it like he sees it

Thomas Sowell has a fascinating column out regarding the contradictory nature of many of America's intelligentsia.

You may not agree with his assertions, but you have to admit that he makes some very good points.

I have reprinted it in the extended entry.

5 June 2007

Adolescent intellectuals

By Thomas Sowell

To a small child, the reason he cannot do many things that he would like to do is that his parents won't let him. Many years later, maturity brings an understanding that there are underlying reasons for doing or not doing many things, and that his parents were essentially conduits for those reasons.

The truly dangerous period in life is the time when the child has learned the limits of his parents’ control, and how to circumvent their control, but has not yet understood or accepted the underlying reasons for doing and not doing things. This adolescent period is one that some people -- intellectuals especially -- never outgrow.

The widespread and fervent use of the word “liberation” in a wide variety of contexts is one of the signs of the adolescent belief that only arbitrary rules and conventions stand in the way of doing whatever we want to do.

According to this vision of the world, the problems of all sorts of individuals and groups -- women, minorities, homosexuals, children -- are to be solved by liberating them from the restraints of laws, rules, conventions and standards.

They are to be liberated even from the threat of adverse judgments by other individuals. We are all to be “non-judgmental."

Two centuries ago, the great British legal scholar William Blackstone pointed out that there are some laws so old that no one remembers why they existed or what purpose they served then or now. But the bad consequences of repealing some of these laws have often made painfully clear what purpose they served.

Some of the painful consequences of various “liberations” that began in the 1960s have included the disintegration of families, skyrocketing crime rates, falling test scores in school, and record-breaking rates of teenage suicide.

A long downward trend in teenage pregnancy and venereal diseases sharply reversed during the 1960s, starting a new trend of escalating teenage pregnancy and venereal diseases, climaxed later by the AIDS epidemic.

Sometimes bad things happen because of adverse circumstances -- poverty or war, for example. But our post-1960s social disasters occurred during a long period of peace and unprecedented prosperity. Murder rates, for example, were much lower during the Great Depression of the 1930s and during World War II than they became after various “liberating” changes in the 1960s.

One of the signs of maturity is the ability to learn from experience. Some of us have learned and we have halted or reversed some of the adverse trends. For example, the quest for those elusive “root causes” of crime, so dear to the political left, has been put aside in favor of locking up more criminals -- and the crime rate has declined.

The left is upset that we have so many people behind bars and lament how much it is costing to keep them there. They do not even bother to estimate how much it would cost to turn them loose.

The left has never understood why property rights are a big deal, except to fat cats who own a lot of property. Through legislation and judicial rulings, property rights have been eroded with rent control laws, expansive concepts of eminent domain, and all sorts of environmental restrictions.

Some of the biggest losers have been people of very modest incomes and some of the biggest winners have been fat cats who are able to use political muscle and activist judges to violate other people's property rights.

Politicians in cities around the country violate property rights regularly by seizing homes in working-class neighborhoods and demolishing whole sectors of the city, in order to turn the land over to people who will build shopping malls, gambling casinos, and other things that will pay more taxes than the homeowners are paying.

That's why property rights were put in the Constitution in the first place, to keep politicians from doing things like that. But the adolescent intellectuals of our time have promoted the notion that property rights are just arbitrary rules to protect the rich.

Many academics and federal judges are sufficiently insulated from reality by tenure that they never have to grow up.

© 2007 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

[Reprinted with permission of The Patriot Post (PatriotPost.US)]

Heritage Quote

"First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen, he was second to none in humble and enduring scenes of private life. Pious, just humane, temperate, and sincere; uniform dignified, and commanding; his example was as edifying to all around him as were the effects of that example lasting; correct throughout, vice shuddered in his presence and virtue always felt his fostering hand. The purity of his private charter gave effulgence to his public virtues;. Such was the man for whom our nation morns."

-- John Marshall (official eulogy of George Washington, delivered by Richard Henry Lee, 26 December 1799)

Reaganisms

In honor of Ronald Reagan, who died three years ago today, I thought I'd post some of the things he said. He reminds us about the inherent greatness of America and its people -- of our country's place in this world, and Earth's compelling need for a country like America.

It is a sad fact that our nation's leaders today lack that understanding, and the obligations that go with it.

If you pay attention to many of the things President Bush says, you will see similar themes between he and the late President Ronald Wilson Reagan, who without a doubt was the more eloquent of the two.

“Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid. That’s why the Marxist vision of man without God must eventually be seen as an empty and a false faith—the second oldest in the world—first proclaimed in the Garden of Eden with whispered words of temptation: ‘Ye shall be as gods.’ The crisis of the Western world, Whittaker Chambers reminded us, exists to the degree in which it is indifferent to God... This is the real task before us: to reassert our commitment as a nation to a law higher than our own, to renew our spiritual strength. Only by building a wall of such spiritual resolve can we, as a free people, hope to protect our own heritage and make it someday the birthright of all men.”

-- Ronald Reagan

He understood the role our country has played -- and continues to play -- in leading the world against tyranny and oppression. And he recognized the need for us, as a nation, to step up and fulfill that role. [Emphasis added.]

“The themes of a sound foreign policy should be no mystery, nor the result of endless agonizing reappraisals. They are rooted in our past—in our very beginning as a nation. ... To this day, America is still the abiding alternative to tyranny. That is our purpose in the world—nothing more and nothing less. To carry out that purpose, our fundamental aim in foreign policy must be to ensure our own survival and to protect those others who share our values. Under no circumstances should we have any illusions about the intentions of those who are enemies of freedom. Our... adversaries have little regard for human rights because they have little interest in human freedom... [I]f we are to preserve our own freedom—we must understand those who would dominate us and deal with them with determination. We must shoulder our burden with our eyes fixed on the future, but recognizing the realities of today, not counting on mere hope or wishes. We must be willing to carry out our responsibility as the custodian of individual freedom. Then we will achieve our destiny to be as a shining city on a hill for all mankind to see.”

And, he spoke for the Republican party of his day (one that, due to a corruption of values similar to what overcame the Democrats 30 years ago, no longer exists) in stating the values held dear by many Americans then . . . and now. [Emphasis added.]

"We, the members of the New Republican Party, believe that the preservation and enhancement of the values that strengthen and protect individual freedom, family life, communities and neighborhoods and the liberty of our beloved nation should be at the heart of any legislative or political program presented to the American people."

Finally, Reagan was aware of the fragility of democracy in this world, and he stated this in his commencement address at Eureka College in 1957.

This democracy of ours which sometimes we've treated so lightly, is more than ever a comfortable cloak, so let us not tear it asunder, for no man knows once it is destroyed where or when he will find its protective warmth again.

His warning is just as important now as it was in 1957 (probably even more so), and we run a great risk in ignoring it.

When Ronald Reagan was president, we re-learned a great deal of the greatness and destiny of America. He made mistakes, as all men do, in leading our country, but he never lost faith in God's leadership in America's history, nor did he fail to seek God's involvement in America's future.

As I look back at Reagan's contributions to American ascendancy, I can't help but wish, in this contentious period of our history, for present-day leaders like him who would stand up and be counted on to do the right things for our country -- not the expeditious things, or the self-aggrandizing things, or the self-enriching things that so many of our political hacks are doing at America's expense.

Thank you, Ronald Wilson Reagan, for leaving our country a much better nation than how you found it.

I've shamelessly borrowed Reagan quotes from the The Patriot Post, and appreciate their excellent website.

Blog slowdown

I apologize for not posting much more than Heritage Quotes the last few days. I've been very much involved in real life the last six weeks, or so, and it is catching up with me.

I will endeavor to provide more of my alternative news content in the near future. In the meantime, I will try to keep the Heritage Quotes coming.

Thank you for visiting my site and for your indulgence while I take care of home, hearth, and health.

Heritage Quote

"[He] will live in the memory and gratitude of the wise & good, as a luminary of Science, as a votary of liberty, as a model of patriotism, and as a benefactor of human kind."

-- James Madison, 1826 - on Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Nicholas P. Trist

Heritage Quote

"Although in the circle of his friends, where he might be unreserved with safety, he took a free share in conversation his colloquial talents were not above mediocrity, possessing neither copiousness of ideas, nor fluency of words. In public, when called on for a sudden opinion, he was unready, short and embarrassed."

-- Thomas Jefferson, 1814 - on George Washington in a letter to Dr. Walter Jones

Heritage Quote

"[T]he President, who errs as other men do, but errs with integrity."

-- Thomas Jefferson, 1795 - on George Washington in a letter to William Branch Giles

The fortunes of war . . .

. . . sometimes break your way.

"He says he knows who planted the IED," the interpreter said.

Captain Gregory stood there dumbfounded...

Go read the rest.

Heritage Quote

"Hamilton was indeed a singular character. Of acute understanding, disinterested, honest, and honorable in all private transactions, amiable in society, and duly valuing virtue in private life, yet so bewitched & perverted by the British example, as to be under thoro' conviction that corruption was essential to the government of a nation."

-- Thomas Jefferson, on Alexander Hamilton in The Anas

America's heroes

Somehow I missed this, but (thankfully) Sarah over at trying to grok linked to it, and I thought I'd point out the article as well. It's a keeper.

It captures the essence of America.

Recommended. Highly.

I've posted it in the extended entry.

America's Honor
The stories behind Memorial Day.

BY PETER COLLIER
Monday, May 28, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

Once we knew who and what to honor on Memorial Day: those who had given all their tomorrows, as was said of the men who stormed the beaches of Normandy, for our todays. But in a world saturated with selfhood, where every death is by definition a death in vain, the notion of sacrifice today provokes puzzlement more often than admiration. We support the troops, of course, but we also believe that war, being hell, can easily touch them with an evil no cause for engagement can wash away. And in any case we are more comfortable supporting them as victims than as warriors.

Former football star Pat Tillman and Marine Cpl. Jason Dunham were killed on the same day: April 22, 2004. But as details of his death fitfully emerged from Afghanistan, Tillman has become a metaphor for the current conflict--a victim of fratricide, disillusionment, coverup and possibly conspiracy. By comparison, Dunham, who saved several of his comrades in Iraq by falling on an insurgent's grenade, is the unknown soldier. The New York Times, which featured Abu Ghraib on its front page for 32 consecutive days, put the story of Dunham's Medal of Honor on the third page of section B.

Not long ago I was asked to write the biographical sketches for a book featuring formal photographs of all our living Medal of Honor recipients. As I talked with them, I was, of course, chilled by the primal power of their stories. But I also felt pathos: They had become strangers--honored strangers, but strangers nonetheless--in our midst.

---

In my own boyhood, figures such as Jimmy Doolittle, Audie Murphy and John Basilone were household names. And it was assumed that what they had done defined us as well as them, telling us what kind of nation we were. But the 110 Medal recipients alive today are virtually unknown except for a niche audience of warfare buffs. Their heroism has become the military equivalent of genre painting. There's something wrong with that.

What they did in battle was extraordinary. Jose Lopez, a diminutive Mexican-American from the barrio of San Antonio, was in the Ardennes forest when the Germans began the counteroffensive that became the Battle of the Bulge. As 10 enemy soldiers approached his position, he grabbed a machine gun and opened fire, killing them all. He killed two dozen more who rushed him. Knocked down by the concussion of German shells, he picked himself up, packed his weapon on his back and ran toward a group of Americans about to be surrounded. He began firing and didn't stop until all his ammunition and all that he could scrounge from other guns was gone. By then he had killed over 100 of the enemy and bought his comrades time to establish a defensive line.

Yet their stories were not only about killing. Several Medal of Honor recipients told me that the first thing they did after the battle was to find a church or some other secluded spot where they could pray, not only for those comrades they'd lost but also the enemy they'd killed.

Desmond Doss, for instance, was a conscientious objector who entered the army in 1942 and became a medic. Because of his religious convictions and refusal to carry a weapon, the men in his unit intimidated and threatened him, trying to get him to transfer out. He refused and they grudgingly accepted him. Late in 1945 he was with them in Okinawa when they got cut to pieces assaulting a Japanese stronghold.

Everyone but Mr. Doss retreated from the rocky plateau where dozens of wounded remained. Under fire, he treated them and then began moving them one by one to a steep escarpment where he roped them down to safety. Each time he succeeded, he prayed, "Dear God, please let me get just one more man." By the end of the day, he had single-handedly saved 75 GIs.

Why did they do it? Some talked of entering a zone of slow-motion invulnerability, where they were spectators at their own heroism. But for most, the answer was simpler and more straightforward: They couldn't let their buddies down.

Big for his age at 14, Jack Lucas begged his mother to help him enlist after Pearl Harbor. She collaborated in lying about his age in return for his promise to someday finish school. After training at Parris Island, he was sent to Honolulu. When his unit boarded a troop ship for Iwo Jima, Mr. Lucas was ordered to remain behind for guard duty. He stowed away to be with his friends and, discovered two days out at sea, convinced his commanding officer to put him in a combat unit rather than the brig. He had just turned 17 when he hit the beach, and a day later he was fighting in a Japanese trench when he saw two grenades land near his comrades.

He threw himself onto the grenades and absorbed the explosion. Later a medic, assuming he was dead, was about to take his dog tag when he saw Mr. Lucas's finger twitch. After months of treatment and recovery, he returned to school as he'd promised his mother, a ninth-grader wearing a Medal of Honor around his neck.

---

The men in World War II always knew, although news coverage was sometimes scant, that they were in some sense performing for the people at home. The audience dwindled during Korea. By the Vietnam War, the journalists were omnipresent, but the men were performing primarily for each other. One story that expresses this isolation and comradeship involves a SEAL team ambushed on a beach after an aborted mission near North Vietnam's Cua Viet river base.

After a five-hour gunfight, Cmdr. Tom Norris, already a legend thanks to his part in a harrowing rescue mission for a downed pilot (later dramatized in the film BAT-21), stayed behind to provide covering fire while the three others headed to rendezvous with the boat sent to extract them. At the water's edge, one of the men, Mike Thornton, looked back and saw Tom Norris get hit. As the enemy moved in, he ran back through heavy fire and killed two North Vietnamese standing over Norris's body. He lifted the officer, barely alive with a shattered skull, and carried him to the water and then swam out to sea where they were picked up two hours later.

The two men have been inseparable in the 30 years since.

The POWs of Vietnam configured a mini-America in prison that upheld the values beginning to wilt at home as a result of protest and dissension. John McCain tells of Lance Sijan, an airman who ejected over North Vietnam and survived for six weeks crawling (because of his wounds) through the jungle before being captured.

Close to death when he reached Hanoi, Sijan told his captors that he would give them no information because it was against the code of conduct. When not delirious, he quizzed his cellmates about camp security and made plans to escape. The North Vietnamese were obsessed with breaking him, but never did. When he died after long sessions of torture Sijan was, in Sen. McCain's words, "a free man from a free country."

Leo Thorsness was also at the Hanoi Hilton. The Air Force pilot had taken on four MiGs trying to strafe his wingman who had parachuted out of his damaged aircraft; Mr. Thorsness destroyed two and drove off the other two. He was shot down himself soon after this engagement and found out by tap code that his name had been submitted for the Medal.

One of Mr. Thorsness's most vivid memories from seven years of imprisonment involved a fellow prisoner named Mike Christian, who one day found a grimy piece of cloth, perhaps a former handkerchief, during a visit to the nasty concrete tank where the POWs were occasionally allowed a quick sponge bath. Christian picked up the scrap of fabric and hid it.

Back in his cell he convinced prisoners to give him precious crumbs of soap so he could clean the cloth. He stole a small piece of roof tile which he laboriously ground into a powder, mixed with a bit of water and used to make horizontal stripes. He used one of the blue pills of unknown provenance the prisoners were given for all ailments to color a square in the upper left of the cloth. With a needle made from bamboo wood and thread unraveled from the cell's one blanket, Christian stitched little stars on the blue field.

"It took Mike a couple weeks to finish, working at night under his mosquito net so the guards couldn't see him," Mr. Thorsness told me. "Early one morning, he got up before the guards were active and held up the little flag, waving it as if in a breeze. We turned to him and saw it coming to attention and automatically saluted, some of us with tears running down our cheeks. Of course, the Vietnamese found it during a strip search, took Mike to the torture cell and beat him unmercifully. Sometime after midnight they pushed him into our cell, so bad off that even his voice was gone. But when he recovered in a couple weeks he immediately started looking for another piece of cloth."

---

We impoverish ourselves by shunting these heroes and their experiences to the back pages of our national consciousness. Their stories are not just boys' adventure tales writ large. They are a kind of moral instruction. They remind of something we've heard many times before but is worth repeating on a wartime Memorial Day when we're uncertain about what we celebrate. We're the land of the free for one reason only: We're also the home of the brave.

Mr. Collier wrote the text for "Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty" (Workman, 2006).

[Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.]