Liberty Peak Lodge

To Our Friends in Georgia

 

I don't know why, but we have more readers in the beautiful state of Georgia than in any other state -- and I want you to be nice to our ONE reader from New Jersey, okay?

This is for you, you Redneck Bastards!  Don't ever say Cicero never did anything for ya.

My America

Modesty is a Capstone Over All the Virtues.  Wolfram Von Eschenback

Just in time for Independence Day, a conservative think tank has delivered a controversial report asking whether America's national identity is eroding under the pressure of population diversity and educational slackness.

The threat outlined by the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation in its report, "E Pluribus Unum," strikes me as a bit exaggerated. But with Barack Obama and John McCain debating the "patriotism issue," having a coherent discussion of this matter -- and this short pamphlet is admirably written and well-researched -- is a useful contribution.

The takeoff point for the argument is an observation about the uniqueness of America that was made by Thomas Jefferson -- and by myriad other worthies in the centuries since. They all have drawn attention to the fact that the national identity of America, unlike that of other countries, rests "not on a common ethnicity, but on a set of ideas."  David Broder, One Nation No More?

Broder concludes that we must be all right: we fired Richard Nixon!

I would agree with him if Bill Clinton had been forced to resign.  The fact that so many Americans think he's a great guy is revolting.  (As I always said to Clinton's defenders, if it's "just about his sex life", I'm going to take your 21-year-old daughter on a date!  They weren't usually impressed with that.)

I had some of my own thoughts on America, and what it means to be American, as follows.

Holiday Blogorati

 

The Declaration of Independence . . . . [is the] declaratory charter of our rights, and the rights of man.  Thomas Jefferson  Special Edition of the Patriot Post

From our friends around the Blogosphere:

Over at The Hawk:  RubeWatch: Are the editors of the New York Times the rubes?

Gateway Pundit has some REAL change for you Obama Voters: Iraqi President Shakes Hands with Israeli Minister.  Yay, George Bush!

The Anchoress has a good one: I Thought the GOP Was the Dumb Party

Over at Never Yet Melted: The Declaration of Independence.  Today's MUST read!

Funniest Man on the Blogosphere doesn't go to me -- though I'm damn funny.  It goes to Iowahawk.  The guy's a durned Genius!  A Message to American Voters from Barrack Obama.

The End of an Era

Na Na Na Na Na, Na Na Na Na Na, Hey, Hey, Get High

Baby boomers, hired in large numbers during a huge expansion in higher education that continued into the ’70s, are being replaced by younger professors who many of the nearly 50 academics interviewed by The New York Times believe are different from their predecessors — less ideologically polarized and more politically moderate.

“There’s definitely something happening,” said Peter W. Wood, executive director of the National Association of Scholars, which was created in 1987 to counter attacks on Western culture and values. “I hear from quite a few faculty members and graduate students from around the country. They are not really interested in fighting the battles that have been fought over the last 20 years.”  The 60s Fade as Liberal Professors Retire.

Hat Tip: Kreiz.

Steam: Kiss Him Goodbye

The Who, Magic Bus

Happy Fourth, Ya' Irish, Greek Bastard!

Fourth of July

Kreiz, Carolyn and the HRB, enjoy your Fourth as well.

Yesterday, a woman of color decided that the words to the Star Spangled Banner didn't say the words she felt for her country.  She instead sung what has been called the "Black National Anthem", set to the same ol' drinkin' tune adopted for the American National Anthem.  Hell the Star Spangled Banner and old drinking songs  are the only words that should ever be sung to that tune.  No I don't mind if there is a group that wants to hear a singer sing Lift Every Voice, but when they are expecting the chill through their spine of a live performance of the most important song in America's history, as well as most likely a state and federal requirement for this type of affair, don't try to pull a fast one.  People will notice.  They will call it reverse racism.  They will not be understanding of the song's message, only that they'd ne'r heard that verse 'afore.  Where's the durn rockets?

Anyway, to all you folks with a message that you want to get out to a bunch of gun totin',  God fearin', Redneck 'mericans, Don't mess with the Stars and Stripes!

  Maybe get another bumper sticker if ya' got room'

BTW -Something to be Proud Of

God Bless America

Happy Fourth Y'all!

Snobama Weekend Update

Коммунистическая партия спиной Обама!

Ye Olde Shuck and Jive

We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK.  Jesus Hussein Obamasattva Buddharoonie

Great stuff over at Gateway Pundit on Obama's Protean Watusi:

Remember Mean Americans: We All Need to Sacrifice!

Flip and Backflip and Cool Airborne Twist on Iraq!

Hyper Hope and Re-Defined Change!

Next Up! He 'Refines' His Position on Abortion.  Plus a link to The Anchoress: I Thought the GOP Was the Dumb Party.

LGF: Sixties Radicals for Obama

Gerard Baker: Whiplash on the Left!

Krauthammer: Obama's Flip-Flop on Iraq

COMMUNIST PARTY BACKS OBAMA!

Welcome to the first full post-modern presidential election, where, to quote Marshall McLuhan, "the medium is the message."  Well, it's more than that: it's performance -- performance art, as John Dickerson suggests.  And it's feelings.  Or as Julio Iglesias, Sr., once crooned, "Nothing more than feelings."  Jeffrey Schmidt

Obama World

Obama's Soviet Iconography

Is Obama a Bodhisattva?

Are the Democrats Farkers?  We think so.

Blog . . . Who Will Read my Blog?

A Little Mary Poppins Magic for the Weekend

I Love to Laugh

Wasn't Dick Van Dyke great?

The Jews of Europe

 

"The West claims that more than six million Jews were killed in World War II and to compensate for that they established and support Israel. If it is true that the Jews were killed in Europe, why should Israel be established in the East, in Palestine?" Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Britain's first Muslim minister has attacked the growing culture of hostility against Muslims in the United Kingdom, saying that many feel targeted like "the Jews of Europe".

Shahid Malik, who was appointed as a minister in the Department for International Development (Dfid) by Gordon Brown last summer, said it has become legitimate to target Muslims in the media and society at large in a way that would be unacceptable for any other minority.  Muslims feel like 'Jews of Europe'

Actually, Shahid Head, what you're feeling is scorn and distrust which naturally arise after hearing holocaust denial, minimization around terrorism and Islamic hatred of others, antisemitism, blame, and whining, all of which are particularly concentrated among Muslim populations and were nonexistent among the Jewish populations trying to assimilate.  I guess you could say some of us doubt Muslim integrity.  Hell, some of us doubt your intelligence.

No Stronger Retrograde Force Exists in History

Islam Under the Swastika

At Seraphic Secret: The Jew-Hating Savages of Paris

Just How Important is Patriotism?

 

American Patriotism -- Better than Viagra

Perhaps nowhere was patriotism so downplayed or deplored than among intellectuals in the Western democracies in the two decades after the horrors of the First World War, fought under various nations' banners of patriotism.

In France, after the First World War, the teachers' unions launched a systematic purge of textbooks, in order to promote internationalism and pacifism.

Books that depicted the courage and self-sacrifice of soldiers who had defended France against the German invaders were called "bellicose" books, to be banished from the schools. Thomas Sowell: How Relevant is Patriotism?  Go Ask France.

Sound familiar?

Happy Fourth of July!!

 

I Love Being American

I've had a lot of blessings in my life.  Throughout most of the Fifties and into the Sixties, my Old Dad was the local American Legion Post Commander.  When I was a kid in 1965, the bulk of men I knew were veterans from Korea and World War II.  My granddad, who lied about his age when he was 16 and "sailed the 7 seas!", was 33-years-old when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.  He signed up for Coast Guard duty and was on board for quite a few of those "D-Days in the Pacific."  Here's what I wrote about those days:

Hello TO Sin City

Sin City John brought this on.

AC/DC, Sin City!

Money Talks!

Back in Black

Liberty Peak Lodge is Four-Months-Old Today

 

Happy Birthday!

Somebody best let Glenn Reynolds know.  I'm sure he'll want to say something on his Giganto Mucho Phenomoblog!

Two Books to Get

The ensuing slaughter was the turning point in the Burma theater of WWII, a smashing victory for the British Indian Army and one of the long-neglected spheres of ferocious combat excellently recounted by British journalist and historian Max Hastings in his lengthy-but-readable new volume, Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-1945.  Recently acclaimed for his magisterial companion book, Armageddon, which described the annihilation of the Third Reich, Hastings here turns his considerable talents for lucid writing to the other great subject of the time.  Christopher Carson, Eagles of the Open Sea.

Max Hastings sounds like the guy to read.

Don't Tell Anyone: Iraq's a Success

America and its Armed Forces Are More About Love than are the Self-Righteous Weasels Who Slander Us

Is the situation truly improving in Iraq? Is it possible to rely on these changes in everyday life or are they merely an illusion? According to the quarterly report that the Pentagon issued in mid-June, the number of armed incidents has declined by 70 percent since last summer, bringing it down to 2004 levels -- from about 180 daily incidents to 45. More than 320,000 of the 478,000 soldiers in the Iraqi Army, the report claims, are now capable of fighting without American support, and more than €3.8 billion ($5.9 billion) of Iraq's own reconstruction budget totaling €6.4 billion ($9.9 billion) has already been invested in projects. "The security, political and economic trends in Iraq continue to be positive; however they remain fragile, reversible and uneven," the report concluded.  Spiegel: Optimism Grows in Iraq

Britt Hume: Mainstream Media Ignores Progress in Iraq

Well, the Polling has changed!  Instapundit.

Make sure all your liberal friends know this.  Send them a link to Liberty Peak Lodge!

Tell 'em Cicero Sent Ya.

A Damn-Near 4th of July Outstanding Blog Newswhip!

   

Liberty Peak is an outstanding blog.  It's fun, substantive, and personal -- a unique Ciceronian blend of Barbs, Babes and Hash!

Limbaugh’s audience is often underestimated by critics who don’t listen to the show (only 3 percent of his audience identity themselves as “liberal,” according to the nonpartisan Pew Research Center for the People and the Press). Recently, Pew reported that, on a series of “news knowledge questions,” Limbaugh’s “Dittoheads” — the defiantly self-mocking term for his faithful, supposedly brainwashed, audience — scored higher than NPR listeners. The study found that “readers of newsmagazines, political magazines and business magazines, listeners of Rush Limbaugh and NPR and viewers of the Daily Show and C-SPAN are also much more likely than the average person to have a college degree.”  Late-Period Limbaugh

In other words . . . . we're better informed than the Crybaby Washrag Commie Bastards who call us "dumb"!  Pew says so!

Whip?

Change of Plans

 

Thank You, Cicero, for Not Smoking

Kids? Ol' Cicero can't keep up the morning Whip habit and still get the things done I need to get done.  As threatened before, I'm going to shift Whipping over to the afternoon, and limit it a bit in scope.  But don't worry: that should work in your favor.  A little less clutter; a little more tart.  I'm going to focus on what I do best: incisive analyzing.

We do have some regular readers out there, and I appreciate it.  Our goal is to get to 500 readers a day, with folks commenting as they see fit.  You can start a trend: A Liberty Peak Lodge Trend!  We think Liberty Peak Lodge is worth it.  I suspect you do, too.  I can see which ones of you are coming back regularly.  It's good to see.

Don't be shy about leaving a comment, and you can write ol' Cicero, too.  I respond to as many mails as I can.

Thank you.

And good reading.

American Exceptionalism

President Ronald Reagan

Limbaugh admires many aspects of Reaganism, but he is especially animated by his belief in American exceptionalism. “Reagan rejected the notion among liberals and conservatives alike who, for different reasons, believed America was in a permanent state of decline,” he wrote to me in an e-mail message. “He had faith in the wisdom of the American people. . . . He knew America wasn’t perfect, but he also knew it was the most perfect of nations. Reagan was an advocate of Americanism.” In response to a separate question, he wrote: “America is the solution to the world’s problems. We are not the problem.”

Limbaugh said he believes that President George W. Bush is well meaning but far from the Reagan standard of excellence. “I like President Bush,” he wrote me, “but he is not a conservative. He is conservative on some things, but he has not led a movement as Reagan did every day of his career. Bush’s unpopularity is due primarily to his reluctance to publicly defend himself and his administration against attacks from the left. . . . The country has not tilted to the left in my view. What has been absent is elected conservative leadership from the White House down to the Congress.”  Late-Period Limbaugh

That review reflects the one taken at Liberty Peak Lodge.

Late-Period Limbaugh

 

Mean Ol' Rush

“Rush talked about the ‘Contract With America’ before there was a ‘Contract With America,’ ” Karl Rove told me. “He helped set the agenda.”  Zev Chafets

When I told my friend Sarge about my blogging activities, he said to me -- with characteristic sensitivity for my feelings -- "I get my news from three sources: Rush, Little Green Footballs, and Patriot Post."  That was good enough for me!  I sent him links to my blog anyway.

I missed most of the early Rush mania.  I worked in a government office.  We either didn't, or couldn't, listen to radio, depending on circumstances.  This was years before we had our own desktops, and after we got them, they told us, "No Streaming!"  Probably somebody tried to stream in Rush Limbaugh and got busted.

Back in the early 90's I had a Leftist, Feminist, Earth Mother Nazi of a girlfriend who used to get the regular NOW mailings.  There wasn't one single issue of the monthly NOW mailings that did NOT mention Rush.  He was truly the enemy.  After I get my senses back, I began to worry about him.  Would the Left try to knock him off?  They sure hated him bad enough, and they were crazy.

A few observations about Rush and the Left, based upon the experiences shared thus far, and the observations that have come after:

Plan C

What a sad belief system. What pathetic villains. There is nothing that differentiates them from all the punks in history except the imagined distinction of their appearance and phraseology. The darkness they worship is ancient. But there too from the first was the light; and life will prevail against death, though hell may bar the way.  Plan C.

Well said, Belmont!

El gran Uno

 

A Belated Acknowledgement that the Great One, Belmont Club, has Moved to Pajamas Media!

Maybe Liberty Peak Lodge Can One Day Follow.

Pink Islamic Psycho-Bunnies and the American "Progressive": Two Protected Species

Mark Davis: There'll Be Dancing on the Streets When Bush Leaves

Ex-Muslim Abul Kasem on the "Oppression" of Islam

Iranian "Documentary": Zionist Themes in Saving Private Ryan!

That gets them the Goofball of the Week Award.

How Iran Kills Americans: AP story on how Americans "opened up" Iraq to Iranian incursion.  Yeah.  That's how it happened!

Caroline Glick: Shackled Warrior -- Israel and the Global Jihad

Andrew McCarthy: The War and the House Divided

The ultimate goal of the Islamists is the creation of a Pan Islamic world, which must be ruled by a caliph (the Islamists call it the Khilafat movement) who will be responsible to enforce Islamic laws (Sharia) globally.