Tag: us

Of Kings and Queens and Freedom

Of Kings and Queens and Freedom

american-flag1.jpgDriving across the plains a couple years back I was musing while returning home from visiting my son and soon-to-be daughter-in-law. Rolling through the countryside across gentle hills and through green valleys I marveled at this land and our people. There were a thousand vistas along the way that would make a perfect home for either you or me.

Verdant vales and lush fields, corn across the plains, and wooded hills streamed past as I drove. A hundred, a thousand, a million perfect views of freedom, of happiness, of new places to build a house with a view, a farm with a windmill, a ranch with horses, a cottage beside a stream.

The American dream, the vision of freedom, is still here and alive in the United States, and it walks quietly and steadily beside us, a future vision of things to be. Here is where the dreams are made and where dreams become reality.

Foreigners misunderstand America, and what freedom here really is. They do not understand how our constitution protects individuals, not classes or groups. They neither grasp the laws designed to limit government, nor the responsibilities and duties that we free individuals must carry. The tree of liberty is fed with tyrant’s blood and that is just one of many responsibilities that we all know.

The ultimate effect and genius of our government is that each person is a sovereign individual; a king or a queen in their own right. It’s no mistake that fathers in America oft call their daughters princess, although there is neither title, divine right, nor grant of nobility to do so. We are each of us noble in America, and in America we write our own grants of nobility as we walk this land of 300 million kings and queens.

So foreigners misinterpret our easy grace with freedom and our ability as ego, they mistake our declarations as braggadocio, and they see this brawling country of three hundred million souls and fear our great powers.

What caused all my marvel while speeding through the plains wasn’t just freedom from kings, freedom from repressive religions that would have no other, nor freedom from dangerous philosophies. Instead it was the sheer wonder at everyone’s ability to gain their dream in America.

american_flag1.jpgThere is a new dream in america, or one simply born anew from ashes at the start of this century. It’s a dream of a world where all are free, where all are nobles, where everyone looks everyone else in the eye, and no person bows their head to anyone. The dream of a world where everyone is free, where energy and ability to achieve are in every person’s hands — a new century and a new millennium of freedom for all.

There are dangerous tyrants in the world who would block that, there are apologists and serfs to dangerous ideologies who will fight us from fear or from greed of money or power. Do not waver as you hear their seemingly reasoned whining plaints about why we are evil to think in such a manner. Remember instead that there’s no such thing as a little freedom, and that capitalism and the dream to achieve, to create, to design, to improve, to build, is a primal force of human nature — in the end and over time it will win all as surely as the sun does rise.

Here we are free to achieve, and here we acquire the means to do so. Here we are free to create, to speak, to disagree, and to celebrate — and so you should celebrate on this day of independence from tyrants and philosophies of divine rights; for you are a king or a queen in your own right and by your own light. So as the rockets flare tonight decide on what your kingdom will be, what you will achieve, and cherish your will to be free.

Welcome Home Roxana Saberi

Welcome Home Roxana Saberi

No words needed here, Roxana says it well enough.

More from the BBC Article.

UPDATE: Roxana Saberi wins at Cannes Film Festival:

CANNES, France (AP) – A film co-scripted by U.S.-Iranian journalist Roxana Saberi won a prize in one of the Cannes Film Festival competitions on Saturday.

“No One Knows About Persian Cats” won a special jury prize in the festival’s Un Certain Regard competition.

The film is a lively look at Tehran’s underground music scene and the risk of censorship and jail faced by Iranian musicians.

Saberi shares a screenplay credit on the film, which was directed and-co-written by her romantic partner, Bahman Ghobadi.

Hans Rosling: Yes They Can

Hans Rosling: Yes They Can

A marvelous presentation by Hans Rosling, please ignore the Obamanistic term a moment – Hans tells you what I’ve thought all along. Energy is key, what good is advantage if you are living on an island of wealth and the rest of the world is shipwrecked on the reefs of third world despair?
Do poor neighbors make good neighbors, or would you prefer your neighbors to have the energy wealth that you do? Are high infant mortality, poor education, and poverty things which any country can really overcome? Yes, they can.
Please take a moment to think of the difference between “yes we can,” and “yes, they can.” We can’t do this for them, we must however convince them to do it for themselves. Environmental Imperialism won’t get us there.


Yes they can! from Gapminder Foundation on Vimeo.

This is where we’ve lost our moral footing. Charity as it is today is mostly maintenance and displacement activity to help the wealthy nations feel better about themselves. Our support for advancing third world countries is best when we are demonstrating why liberty works to strengthen a nation, why education works to strengthen a nation, and most of all why abundant clean energy is the bedrock that future civilization will stand or fall upon.

US to UN Soon: Hamid Gul is a Terrorist

As a followup to yesterday’s story on Hamid Gul, Bill Roggio has made some queries and has a solid report up at The Long War Journal. Well worth your your time to read.

Meghan Kelly Rips US Magazine Over Sarah Palin Story

Please also note that US magazine is owned by Rolling Stone, who has sent thousands to the Barack Obama Campaign.

UPDATE: Robert Bidinotto is running through the smorgasboard of smears against Sarah Palin and countering them as the left goes deranged in the run up to her speech tonight.

Honoring Petty Officer Michael Monsoor; US Navy Seal

Summary of Action
Petty Officer Second Class (SEAL) Michael A. Monsoor
For actions on Sept. 29, 2006

Petty Officer Michael A. Monsoor, United States Navy, distinguished himself through conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as a Combat Advisor and Automatic Weapons Gunner for Naval Special Warfare Task Group Arabian Peninsula in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom on 29 September 2006. He displayed great personal courage and exceptional bravery while conducting operations in enemy held territory at Ar Ramadi Iraq.

During Operation Kentucky Jumper, a combined Coalition battalion clearance and isolation operation in southern Ar Ramadi, he served as automatic weapons gunner in a combined SEAL and Iraqi Army (IA) sniper overwatch element positioned on a residential rooftop in a violent sector and historical stronghold for insurgents. In the morning, his team observed four enemy fighters armed with AK-47s reconnoitering from roads in the sector to conduct follow-on attacks. SEAL snipers from his roof engaged two of them which resulted in one enemy wounded in action and one enemy killed in action. A mutually supporting SEAL/IA position also killed an enemy fighter during the morning hours. After the engagements, the local populace blocked off the roads in the area with rocks to keep civilians away and to warn insurgents of the presence of his Coalition sniper element. Additionally, a nearby mosque called insurgents to arms to fight Coalition Forces.

In the early afternoon, enemy fighters attacked his position with automatic weapons fire from a moving vehicle. The SEALs fired back and stood their ground. Shortly thereafter, an enemy fighter shot a rocket-propelled grenade at his building. Though well-acquainted with enemy tactics in Ar Ramadi, and keenly aware that the enemy would continue to attack, the SEALs remained on the battlefield in order to carry out the mission of guarding the western flank of the main effort.

Due to expected enemy action, the officer in charge repositioned him with his automatic heavy machine gun in the direction of the enemy?s most likely avenue of approach. He placed him in a small, confined sniper hide-sight between two SEAL snipers on an outcropping of the roof, which allowed the three SEALs maximum coverage of the area. He was located closest to the egress route out of the sniper hide-sight watching for enemy activity through a tactical periscope over the parapet wall. While vigilantly watching for enemy activity, an enemy fighter hurled a hand grenade onto the roof from an unseen location. The grenade hit him in the chest and bounced onto the deck. He immediately leapt to his feet and yelled ?grenade? to alert his teammates of impending danger, but they could not evacuate the sniper hide-sight in time to escape harm. Without hesitation and showing no regard for his own life, he threw himself onto the grenade, smothering it to protect his teammates who were lying in close proximity. The grenade detonated as he came down on top of it, mortally wounding him.

Petty Officer Monsoor’s actions could not have been more selfless or clearly intentional. Of the three SEALs on that rooftop corner, he had the only avenue of escape away from the blast, and if he had so chosen, he could have easily escaped. Instead, Monsoor chose to protect his comrades by the sacrifice of his own life. By his courageous and selfless actions, he saved the lives of his two fellow SEALs and he is the most deserving of the special recognition afforded by awarding the Medal of Honor.

Iranian Special Forces Responsible for Karbala Captured

This is an important update to an article I posted Friday the 6th, it appears that the “Hezbollah” or Qods force operatives captured are the agents that planned and executed the Karbala attack. You might remember this from early last year — the US compound was raided in a sophisticated attack that included fake US uniforms and knowledge of the compound’s layout.

The Four US soldiers captured were subsequently murdered and mutilated, one died in the initial attack and others were wounded. So now we have the perpetrators, who in the meantime acting as agents of Iran, have been supplying explosive formed projectiles (EFP’s) to the Shia miltias and causing other mayhem.

The Karbala attack, along with the EFP report I did back in ’06 are tied together now. Both are terrible but somehow this gives me the sense that things are truly getting better in Iraq and it’s a bit of closure over both reports. The Iranian Quds forces have operated with impugnity until now in a large part due to sympathy from the local Shia population. Something has now turned that around.

RIght Wing Nuthouse has the details of the original Karbala attack here, and Bill Roggio has the latest on this important capture here.