Go Read This

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

It’s already been a morning, and I’m running late.  There will be a post, but meanwhile, go read this.

http://ashbrook.org/publications/onprin-special-schramm/

This is why I came up with the Usaian religion in my books.  And this is why we cannot let the light go out.  We cannot.  Else, the world will be plunged in darkness.

What the forces of evil (eh) don’t get is that the light is not a government, or a place.  It’s the beliefs in each of our hearts.  And as long as one of us lives, here or abroad, the light won’t go out.

91 thoughts on “Go Read This”

  1. Go ahead, run late. You’ve plenty of things more important than the entertainment of us. We’ll just hang about and occupy ourselves with rearranging the furniture, decorating the 4th of July Mammoth and reconstructing a few less obtrusive nooks and crannies.

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    1. Uhmmm … (consults clipboard jammed with notes and floor plans) I think those are scheduled for the spit.

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          1. Lloyd concerns me, but it’s Marshall’s invisible friends that truly give me pause.

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              1. Some things a boy simply does not share with mom.
                See Heinlein’s advice on the care and feeding of teens, even though Marshall has passed that milestone.

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            2. It is the invisible enemies you have to really watch out for.

              I knew this one guy who had so many invisible enemies you couldn’t see him for the crowd. They told him to “get effed” but nothing happened, ’cause it turned out he was ineffable.

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          2. I’ve been meaning to ask: is Lloyd invisible on account of being non-reflective/light-bendy or on account of being extra-dimensional? It’s important to know so that when we fine-tune the trans-spatial bookcase we don’t want a repeat of the interference that happened when Ian, the invisible ant, bumped into it and we lost the Alexandria Annex.

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            1. I think (reviews clipboard) that the notes call for the mammoth to be sectioned. That way we get mammoth rump roast (we might try the honey glaze there), mammoth hams, mammoth bacon (who’s in charge of the wood selection so we can smoke that?) and mammoth rack of ribs.

              I believe we’ve got (checks invoices) a male mammoth, so be sure to enter the drawing for the mammoth “prairies oysters” and plonk steak.

              (Blows whistle) Everybody!! Your attention please! We are accepting recommendations for the spice blend in the mammoth sausage, so please get you suggestions in soon!

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              1. I vote for hickory and fruitwood for the smoker. If we start the meat on Memorial day it should be ready by Libertycon. Hey, says right here in the paleolithic cookbook, mammoth low and really slow.
                Mild spice please unless we lay in a second keg.
                And thanks, but I’ll pass on the boy bits. Andrew Zimmern I ain’t.

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                1. ? You sure you want to pass? I have been advised that when marinated in the right honey sauce those can be right tender and sweet.

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                2. Can you brine something as tough as Mammoth? If you can, that’s my vote. I’ve done plenty of birds and pork that way, but never anything tougher.
                  Oh, and applewood. I’m sure it would be great permeating the mammoth meat.

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                    1. We can use some of the slices that were set aside for mammoth tartar, especially since the debate over what saddle to use (and what animal to saddle) works best for that. The people arguing in favor of T-Rex with an English saddle aren’t volunteering to saddle Rex!

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                  3. Ehh, Fluffy can flame-broil a mammoth in minutes… but charges about a quarter mammoth to do it.

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              2. Will you make a non-spicy sausage? I guess I’ll have to go out hunting my own meat. Some of us are allergic to spice. Is there any maple syrup in stock? I’m thin king of making maple beans n bacon. I know hubby like Italian sausage. He also likes Thai, Indian and Mexican. Will there be any naan? I like the fruit kind. I’ll make some bread if anyone wants.

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                1. Oh, we can get maple syrup by fine-tuning the transporter beam to accept only the sap from the trees in northern vermont, then separate out 97.5% of the water content. That way it doesn’t even have to get heated.

                  Oh, and nobody worry that it will hurt the syrup harvest for the manufacturers, we’re taking it from 20,000 years ago, same place we got the mammoth.

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              3. You’ve been reading Pam Uphoff, haven’t you?

                Suggest you marinate: mammoth at that age is likely to be on the tough side.

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              2. Robert needs to remember that mammoths is to elephants as monkeys are to humans. Consuming them is not tref.

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              3. Tell him the mammoth lead a rich full life and died of natural causes. Which is the reason for the low and slow cooking process simply to make the meat at all edible. See origins of Southern style BBQ for the reasons and logic behind that process.

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                1. You want to feed a lot of people cheaply and persuade them to vote you into political office? (Oh, wait, that’s a pig-picking, not exactly the same thing.)

                  Will there be pig-picking cake?

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        1. Out of willpower. Here goes.

          The one l lama, he’s a priest.
          The two l llama, he’s a beast.
          But I’d bet my silk pajama,
          There’s no such thing as a three l lllama.

          Ogden Nash

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  3. One of the neatest things in Budapest is the statue of Ronald Reagan, smiling, as he strides across a park. One of the not-so-neat things is how Hungarians try to explain how their Communism wasn’t nearly as bad as that to the east. In terms of material suffering I’m sure it wasn’t, but spiritually? Hard to say.

    And Györ’s old city is a neat place to stroll around.

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  4. An inspiring article, but saddening in that so many lucky enough to have been born here have not the slightest clue to how fortunate they really are. I blame the libs, progs, and crony capitalists who infest our government, our educational system, and the media for much of the contempt with which far too many hold for traditional USAian values.
    My maternal grandfather came here from Bavaria in 1910 at the age of 16, just in time to miss the Kaiser’s levies. His brother was less fortunate, surviving WWI, but a victim of gas. He managed to come here between the wars. Both he and my grandfather became successful businessmen.
    I was raised from an early age by my grandparents, and always knew how truly fortunate we were to live in this the greatest country to ever be. Grandma was Dutch/English American born. Grandpa never completely lost his German accent. Couldn’t have been easy living here through both wars and the depression, but he never spoke of the hardships, always of the opportunities.

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    1. Sadly, people tend to not miss the water until the well runs dry.

      If we let them drain this well it will be a long dry time before Spring returns.

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      1. Understand, we are the Great Satan, not just to radical Islam, but to the vast majority of Earth’s population. We’ve discussed this before. Most people want those ever so comfortable chains of slavery that come with a master who takes care of you, protects you, sees to your needs. And all they want in return is your mind and soul and body, surely a small price to pay for all those benefits.
        We are the odds in the mix. We must maintain a position of strength. We must fight every incursion by those who are our sworn enemies.
        Better to die free than live a slave, but better yet to live free listening to the lamentations of the slavers’ women.

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    2. It really is an inspiring article, but the saddest paragraph is the one about the European who doesn’t understand how iAmerica holds together – surely, he thought, all these people of different backgrounds could never live together as citizens. It’s sad to me because that is exactly the point at which the libprogs have attacked us hardest the last two generations, and it seems to be fairly effective.

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          1. America isn’t a wholly owned subsidiary of Apple. Now, a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft might be a different matter. [Very Big Evil Grin]

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        4. That wasn’t a typo, it was subliminal brain induction, a phenomenon commonly observed in people with two or more Apple products. For those with five or more Apple products (or an Apple Watch) the syndrome not only occurs constantly but they are incapable of perceiving it when it happens.

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    3. The problem is, if America is really great, and good and evil exist, then the Liberal Intellectual Radical Progressives would have a moral obligation to go out into the world and actually DO SOMETHING. Bring electricity and clean water to African dirt farmers. Take up arms and oppose barbarians like the jihadis. Teach testable English mastery in the inner cities. And that would be HARD WORK. It would interfere with their meditation classes, and their search for the perfect free range hummus. They could break a nail.

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        1. I know, I know. All the good chantable rhymes have been taken, the people are no longer responding to giant puppets like they should, and even a speech at the UN fails to enlighten the masses as it should.

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          1. Well, to be fair, you are probably using your awareness so any disarray or whatnot is just the sign of a well-lived-in awareness.

            Generally the awarenesses you see raised on, say, Facebook, belong to people who keep theirs in pristine unused condition. So of course it looks spotless under there.

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      2. I broke a nail once. It was one of those that has both grooves AND resin to hold it in place, so I just bent it back and forth and broke it off.

        Oh. You mean fingernails? Ow.

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        1. Did you throw it out the window on the freeway? If so, you owe me $85 for it going through the sidewall of my passenger side rear tire I had to replace yesterday….. :_

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          1. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t me. I was in another county, and it was winter time, and, uh, I was using a left-handed hammer… yeah, that’s the ticket.

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      3. The thing is, the only moral obligation your typical free range Liberal Intellectual Radical Progressive feels is to be acknowledged morally superior to everyone not of their tiny exclusionary clique. To actually work to improve the plight of those less fortunate would impinge upon their highly valued exclusivity. Simply cannot have that now can we?
        Which is just another reason why such as they hold charitable and faith based organizations actually doing a bit of good in third world pestholes in such contempt. You see, their charitable organizations are run properly. The bulk of their resources goes to more fund raising and to pay for the travel of their celebrity supporters to attend photo ops. Little if any of the funds ever go to really affect the cause the organization was ostensibly created to help.

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  5. Very good article. Thanks for sharing it.

    For all the complaining, you don’t see anyone risking their lives to escape from America, now do you?

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        1. I think that what she was trying to say is that she is a sap — a sock full of sand — with which to pound some sense into the puddingheads.

          But it is possible I’m over-thinking it.

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        2. Why? A Sapless Anonymous would be more useful, if any of the sapless writers had the honesty to join.

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      2. Yeah. I noticed the cat suddenly kicked up a bunch of dust about the time I got to the fourth paragraph or so. Must be time to sweep in here again. Yeah, that’s it.

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      3. See this. Have a cup of tea and some play dough and puppy videos ready for afterward:

        The Testimony of an American Officer
        By Jay Nordlinger — May 20, 2015

        On Monday, I wrote a post called “A Question of Honor.” It summarized a piece I had in a recent National Review. The piece had to do with our former allies in Iraq and what we owe them.

        I’d like to publish a letter from a reader. It’s long, but worth reading and pondering, I think:

        Mr. Nordlinger,

        Your piece about abandoning the Iraqis who helped us resonates with me deeply. I spent two years in Iraq. I couldn’t help but think, as I watched the vice president’s speech from about 30 feet away at BIAP in the autumn of 2011, of Saigon. [BIAP is the Baghdad International Airport.] This time there most likely won’t be any helicopters on an embassy roof, I thought. I wondered what the modern version would be.

        Turns out, there was no modern version. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of them couldn’t get out at all, via helicopter or otherwise. Many more ended up boxed in by ISIS. In Vietnam many of our erstwhile friends who couldn’t get out had to go to re-education camps. In Iraq, they just get herded into pits and shot.

        I don’t have PTSD from my combat time. [Those initials stand for “post-traumatic stress disorder.”] At least I don’t think I do. I just have a deep and abiding anger. My mom senses it. She asked me over Christmas why I was still so angry. I told her about a conversation between me and a good friend. He and I have served together under fire and back home in garrison.

        Last time we were together, I was asking him about an Iraqi officer we’d known in a city we both served in. I don’t want to name him or even the location. Let’s just call him John Doe.

        John was brave, and smart, and tough, and knew English better than either of us. He took initiative and was genuinely concerned with his soldiers. Before the war and until about 2006, John had been a relatively wealthy urban professional, respected and liked in his community. He looked around and saw the country he loved being torn apart and talked seriously with his wife about leaving. But he chose not to.

        John left his career, which even in war-torn Iraq was pretty lucrative, and joined the Iraqi Army. He became an officer and led his men very well. Better than some American officers I’ve worked with. He showed rare interest in proactive maintenance, planning, and property accountability. If the Iraq Army has a good future, I thought, it will be because of men like him.

        Last year when I talked about John with my friend, I casually wondered aloud whether John had gotten out when his city fell to ISIS. My friend looked at me, surprised, and said, “Seriously? He’s dead, man. He’s dead. You know him as well as I do. He loved [his hometown]. He either died fighting or died in the mass executions after the city fell.”

        As I realized he was right, and before I could overcome my sudden sadness, he added, “And you’ve read the intelligence intercepts the same as I have. You know what those ISIS psychopaths are doing with the people in the towns they overrun. If they’re lucky, his family was killed too. Otherwise his son was murdered and his wife and daughter enslaved.”

        I thought after a few years that I’d gotten a handle on my anger. It all came back when he said that. He’s right: All the good, honest people who just wanted to free their country from oppression, tyranny, and the grip of a death cult — all those people either fled or got killed.

        I hate thinking about John on the streets of a city I know better than my own, fighting in his hometown after his allies abandoned him. I hate having to decide whether he died fighting or somehow got tricked into surrendering and was then killed. I hate having to hope that John’s family was murdered before they could be enslaved. What a choice. What a choice.

        We left those people to die. Because we couldn’t wait to leave. Because we’re so terrified of another Vietnam that we throw away victory and call it a responsible end. I feel apologetic toward them. I’m sorry we’re so fickle. I wish we had more honor. Instead we consign millions to darkness.

        As I said, your piece stirred me because I too have been wondering about what happened to our honor. I hope it isn’t gone forever.

        That’s all. Go watch the puppies now; your BP will thank you for it.

        And remember: this is what we here are fighting for, that folks like John Doe over there will once again be able to rely on us, that we might still have some sacred Honor to pledge along with our Lives and our Fortunes.

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        1. This is the true cravenness of the Progressive. That after they do what they do, somebody else pays the price. And it always to be the same one, horror and death. Over and over, they betray our trust and yet we allow them to get away with it.

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          2. I have known a Vietnam War protester to post every year about the horror of the Kent State shootings. To this very year.

            (without, of course, explicitly saying that the Guardsmen should have let the protesters stone them to death.)

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              1. The protesters were throwing rocks.

                Throwing rocks is lethal enough to have been used as a means of execution.

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            2. What happened there was a tragedy, not an atrocity.

              America treats its dissenters very well. Just ask Bill Ayers.

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        2. Vietnam. I fought there, not by default, not because I was drafted, but because I had, even in Highs School, read history and understood what the North Vietnamese were about. I was a volunteer. Following the refusal of the Democratic Congress of 1974 to appropriate the funds to honor our treaty obligations 60,000 were slaughtered out of hand, 400,000 went into the re-education camps and only 150,000 came out, 2,000,000 fled upon the sea of which only half reached a terrestrial shore. I am still bitter and burn with anger resentment.

          Some have talked of civil war in America as if it were the worst thing. It would be bad. Given who our enemy is, it is not the worst thing.

          While reading the article I cried too, FWIW.

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          1. As his father said, “[Americans] were lousy cooks!”

            I remember restaurant fare in those days — there is a reason McDonalds was so popular, with so many imitators, and why Pizza Huts spread so quickly from sea to shining sea.

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  6. *Leans around corner, one hand over mouthpiece of telephone* Um, I’ve got a gent from some place called Jurassic or Devonian World or something, says he’s trying to confirm an order for a large fish with scales, bones, fins, you know, the usual stuff. He’s calling because he says its kinda large (the fish, not the order) and has sharp pointy teeth, so the shipping will be a little more and can he debit our account for the difference? The order-taker quoted standard shipping by accident.

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    1. Just make sure he understands we need it shipped live, not like that last one he tried to fob off on us.

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      1. Oh he does, thus the higher shipping cost. Apparently that much water is a lot of weight, so the truck uses more fuel, and so on.

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        1. WHAT? He isn’t packing it in dry water???? Tell that goniff to use proper materials and crating, we aren’t about to pay for his chiseling sub-standard packaging.

          Reasonable fees I have no troubles with, but they’d yank my Accounting License (three buck limit, during season) if I let slide egregious fee padding like that.

          Damned vendor, treating me as if I was born tomorrow …

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          1. That’s what you get for not going with the RELIABLE vendors. For the good stuff go to Cretacious Nippon. The Japanese are the only ones who do fish right.

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          2. Easy, easy! I just happened to be the poor schnook who answered the phone-thing, OK? I sure as little-green-apples did not order that much fish.

            Right, see about changing the packing medium, er, packing material. Got it.

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  7. I have to wonder about those former POWs. Were they bums because they had been to Americanized to fit in in Europe any more? After all those Africa Corps types were top soldiers that survived harsh conditions in the desert and then spent the war away from the horrors and essentially at a summer camp and truck farming. How large was the temptation to miss the boat? To jump the train and just cut out into the country? I know that the officers tended to be die hard NAZIs, but the enlisted ranks?

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    1. I’d bet there were a few who jumped out after the war and disappeared into the German communities in Texas/Milwaukee/Chicago.

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  9. And did you exchange
    A walk on part in the war
    For a lead role in a cage?

    “Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here”

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  10. My wife’s grandparents and their close family migrated here from Denmark and Norway in 1900 or so. They ended up in Wisconsin and Minnesota (no surprise). From my wife’s great-uncle we got a copy of a tape in which he describes his life here. Cue: the kind of voice you can hear on the Prairie Home Companion. Nothing very momentous, not eloquent, but heartfelt, he simply says how wonderful it was to live in a place where you could be SOMEBODY and live the way you liked – not rich, maybe, but free. And this from a man who lived in the most peaceful part of Europe.

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