Uncommon Knowledge: Dennis Prager on Why America Is Still the Best Hope [Video]

By the Tree of Liberty A Few Rough Men Stand Ready to Pay the Price of Victory for Freedom [Quotes]

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” ~Thomas Jefferson

“Never in the face of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.” ~Winston Churchill

“Men sleep peacefully in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” ~George Orwell

“Blood is the price of victory” ~Carl von Clausewitz

“History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or timid.”  ~Dwight Eisenhower

Rep. Allen West: ‘Family Values, Not Government’ Needed for Economic Stability in Black Community

By Amanda Swysgood | June 20, 2012 | CNS News

Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), a former Army Lt. Col. (AP photo)

(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), a freshman conservative congressman and former Army officer, said that the “breakdown of the Black family” is one of the most important causes of the economic disparity facing the black community.

“We are here today to talk about economic freedom, as opposed to economic dependency,” West said at a Capitol Hill forum Monday addressing “Economic Empowerment in the Black Community.”

“‘Husband’ and ‘Wife’ in the black community are at 28 percent; that leads to a failure in education and that leads to a failure in urban statistics and revitalization,” West said.

A panelist at the forum, West said Black unemployment remains at almost 14 percent — almost double the rate for whites.

“This is a trend that has continued for the past 50 years, during both strong and weak economies,” he said.

Mark Steyn: The End of Europe – America Alone (Parts 1-5) [Video]

Book Description:

In this, his first major book, Mark Steyn–probably the most widely read, and wittiest, columnist in the English-speaking world–takes on the great poison of the twenty-first century: the anti-Americanism that fuels both Old Europe and radical Islam. America, Steyn argues, will have to stand alone. The world will be divided between America and the rest; and for our sake America had better win.

From the Inside Flap:

Its the end of the world as we know it
Someday soon, you might wake up to the call to prayer from a muezzin. Europeans already are.

And liberals will still tell you that “diversity is our strength”—while Talibanic enforcers cruise Greenwich Village burning books and barber shops, the Supreme Court decides sharia law doesnt violate the “separation of church and state,” and the Hollywood Left decides to give up on gay rights in favor of the much safer charms of polygamy.

If you think this cant happen, you havent been paying attention, as the hilarious, provocative, and brilliant Mark Steyn—the most popular conservative columnist in the English-speaking world—shows to devastating effect in this, his first and eagerly awaited new book on American and global politics.

The future, as Steyn shows, belongs to the fecund and the confident. And the Islamists are both, while the West—wedded to a multiculturalism that undercuts its own confidence, a welfare state that nudges it toward sloth and self-indulgence, and a childlessness that consigns it to oblivion—is looking ever more like the ruins of a civilization.

Europe, laments Steyn, is almost certainly a goner. The future, if the West has one, belongs to America alone—with maybe its cousins in brave Australia. But America can survive, prosper, and defend its freedom only if it continues to believe in itself, in the sturdier virtues of self-reliance (not government), in the centrality of family, and in the conviction that our country really is the worlds last best hope.

Steyn argues that, contra the liberal cultural relativists, America should proclaim the obvious: we do have a better government, religion, and culture than our enemies, and we should spread Americas influence around the world—for our own sake as well as theirs.

Mark Steyns America Alone is laugh-out-loud funny—but it will also change the way you look at the world. It is sure to be the most talked-about book of the year.

The Economic Abuse Of Veterans In America

By Brandon Smith | June 20, 2012 | Alt-Market.com

Volunteering to join the military has always been a process rife with internal and external conflictions.  A vital aspect of one’s ultimate decision to do so often depends greatly upon the era in which one becomes eligible.  U.S. citizens leaped at the chance to defend their country at the onset of World War II because the enemies were indeed a legitimate and obvious threat to the freedom and sovereignty of all nations.  During Vietnam, the waters were muddied (at least in the view of millions of citizens), and many Americans did not see the fight as their own.  The line between our system, and the enemies we were supposed to despise, had become progressively more foggy and disjointed.  For any wise and honorable man to go out of his way to risk his life, the fight must be clearly just, otherwise, he may feel that his death will serve no purpose.

Obama’s Patriotism

By Lauri B. Regan | June 20, 2012 | American Thinker

 Last week, I attended a luncheon hosted by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, at which I sat next to former Navy SEAL, Leif Babin.  Among Leif’s numerous and impressive accomplishments is his completion of three tours in Iraq, earning a Silver Star, two Bronze Stars, and a Purple Heart.  Not only was I proud to have an opportunity to talk with one of our nation’s heroes, but I was in awe of his bravery, candor, and pride in serving our great country.  Leif is a true patriot.

Upon my return to my office, I read of the repulsive comments of liberal radio show host Bill Press, calling the national anthem “stupid” and stating, “I’m embarrassed, I’m embarrassed every time I hear it.”  This abhorrent garbage followed on the heels of the news of a New York City elementary school principal who prohibited kindergarteners from singing “God Bless the USA” at their graduation ceremony, replacing it with Justin Bieber’s “Baby.”  After drawing national attention, the Bieber song was also dropped from the event, but the NYC Schools chancellor refused to reinstate the singing of “USA,” which includes the following lyrics:

Victor Davis Hanson: The Scandal of Our Age

By Victor Davis Hanson | June 17, 2012 | PJ Media

Like Nothing Before

In the Watergate scandal, no one died, at least that we know of. Richard Nixon tried systematically to subvert institutions. Yet most of his unconstitutional efforts were domestic in nature — and an adversarial press soon went to war against his abuses and won, as Congress held impeachment hearings.

As far as national security went, Nixon’s crimes were in part culpable for destroying the political consensus that he had won in 1972, at a critical time when the Vietnam War to save the south was all but over, and had been acknowledged as such at the Paris Peace Talks. But Watergate and the destruction of Nixon’s foreign policy spurred congressional cutbacks of aid to South Vietnam and eroded all support for the administration’s promised efforts to ensure that North Vietnam kept to its treaty obligations.

Iran-Contra was as serious because there was a veritable war inside the Reagan administration over helping insurgents with covert cash that had in part been obtained by, despite denials, selling arms to enemy Iran to free hostages — all against U.S. laws and therefore off the radar. The Reagan administration was left looking weak, hypocritical, incompetent, and amoral — and never quite recovered. Yet even here the media soon covered the story in detail, and their disclosures led to several resignations and full congressional hearings.

A Nation of Paper, Not of Men

By Andrew C. McCarthy | June 18, 2012 | PJ Media

In continuing the dramatic shift from American constitutional democracy to rule by executive fiat that has marked his tenure, President Barack Obama now claims that the illegal aliens, to whom he purports to grant what effectively is amnesty, are “Americans … in every single way but one — on paper.” That is false. They are not Americans under the only thing that matters, the thing the Obama administration has chanted like a mantra — while riding roughshod over  – since its very first day in power: the rule of law.

The Constitution and congressional statutes are written on parchment. That is the only relevance of “paper” in this equation — as the “hard copy” of our social contract and of the laws enacted pursuant to it. Under the Constitution, Congress, not the president, is endowed with such a power: “To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization.” Congress exercises this power by passing laws. Under the Constitution, which Obama took an oath to preserve, protect, and defend, and under the laws it is his duty to execute faithfully, illegal aliens — no matter how sympathetic their plight, no matter how blameless they may be for the illegality of their status — are not citizens of the United States. They are not Americans. Period. It is not “paper” that separates them from our body politic, it is the law, of which Obama is supposed to be servant, not master — as I argued in this September 2011 essay for The New Criterion: “The Ruler of Law — On ‘Justice’ in the Age of Obama.”

Stefan Molyneux: The Handbook of Human Ownership – A Manual for New Tax Farmers [Video]

The Handbook of Human Ownership Transcript:

Stefan Molyneux: Statism is Dead (Parts 1-5) [Video]

Post-Constitutional America: Your Basic Rights Are at Greater Risk Than You Think [Video]

The Great One, Mark Levin, warns that we are living in a post-constitutional America. What does this mean for you? Are you at risk of losing your basic rights such as free speech? Find out on this episode of Trifecta.

Stefan Molyneux: The Matrix [Video]

“The Matrix” Transcript:

Liberalism Is Terminally Ill

By J. Matt Barber | June 11, 2012 | CNS News

It’s been a pitiful sight – a sad week for progressives and “Big Union” Democrat-shilling thugs. In the wake of last Tuesday night’s devastating recall smackdown in Wisconsin, tens of thousands of “Occupy” hippies across the nation have simply been too depressed to get stoned and not look for work.

On Wednesday the White House released President Obama’s detailed itinerary through October:

1. Worry

2. Lie

3. Obfuscate

4. Golf

5. Fundraise

6. Worry

Indeed, the president has much to worry about. No honest politico can deny that liberals’ Wisconsin debacle likely represents a shadow of things to come – a precursor to November.

Socialist or Fascist?

By Thomas Sowell | June 12, 2012 | American Spectator

Only our own awareness of the huge stakes involved can save us from the rampaging presumptions of our betters.

It bothers me a little when conservatives call Barack Obama a “socialist.” He certainly is an enemy of the free market, and wants politicians and bureaucrats to make the fundamental decisions about the economy. But that does not mean that he wants government ownership of the means of production, which has long been a standard definition of socialism.

What President Obama has been pushing for, and moving toward, is more insidious: government control of the economy, while leaving ownership in private hands. That way, politicians get to call the shots but, when their bright ideas lead to disaster, they can always blame those who own businesses in the private sector.

Politically, it is heads-I-win when things go right, and tails-you-lose when things go wrong. This is far preferable, from Obama’s point of view, since it gives him a variety of scapegoats for all his failed policies, without having to use President Bush as a scapegoat all the time.

Marx’s Ghost

By Ion Mihai Pacepa | June 9, 2012 | PJ Media

I grew up with the picture of the U.S. president hanging on the wall of our house in Bucharest. My father, who spent most of his life working for the General Motors dealership in Romania, loved America, but he never set foot in this country. For him, America was just the place of his dreams, thousands of miles away. For him, the American president was its tangible symbol. At the end of WWII, we had President Truman on the wall. For us and for many millions around the world, he had saved civilization from the barbarism of Nazism, and he had restored our freedom — for a while. From the Voice of America and the BBC we learned that America loved Truman, and we loved America. It was as simple as that.

A few days after the 2004 Democratic National Convention ended, Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wife of the Democratic contender for the White House, stated that four more years of the Bush administration meant four more years of hell for America.[i] Like Teresa, I am also an American immigrant, and I have spent my 34 American years under six presidents — some better than others — but I have always felt that I was living in paradise.

I still keep the picture of the American president on the wall in my home, and I will continue to keep it there until the end of my days. To me, the meaning of his office transcends the views of its occupant. The president of the United States symbolizes this greatest country on Earth, and he embodies the essence of our unique democracy: a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. He is also the leader of the free world, and the commander-in-chief of the most powerful military and intelligence force on Earth.

A Republican Liberation Movement [Video]

By Daniel Greenfield | June 10, 2012 | Sultan Knish

The real lesson of Wisconsin is that the Republican Party is at its strongest and greatest when it acts as a revolutionary liberation movement, breaking apart the power relationships of the Democratic Party that stifle people’s personal, economic and religious lives.

The Democratic Party has made it its mandate to politicize and collectivize the personal. It has done this to militarize every area of life, to transform all human activities into a battlefield and to bring every area of life under the aegis of its power relationships. These power relationships form its infrastructure, fusing together governmental and non-governmental organizations, to form the true ruling class.

These power relationships act as dams, walling up human energy into organizational structures, they create the mandates that provide power and money to the organizations, which are fed throughout the infrastructure to create a massive cage of bureaucrats, activists and think-tanks that set the agenda, which becomes law, and is then enforced by governments at every level.

Tibor Machan: Wealth Versus Job Creation

By Tibor Machan | June 11, 2012 | The Daily Bell

Dr. Tibor Machan

“When you’re president, as opposed to the head of a private equity firm, your job is not simply to maximize profits,” said president Obama recently. He added, “Your job is to figure out how everybody in the country has a fair shot. Your job is to think about those workers who get laid off, and how do we pay for their re-training?” Obama continued: “My job is to take into account everybody, not just some. My job is to make sure that the country is growing not just now, but 10 years from now, 20 years from now.”

To begin with, it is not the job of the president of the United States to manage the country’s economic affairs. His job is to administer a system of public policies aimed at protecting everyone’s rights as a citizen. That means everyone’s rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness or, in short, the liberty of all. Not the welfare or employment or happiness of all but everyone’s right to pursue these values. Just like the cop on the beat, the task isn’t to get everyone to where he or she is going but to secure everyone’s liberty to go wherever he or she wants to go, including, if that’s how the citizenry chooses, staying put. (Freedom has no particular goal; it has to do with making it possible for citizens to choose their goals, so long as these are peaceful ones.)

What do the money supply, peanut butter and truth have in common?

“The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.” ~James A. Garfield, 20th President of the United States

“Man cannot live by bread alone; he must have peanut butter.” ~James A. Garfield, 20th President of the United States

He who controls the money supply of a nation controls the nation. ~James A. Garfield, 20th President of the United States

Has the Communist Manifesto replaced the Constitution?

By George Hawley | June 9, 2012 | Young Americans for Liberty

When the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union imploded two years later, Americans sighed a breath of relief. Seemingly overnight, our debilitating fear that a horde of T-72’s would blitz through the Fulda Gap evaporated; the world realized a nuclear holocaust would not be the Cold War’s coup de grace. What’s more, the Cold War’s conclusion freed millions of souls from Soviet oppression. We were right to be relieved. American conservatives, who were eager to take credit for USSR’s demise, were feeling particularly triumphant at that time. We had finally reached the “end of history,” and “democratic capitalism” reigned supreme. It remains to be seen, however, whether post-Cold War conservative chest thumping was truly justified.

Although all freedom lovers should celebrate the downfall of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the peaceful death of the Soviet Empire did not necessarily indicate the demise of Marxism as a force in the world. In fact, a strong case can be made that the United States is more Marxist now than ever before. It is true that a socialist revolution did not occur, as Marx predicted, via an apocalyptic struggle between workers and the bourgeoisie, but a socialist revolution of sorts nonetheless occurred. To those who believe Marxism has been relegated to “the dustbin of history,” I can only point to the words of Marx himself. The world we inhabit is not so different from the one Marx envisioned.

Drones in America: Where’s the Outrage?

By Andrew Napolitano | June 6, 2012 | WND

Andrew Napolitano rips government notion ‘balance’ is required between safety, liberty

For the past few weeks, I have been writing in this column about the government’s use of drones and challenging their constitutionality on Fox News Channel where I work. I once asked on air what Thomas Jefferson would have done if – had drones existed at the time – King George III had sent drones to peer inside the bedroom windows of Monticello. I suspect that Jefferson and his household would have trained their muskets on the drones and taken them down. I offer this historical anachronism as a hypothetical only, not as one who is urging the use of violence against the government.

Nevertheless, what Jeffersonians are among us today? When drones take pictures of us on our private property and in our homes, and the government uses the photos as it wishes, what will we do about it? Jefferson understood that when the government assaults our privacy and dignity, it is the moral equivalent of violence against us. The folks who hear about this, who either laugh or groan, cannot find it humorous or boring that their every move will be monitored and photographed by the government.

The State at the End of the Universe

The current round of class warfare taking place in this country can hardly be called that because it is taking place within a single class. This is no great conflict between the construct of a 1 and 99 percent, this is a civil war taking place within the 1 percent. The very name of the “Buffett Rule” makes that all too obvious. When your class warfare bid relies on 1-percenters like Warren Buffett and Elizabeth Warren, then what you have isn’t a class war, it’s an internal conflict among some of the wealthiest Americans over whether the future lies with an all-encompassing state or a looser libertarian system.

Buffett’s position as the champion of the government class isn’t as irrational as it might seem. For the average taxpayer, the tax code is a vacuum cleaner, but, for Buffett, it’s an investment. The more money people pay in, the more money the government has available to salvage troubled banks that he can swoop in on at a hefty profit. The average taxpayer loses money to the government, but Buffett gets back money from the government.

Good Intentions: Progressives’ Fundamental Misunderstanding of Human Nature

Progressivism: An Adolescent Ideology

By Arnold Ahlert | June 4, 2012 | Canadian Free Press

One of the things I learned growing up is that, in order to actually grow up, you have to be man enough to admit when you’re wrong. In one sense I feel sorry for those people who are unable to do so, because I know they’re stuck in a self-imposed purgatory of semi-permanent adolescence. On the other hand, when those people are running things—into the ground—and dragging the adults along with them, my sympathy meter moves back to zero.

2012 A World In Turmoil: Will America be next? [Video]

You Must Watch ‘2012 A World In Turmoil’ Video

By Ron Holland | June 4, 2012 | The Daily Bell

Will America be next? Here at the Daily Bell we believe the West is facing payback time for the forced, non-democratic and now failing EU experiment as well as the central banking cartel inspired fiat money and sovereign debt collapse now wrecking economies and impoverishing the citizens of most nations.

Daily Bell Chief Editor Anthony Wile stated: “I encourage all Daily Bell readers interested in gaining a better understanding about the geopolitical and monetary factors influencing today’s major financial trends to attend FreedomFest 2012. The lineup of speakers is outstanding and valuable information will doubtless be offered through this important three-day gathering.”

The Socialist Mask of Marxism

By Ion Mihai Pacepa | June 4, 2012 | PJ Media

History usually repeats itself, and if you have lived two lives, as I have done, you have a good chance of seeing that re-enactment with your own eyes. In 1978, I paid with two death sentences from my native Romania for helping her people rid themselves of their Marxist dictatorship, carefully disguised as socialism. Thirty years later I witnessed how the same Marxism, camouflaged as socialism, began infecting the shores of my adoptive country, the United States, which had just won a 44-year Cold War against Marxism and against its earthly incarnation, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

In a 2008 column titled “Big Political Shifts Are Underway,” Joelle Fishman, chairman of the Action Commission of the Communist Party USA, strongly endorsed the Democratic Party’s candidate for the White House, appealing to all working people in the United States to back Senator Barack Obama, in order to provide “a landslide defeat of the Republican ultra-right.”

17 Year Old Honor Student Jailed for Missing School [Video]

By Staff Report | May 29, 2012 | The Daily Bell

A judge threw a 17-year-old 11th grade honor student from Willis High School in jail after she missed school again … Diane Tran, a 17-year-old honor student in Texas, was forced to spend the night in jail last week after missing too many classes, KHOU-11’s Sherry Williams reports. The Willis High School junior, who helps support two siblings, has both a full time and part-time job. She said that she’s often too tired to go to school. “She goes from job to job from school,” Devin Hill, one of Tran’s classmates, told KHOU-11. “She stays up until 7:00 in the morning doing her homework.” In an interview with KHOU-11, Tran said she takes AP Spanish, college level algebra and dual credit English and history courses. Her parents divorced and no longer live near her, so she lives with the family that owns the wedding venue where she works on weekends. – Huffington Post

Dominant Social Theme: That’ll teach ‘er.

Empowering Individuals or Bureaucrats?

By Rep. Paul Ryan | May 2012 | American Spectator

Also in Choice Symposium

• James Piereson – A Time for Choosing
• Stephen Moore & Peter Ferrara – The Road From Serfdom
• David N. Bass – The Millennial Perspective

The choice and the contrast in health care.

In March, as the Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of President Obama’s partisan health care law, the American people saw an event that could mark the end of bureaucrat-controlled health care. At the same time, just across the street in the halls of Congress, they witnessed a powerful reaffirmation of the American Idea as the House of Representatives passed the Path to Prosperity—a budget for the federal government.

Our Age of Anxiety

By Yuval Levin | May 28, 2012, Vol. 17, NO. 35 | Weekly Standard

Romney’s challenge is to address the deep uneasiness in America and point the way to a comeback.

There is something very strange about the 2012 presidential race so far. The election comes at a time of extraordinary public unease, which clearly demands some response from the political system, and especially from the men running for the highest office in the land. But the two presidential candidates are both running campaigns oddly detached from what is rightly worrying voters.

If you were to judge the state of the country by listening only to the Obama campaign, you would conclude that we are on the verge of the long-awaited triumph of the liberal welfare state, and that all that stands in the way is a gang of retrograde Social Darwinists who somehow manage to be simultaneously nihilistic and theocratic. That band of reactionaries ran the economy into the ground for the sake of their wealthy patrons, and now they’re coming for our social programs and for women’s freedoms. Only if they are held off can the forward march of history proceed.

If you were to judge the state of the country by listening only to the Romney campaign, you would conclude that all was well in America until we took a wrong turn four years ago and elected a president hostile to freedom and prosperity. If we just correct that error and undo what he has done, our economy will be ready to bloom again.

Breaking: Cardinal Dolan of NY, Cardinal Wuerl of D.C., Notre Dame–And 40 Other Catholic Dioceses and Organizations–Sue Obama Administration

By Terence P. Jeffrey | May 21, 2012 | CNS News

(CNSNews.com) – The Archdiocese of New York, headed by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., headed by Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the University of Notre Dame, and 40 other Catholic dioceses and organizations around the country announced on Monday that they are suing the Obama administration for violating their freedom of religion, which is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution.

The dioceses and organizations, in different combinations, are filing 12 different lawsuits filed in federal courts around the country.

The Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. has established a special website–preservereligiousfreedom.org–to explain its lawsuit and present news and developments concerning it.

You Cannot Miss What You’ve Never Had: The Vanishing Feeling of Freedom

By Daren Jonescu | May 19, 2012 | American Thinker

 The primary reason why it is so difficult to defend political liberty today is because freedom is a rational construct, and thus cannot be understood by the irrational.  Children, or adults whose moral reasoning skills are stalled at childish levels, are unable to experience it — they literally don’t know what they are missing.

This is why authoritarians of all stripes are hell-bent on producing and maintaining a society of childish citizens: dependent, trusting of the hand that feeds, obedient, pleasure-centered — perhaps capable of proficiency in well-defined tasks, but frightened, above all else, of being left to “fend for themselves.”

The Balkanization of America: Is Demography Destiny?

By Thomas Sowell | May 18, 2012 | WND

Thomas Sowell asks if ongoing racial polarization will spell disaster for U.S.

Now that census data show – for the first time in American history – the number of white babies born exceeded by the number of babies born to non-white minorities, the question is: What does this mean for the future of American society?

Politically, it means that minorities who traditionally vote overwhelmingly for Democrats can ensure that the country veers ever further to the left over the years, making America more like the welfare states of Europe, whose unsustainable spending led ultimately to financial crises and widespread riots.

But this is not strictly a matter of whites versus non-whites. Jews vote consistently, and almost as overwhelmingly, for Democrats as blacks do. Moreover, Asian-Americans are by no means as likely as other non-whites to vote for the class-warfare, tax-and-spend agenda of the Democrats.

Yet when all is said and done, the future political direction of the country seems painfully clear for these demographic trends, unless something happens to change the current correlation between race and political party affiliation. Moreover, even that may not be enough.

The Ryan Test: Demagoguery Versus Ideas

August 12, 2012 By John Malcolm Leave a Comment

By Jonathan S. Tobin | August 11, 2012 | Commentary Magazine As John wrote earlier today, liberals are convinced that Mitt Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan to be his running mate offers them a golden opportunity to savage the Republicans about the Wisconsin congressman’s budget plans. Predictably, the New York Times delivered one of the first such salvos in its editorial posted […]

Smoking Obama’s Crack and Yearning for the Mud

August 12, 2012 By John Malcolm Leave a Comment

By Vanderleun | August 10, 2012 | American Digest [From 2008. Only the names have been changed because the target has changed.] This downward flight of intellectuals has been going on ever since the Romantic movement began its counter-revolution a couple hundred years ago. No matter how much they flap their lips it’s a fall, not […]