The Friday Furo Questus

Fourth Of July Edition

Monday marks the 229th anniversary of the launching of the great American experiment - can a nation, whose sovereign power rests not in the hands of some royal line but in the hands of its citizens, survive? While that question can never be definitively answered until the experiment fails (otherwise, the experiment continues), so far, so good.

One of the reasons for this continued survival is due to the exertions of many who believe there are things more important than themselves, and are willing to risk their lives for those things. To wit: in Afghanistan, the search is on for a missing Special Forces team. The recon team has been missing since Tuesday, when a helicopter dispatched to bring reinforcements crashed, killing all 16 aboard. Keep them in your thoughts and prayers while you're on your way to the fireworks show this weekend. The war is global, and it is still going on.

Oh - and to our neighbors to the north: Happy Canada Day, or Dominion Day as it used to be called. One of these days I will make it to Vancouver on some July 1st for a front-row seat at that spectacular fireworks show.

Recommended Reading:

Victor Davis Hanson (as in every week): "American Zen." A repost, too, this week: "The Politics of American Wars."

The new general rule: Global morality is established by the degree the United States can be blamed. Millions of lives lost, vast corruption, thousands of refugees — all that can’t quite equate with a U.S. soldier showing insensitivity or an American detention center with mere doctors, ethnic food, and religious accommodations.

All this is not mere theater anymore, but serious stuff, since we are at war with thousands of troops in harm’s way counting on our support. America should wake up to this near-religious hatred — unless it is so far gone itself that it really believes the arguments of silly university-press books about our own pathologies and pernicious “empire.”

So how does the United States navigate nimbly between its weariness with the thankless role of a superpower and the dangers of a nostalgic isolationism? We need to find a sort of Zen-like philosophical balance that brings both some maturity to our pampered critics and psychic relief to ourselves, without endangering our own security or abandoning our true allies — while in the middle of a war and a polarized electorate here at home.

Mark Steyn: "No Fly Zone" and "Trudeaupia."

Jonah Goldberg: "Better Off Dead."

And (cue shameless self-promotion) the Pacific Slope, of course.

Thought of the Week:
"American's solemn duty is to constantly renew its covenant with humanity to complete the grand work of human freedom that began two hundred years ago. This work, in its grandness and nobility, is not unlike the building of a magnificent cathedral. In the beginning, progress is slow and painstaking. The laying of the foundations and the raising of the walls is measured in decades rather than years. But as the arches and spires begin to emerge in the air, others join in, adding their faith and dedication and love, to speed the work to its completion. My friends, the world is that cathedral. And our children, if not we ourselves, will see the completed work -- the worldwide triumph of human freedom, the triumph of human freedom under God."
Ronald Reagan, 1991

The Winston Churchill Quote of the Week:

"There are many cases where the United Nations have failed. Hungary is in my mind. Justice cannot be a hit-or-miss system.We cannot be content with an arrangement where our system of international laws applies only to those who are willing to keep them."
Winston Churchill, speech to the American Bar Association, 1957

Have a happy and safe Fourth of July, everybody. See you next week.