Middle Tennessee Liberty Rally

A huge Tea Party rally on the Legislative Plaza in Nashville, Tennessee is coming soon. It's called the Middle Tennessee Liberty Rally, and it will be held at high noon on Monday, June 29th. If you live anywhere within driving distance and you can get away from work for a couple of hours, come join us. So far, the scheduled speakers are Nashville talk show hosts Phil Valentine, Ralph Bristol, and Steve Gill, along with Ben Cunningham of Tennessee Tax Revolt and Ken Marrero, the Blue Collar Muse. By the time of the rally, there may be one or two more.

Here's a brochure (click to enlarge):

For the most current information, and to sign up for the mailing list, go to the Tennessee Tea Party website.

See you there!

North Korea As Seen by Zack Rawsthorne

Here's the Diversity Lane take on the North Koreans and how not to handle the situation:

Thought for Today

"The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us."

~~~~~ Paul Valéry

Thought for Today

"It is as useless to argue with those that have renounced the use and authority of reason as to administer medication to the dead."

~~~~~ Thomas Paine

Thought for Today

"It is seldom that any liberty is lost all at once."

~~~~~ David Hume

Thought for Today

"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men."

~~~~~ Samuel Adams

More from Thomas Paine: Open Letter to President Obama

Last month, I wrote about my old shipmate Bob Basso and his very popular series of Thomas Paine videos. Bob just dropped me a note about his latest effort. I watched it, and recommend it wholeheartedly. It's an outstanding video. As good as the previous three have been, I think this one is the best of all. Here it is:

Thought for Today

"One of the most important talents for success in politics is the ability to make utter nonsense sound not only plausible but inspiring. Barack Obama has that talent. We will be lucky if we escape the catastrophes into which other countries have been led by leaders with that same charismatic talent."

~~~~~ Thomas Sowell

Hat tip: WorldNetDaily.com

Flagging Enthusiasm

Zack Rawsthorne of Diversity Lane pokes some well-deserved Memorial Day fun at the Lefties.

Mark Steyn: Live Free or Die

This month's Imprimis from Hillsdale College features an essay adapted from a March, 2009 lecture by the indispensable Mark Steyn. For the title of his lecture, Mark used the famous motto of his adopted home state, "Live Free or Die."

Reading his lecture is a very sobering experience. As a native of Canada who has traveled widely all over the world, Mark has a greater appreciation of United States exceptionalism than most native-born Americans. He has seen first-hand the rapid decline of the once-great civilizations of Great Britain, France, Germany, and even, to a disturbing extent, Canada.

For several years now, Mark has been trying his considerable best to warn us that we, the last bastion of true freedom in the world, are headed down the exact same path as the formerly great powers of Europe. He sees us heading at breakneck speed for a cliff, and is attempting to warn us to change course before it is too late.

In his vitally important book America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, Mark discusses the disturbing demographic trends which, if unchecked, will leave us friendless and isolated in a hostile world. In this lecture, he points out that our new administration is trying its best to drive us over the same cliff over which our European and Canadian friends have already fallen.

Here's how he begins:

MY REMARKS are titled tonight after the words of General Stark, New Hampshire's great hero of the Revolutionary War: "Live free or die!" When I first moved to New Hampshire, where this appears on our license plates, I assumed General Stark had said it before some battle or other—a bit of red meat to rally the boys for the charge; a touch of the old Henry V-at-Agincourt routine. But I soon discovered that the general had made his famous statement decades after the war, in a letter regretting that he would be unable to attend a dinner. And in a curious way I found that even more impressive. In extreme circumstances, many people can rouse themselves to rediscover the primal impulses: The brave men on Flight 93 did. They took off on what they thought was a routine business trip, and, when they realized it wasn't, they went into General Stark mode and cried "Let's roll!" But it's harder to maintain the "Live free or die!" spirit when you're facing not an immediate crisis but just a slow, remorseless, incremental, unceasing ratchet effect. "Live free or die!" sounds like a battle cry: We'll win this thing or die trying, die an honorable death. But in fact it's something far less dramatic: It's a bald statement of the reality of our lives in the prosperous West. You can live as free men, but, if you choose not to, your society will die.

My book America Alone is often assumed to be about radical Islam, firebreathing imams, the excitable young men jumping up and down in the street doing the old "Death to the Great Satan" dance. It's not. It's about us. It's about a possibly terminal manifestation of an old civilizational temptation: Indolence, as Machiavelli understood, is the greatest enemy of a republic. When I ran into trouble with the so-called "human rights" commissions up in Canada, it seemed bizarre to find the progressive left making common cause with radical Islam. One half of the alliance profess to be pro-gay, pro-feminist secularists; the other half are homophobic, misogynist theocrats. Even as the cheap bus 'n' truck road-tour version of the Hitler-Stalin Pact, it made no sense. But in fact what they have in common overrides their superficially more obvious incompatibilities: Both the secular Big Government progressives and political Islam recoil from the concept of the citizen, of the free individual entrusted to operate within his own societal space, assume his responsibilities, and exploit his potential.

To read the rest, go here. You can also download the entire issue as a PDF here.