Jeg onsker dere alle, “GOD SYTTENDE MAI!”*

All across the upper Midwest today, and wherever else we have roamed, you’ll hear the phrase above. It’s important to us, it’s also a good reason to drink Aquavit, one of the few good things we got from the Swedes. You see, as all the Ole’s and Lena’s know, the 17th of May is Norwegian Constitution Day, celebrated here and at home as well.

Many people mistake it for Norwegian Independence day which it is not.

On May 17, 1814, after ratification by the national assembly organized by the independence movement on May 16, the new Constitution for Norway was signed. The reality that this Constitution came in context with a very strong movement in Norway for Independence from Sweden. Unable to gain international support forced  Norway after a short war to negotiate with Sweden.  Norway was allowed to keep its own Constitution, but had to accept the King of Sweden as its monarch. For more historical information and perspective, read, “Constitution of Norway” in Wikipedia.

So we were stuck with loyalty to the Swedish Crown until 1905. It was never all that popular but Norwegians being rather stolid we soldiered on, and in good time…

This meant that  Norway was subservient to Sweden under the King of Sweden. The vision of and movement for Independence continued and was at long last brought to fruition on June 7, 1905 when, having revoked the Constitutional amendments which ended the “personal union” with the King of Sweden, the Norwegian Parliament took action to create an Independent  Norway with its own KING. This is a very complicated and interesting process with democratic ideas and processes pressing the whole process.

Norway did gain its own King! The Parliament invited Prince Carl of Denmark to become King. Understanding the Norwegian movement toward democracy, he said he would consider becoming the King only after a Referendum of the People of  Norway to vote on whether they wanted a Republic or a Constitutional Monarchy.

Coat of Arms of Trondheim

The PEOPLE of  Norway voted 79% for theConstitutiony. Prince Carl accepted election as KING of  Norway. He and his family came to  Norway. He was the MORE popular when he chose the historic name of Nowegian kings, “HAAKON” and became King Haakon VII of Norway. King Haakon VII took the OATH as monarch on November 25, 1905 – 2 days after he arrived in Norway from Denmark. King Haakon VII was crowned KING of  Norway at Nidarosdomen (the cathedral in Trondheim) on June 22, 1906.Excepted from:

Today is SYTTENDE MAI!

I suppose I could add here that my mother’s family is from Trondheim, the ancient capital, while my father’s is from Oslo, the current capital.

Coat of Arms of Oslo

I read a story, which I believe to be true, that when during World War Two, King Haakon VII was holding court, in exile in Scotland, a young man, a member of the Resistance, who had been injured by the Germans and escaped, was brought to the King. At the door, he straightened up and despite grievous injuries to his leg, walked without a limp to the King. Afterward he remarked that, “A man does not limp while his legs are the same length”. Such is the Heritage we have carried down from the Sagamen of the Viking age. And such is our reverence for freedom, independence, and written constitutions. We waited 90 years for a King of our own, who says perseverance, and steadfastness doesn’t pay.

O Valdres,  O Valdres, thou home in our hearts.

For immigrant families, an ocean apart.

Your valleys and mountains with lofty peaks high,

The mem’ries we cherish tho’ years have gone by;

O Valdres, your beauty is seen by day’s light,

Queen of the Valleys, a beacon at night.

For you now, O Norge, our hands cross the sea,

We all join together in one family.

Our homeland forever, our homage we give,

From all distant shores wherever we live,

O Norge, you call us from all walk of life,

In peace, love and joy, our hearts now unite.

Gretchen Dokken-Hellie

* I wish YOU ALL, “Good 17th of May!”

Related articles

• The National Day of Norway – Post 1 (cardinalguzman.wordpress.com)
• The National Day of Norway – Post 2 (cardinalguzman.wordpress.com)
• Norwegian Constitution Day (genealyn.wordpress.com)
• 17 of May Down under (vibekejohannessen.com)
• Thousands to converge on Ballard for Syttende Mai festivities (ballardnewstribune.com)

Heroes, Careerists ?; and Benghazi

Carl over at The Hump Day Report has been doing some digging on that night in Benghazi, and what he found is rather amazing. I borrowed some of his highlights here but do go and read the whole thing (it’s linked after the excerpt.

[...]

Really important facts surrounding Benghazi that should not be lost in the news -

• Names of two independent contractors unrelated to US embassy. Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty
• Military background of Woods and Doherty: Former US Navy SEALS
• Weapons each had when they arrived at the scene: None
• Immediate actions of Woods and Doherty: Suppresive fire using weapons abandoned by Libyan guards, Direct Engagement of terrorists with RPGs and other arms, Lasing Enemy Mortar Emplacements (in likely expectation of the arrival of US air support)
• Enemy assault size: Two waves, totaling 100-200 attackers

Here are the CRUCIAL facts surrounding this engagement -

Established Facts:

• Woods and Doherty killed 60 or more of the attacking force. Some accounts total 128.
• The attackers upon counting bodies became incensed when they realized how much death and destruction these two brave Americans inflicted upon them. They were enraged.
• Had an F-16 or other form of air or ground support been allowed to come to the aid of the compound it is highly probable Woods and Doherty could have held back the attackers. Instead, it appears someone at the highest levels of our nation’s government gave a direct order not to rescue the compound.
• [...]

Emphasis mine, and continue reading at Happy Mothers Day, Hillary! | Hump Day Report.

I don’t know about you folks but I find that an incredibly impressive performance. Show up unarmed and take out a third to a half of a two company assault.

About all I can say is BRAVO ZULU.

Woods and Doherty performed far beyond what we have any right to expect any man to. Honor them.

But we failed them, From Deebow writing at Blackfive

[...]

Later, Hicks testified, he asked military commanders to send a Special Forces attachment led by one Lieutenant Colonel Gibson back to Benghazi, but was denied by the brass at U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM):

“People in Benghazi had been fighting all night. They were tired. They were exhausted. We wanted to make sure the airport was secure for their withdrawal. As he and his three personnel were getting in the cars, he stopped, they called them off. He said that he had not been authorized to go.”

“Lieutenant Colonel Gibson was furious. I had told him to bring our people home. That is what he wanted to do.”

“Hicks quoted Gibson as saying then that it was the only time in his career he saw a diplomat have “more balls” than the United States military.”

I have never been an officer, so I can’t speak to this; I have one question to ask:

What is the price of disobedience to your career?

[...]

Continue reading THE PRICE OF ANSWERS…. at Blackfive

I think he has a point. When I was a young man, one of the people who I learned about leadership from was a young Marine officer veteran with 3 tours in Vietnam. What he taught me is summed up in a maxim that I’ve tried to live by ever since: It’s better to be forgiven than get permission. Seems to me this would have been a good place to apply that.

Now understand, I’m no sort of a military officer let alone a combat leader, not to mention that I wasn’t there but, to me it smells like he was more worried about his career than he was about Americans in danger. If so, we’re in for some very bad times, and a very quickly decaying military.

But, we don’t know the whole story, I really hope there’s a lot more to hear about this.

And a victorious defense would have been better for everybody (even the President) than a small scale re-enactment of the Alamo.

Still:

Run to the sound of the guns

has served us well, for a long time.

Related articles

• Blow-by-Blow: How Obama & Hillary Left Americans to Die (frontpagemag.com)
• Happy Mothers Day, Hillary! (humpdayreport.wordpress.com)
• Benghazi depositions to examine Clinton’s role (arkansasonline.com)

Amazing Grace.

Slavery is recognised by most people as an evil thing. Yet it still exists in the world, and it always has. There is not a nation in modern Europe which did not have it. I cannot recall the last time anyone got fired up about what those dreadful Normans did to my ancestors – not least because at this distance in time, there will be some Norman ancestors in my family tree somewhere. It was ubiquitous in the ancient world, as it was in Africa. On the east coast the Arabs did a good trade taking slaves to the markets first of Rome and then of the Ottoman Empire. They did not, as people sometimes thing, so in expeditions to capture slaves, they had no need, they bought them from other Africans who had conquered them in war. The same practice obtained on the west coast from the sixteenth century, with the biggest market becoming the American colonies. This last type of slavery tends to be the one which gets the most attention. Yet it was the one which was stamped out most swiftly; by the early nineteenth century it was dead.

What killed this evil? Christianity. It was Wilberforce and the Evangelicals who campaigned long and hard against it. It offended their consciences as Christians. It is easy to forget that their cause was deeply unpopular, challenging as it did powerful vested economic interests. There was no great outcry against the practice in most quarters, it was just a fact of life, as it had been for millennia. But that was no excuse, and Wilberforce defied convention and put a promising political career aside to rid Britain if the scourge.

One of the most moving testimonies was that of John Newton, the author of that wonderful hymn, Amazing Grace. A Slaver himself, he came through the Grace of God to see the abomination he had been part of, and not only to repent, but to campaign for the abolition of the evil trade.  Who is the Islamic John Newton, which Ottoman notable came to the same conclusion?

The truth is that the slave trade could not have existed without those African chiefs who made money out of it. Back in 2009, the Civil Rights Congress of Nigeria has written to tribal chiefs saying: “We cannot continue to blame the white men, as Africans, particularly the traditional rulers, are not blameless”. But, of course, nothing has happened. The British and the Americans have apologised, but without those who sold them the slaves, there would have been no trade. Europeans had no immunity to the many African diseases, and they  depended on other Africans for the supply line. That is not to mitigate criticism of Western Christians, it is to say that they weren’t the only ones involved. It was a vile trade, but it was not ended by the Africans, it was ended first by the British thanks to the efforts of Evangelical Christians. If we are going to take a balanced view, let us bestow praise as well as blame.

Duty, Honor, and Personal Responsibility

I’m going to start this morning with a couple of paragraphs from Jessica’s last two posts because they are exactly on point to where we are going today. This was not what I was going to write here, maybe later, I have elected to supersede that article because of events and knowledge we have gained lately. Here’s Jess from yesterday:

If you hadn’t noticed, I am an Americanophile.  I was brought up not to forget one thing – that the freedom that I enjoyed had been won by the blood of others; and that key to that blood not being spilled in vain was the courage, the sacrifice and the money of the United States of America. It also dawned on me as soon as I started studying history that those things had continued to be gifted to us after the Second World War; Communism had no enemy fiercer than the United States. I lived in Missouri for a year when I was a child, and I learned then how much Americans loved their country; that seemed, and seems, admirable to me.

[...]

It won’t do to pretend that the Roman Republic was a democracy, it wasn’t, but it was a place where to be a Roman citizen was the greatest honour possible, and service to the citizens in the Senate was a duty which a man took seriously. Few left office richer than they entered it, because service was costly; but it was considered the duty owed by a man to the Republic. Service in the army was onerous, but again, it was something a man did in the name of honour.

And from today

One of the Republican (as in Roman Republic) virtues which the US has exemplified is independence of spirit.  Men took responsibility for their actions; it was not unknown for senators to fall on their swords if they dishonoured their office. The ideal of the Roman world was Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus (519 BC – 430 BC) (and the answer to the question is yes, it was named after him). When his son was convicted of a crime and absconded, Cincinnatus had to pay a huge fine and retired to his small farm. But when the State was threatened by the Volsci, the Senate called upon him to lead the State. He laid down his plough and returned to high office, which he discharged with great distinction; after victory was assured, he returned to his farm. In later life he returned once more and did great service; once again, he retired into private life. He became the beau ideal of the Patrician Roman. A man to whom service to the Res Publica – the common weal – was all.

Your American history has many such men, from the great George Washington, through Jefferson and Lincoln and into more modern times, a man like Eisenhower or Truman. These were men of almost Cincinnatan virtue. They were men who gave to the State and asked for little and ended by being loved by the people.

If he had one at all, Cincinnatus was Washington’s role model, all he ever wanted to do was farm Mount Vernon and be with his beloved Martha. It showed too. When he retired after his two terms as President, George the III of England asked the American Minister to England what he would do, the Minister replied “ He will return to his farm”. King George replied of his former enemy “Then he shall be the greatest man in the world.” This is what the American Presidency once was. Add to that the association of former Officers of the Continental Army was The Society of the Cincinnati.

Cincinnatus has also left us a quote, or you could even call it a motto:

Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.

And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

Yes, I know, you thought it came from a much more recent figure, one whom the press has done an outstanding job of demonizing. You’re not wrong, exactly, Senator Goldwater did quote it in his acceptance speech at the 1964 convention. But it wasn’t original with him.

What are the three things that run through what Jess has written (much of what I write as well) and what Cincinnatus and Washington both lived?

Duty, Honor, and Personal Responsibility

Both were plain men doing their best for their country when it called, yes Washington was well off, he was a good planter, and lived fairly well. But as he said at Newburgh  he grew gray and almost blind in our service.

Over the years guided by men like these we have become what has been called “The Indispensable Nation” because of our physical power, as we have become the leader of the free world, which in truth is exactly synonymous with Western Civilization because of our moral power, as well as because we are the last major power who is overtly Christian, the leader of what used to be called Christendom. It’s a very awesome status, which we have borne quite well and humbly as well, not least because of our history, and the men who founded and led what my British friends tend to refer to as The Great Republic, but as Jess asked us this morning,  ”Has there been one such since Ike?  And if not, is that not a sign of something?” My answer is, “Yes, it is”. I believe we have lost our way, and we have devolved as the Romans before us did, into a group of grasping vain men and women struggling for power and wealth without thought for duty and honor. If they even know what the word mean.

This morning another British female published an article (I don’t know what’s in the water over there, that these women drink but, I think they need to share!), Melanie Phillips who I started the week by talking about. Here is a bit from her blog.

Fort Hood, Benghazi, the Boston bombings, Iran/Syria, Israel. The pattern is unmistakeable; the danger to America is exponentially increasing; the scandal is deepening into something nearer to a national crisis.

The Obama administration is playing down the Islamist threat to the US and the free world, empowering Islamists at home and abroad, endangering America and betraying its allies — and covering up its egregious failure to protect the homeland as a result of all the above, while instead blaming America for its own victimisation.

What is coming out in the Benghazi hearings would be jaw-dropping if it had not been apparent from the get-go that the administration failed to protect its own people in the beseiged American mission where Ambassador Chris Stevens and three of his staff were murdered in 2012, then lied about the fact that this was an Islamist attack, and then covered up both its failure and its lie. (Apparent, that is, to some — but not to the American media, most of which gave the Obama administration a free pass on the scandal in order to ensure the smooth re-election of The One).

But the administration has form on this — serious, continuing form. After the Fort Hood massacre in 2009, in which an Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Hasan shot and killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas shouting ‘Allahu akhbar’, not only was it revealed that his radicalisation and extremist links had been ignored but the Department of Defense and federal law enforcement agencies classified the shootings merely as an act of ‘workplace violence’.

Weeks after the Boston marathon terrorist atrocity, there is still no explanation of why the FBI did not act against the Tsarnaev brothers, despite having had one of them on their books as a dangerous Islamic radical after a warning from Russian intelligence; and why, as the House Homeland Security Committee heard yesterday, the FBI didn’t pass on their suspicions about the brothers to the Boston police.

Even now, the US authorities are playing down or even dismissing  Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s extremist Islamic views. Whether or not the brothers had links to foreign extremists is still unclear. But what is bizarre is the authorities’ belief that if they did not have any such links, they cannot have had any religious motive.

 You need to go read the rest Obamastan | Melanie Phillips. I’ll wait for you.

Now, I don’t have an instant solution, you and I both know that someplace in this cesspool there is an impeachable (and maybe criminal as well) offense, and maybe the House could bring in a bill of impeachment, but what are the odds of the Senate convicting? And if they did, does anybody really think Joe Biden would be any better? We’re pretty much stuck trying to do the best we can for now.

But we had best get to work on finding some real American leaders by the next election. From Samuel Adams:

The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending against all hazards:

And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.

Related articles

• Honor The Office Of The President By Impeaching A Corrupt President (freedomoutpost.com)
• The fall of the Republic? (sago.com)

Civic Virtue and the Republic

One of the Republican (as in Roman Republic) virtues which the US has exemplified is independence of spirit.  Men took responsibility for their actions; it was not unknown for senators to fall on their swords if they dishonoured their office. The ideal of the Roman world was Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus (519 BC – 430 BC) (and the answer to the question is yes, it was named after him). When his son was convicted of a crime and absconded, Cincinnatus had to pay a huge fine and retired to his small farm. But when the State was threatened by the Volsci, the Senate called upon him to lead the State. He laid down his plough and returned to high office, which he discharged with great distinction; after victory was assured, he returned to his farm. In later life he returned once more and did great service; once again, he retired into private life. He became the beau ideal of the Patrician Roman. A man to whom service to the Res Publica – the common weal – was all.

Your American history has many such men, from the great George Washington, through Jefferson and Lincoln and into more modern times, a man like Eisenhower or Truman. These were men of almost Cincinnatan virtue. They were men who gave to the State and asked for little and ended by being loved by the people.  Has there been one such since Ike?  And if not, is that not a sign of something?

As America came onto the world stage, she did so as a Republic which disdained and distrusted Empire. Yet, did her defence of world freedom end by forcing her into imperial attitudes in some ways?  Should the USA have done what Cincinnatus did – retire back to its farm when it had saved the world?  But do men of power easily surrender it and its privileges?  I don’t recall Washington, Jefferson, Truman of Ike cashing in on their time in office; I can’t recall many recent presidents who haven’t once they retired.

A Republic is a difficult form of government because it depends on civic virtue; it needs men of power to restrain themselves as Cincinnatus did. For a Christian America that act of renunciation was perhaps easier, as it is part of the Christian message. That is not to say non-Christians cannot exercise civic virtue, but it is to say that the Judeo-Christian heritage provides a context in which such virtue is not just its own reward.

A large military costs. An interventionist foreign policy costs. The notion of empire in all its forms is corrupting of civic virtue, because you have to start off believing in your right to intervene in another country and tell its citizens what to do; you start with the belief in your own superiority. This corrupts. However much you do what you think it right for those other people, you are not them and you are assuming the right to tell them what to do in their own country. Well, if these people attack you, you have to attack them. But you don’t have to rebuild their country. You can help them, but they must do it for themselves – and that was the ‘white man’s burden’ about which Kipling spoke. But its problem was what it remains – that if you treat other people like children, they will not grow up, and you will find yourself with an expensive foster-child.

Has power and the temptations of empire corrupted the American Republic? I think there is a case for saying it has damaged it, but my faith in the instincts of a free people is stronger than my fear.

Friends and Allies

I can’t speak for you but, I had gotten the memo that said that Jess is an Americanophile, obviously it is part of the reason I asked her to write here. Another part of that is that I’m an Anglophile. In truth if you saw our correspondence as we plan our posts you would be hard put to tell which of us is which.

Jess talked of our outpouring of men and treasure over the last half-century in defense of freedom in Europe, and she is, of course, correct. We have unbalanced our economy in favor of the military to do so. But we were raised after all to do our duty, and if we had not done so, we would have broken faith with our fathers and grandfathers who defeated Hitler and Tojo.

And there is something else. We have guaranteed freedom for Europe since 1945 but, especially in the case of the United Kingdom, in a sense it was nothing more than repayment of a debt owed.

You see back when James Monroe was President, and Napoleon was on St Helena, where he could cause no more trouble, thanks to the Royal Navy, we had a bit of a problem. Most of the countries of South America had looked at us, and liked the idea of independence, and during the Napoleonic Wars they had managed to throw of their masters, mostly Spain. But now Europe was at peace and there was a reactionary wind blowing.

Louis XVI was King of France, Francis I was Emperor of Austria, Friedrich Wilhelm III was King of Prussia,  Alexander I was Tsar of Russia, and  Ferdinand VII was King of Spain, the leader of this bunch of reactionaries (strangely the only one with any classical liberal credibility at all was Tsar Alexander)was Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, Chancellor of Austria. One of their stated goals was the restoration of Spain’s (and Portugal’s) colonies in the new world, using troops from any or all of these countries, especially Spain, France, and Austria.

These guys all thought that the mercantilist policies which had cost Great Britain the first empire were the way to go. But as Britain had figured out, trade was far more profitable. So profitable, in fact, that it was British gold and bravery that had defeated Napoleon. In any case most of the trade with Central and South America was conducted by British firms (likely followed by Americans). So they weren’t about to give it up but, they didn’t exactly want to be so crass as to say so.

In this atmosphere, British Foreign Minister George Canning proposed to US Secretary of State John Quincy Adams that the two countries issue a joint statement that European colonization would not be tolerated in the new world, (existing colonies would continue) and the new world would not intervene in the old world.

About this time Tsar Alexander issued an Imperial Ukase forbidding any ship other than Russian from approaching the coast of Oregon and Washington, which was claimed by the United States, Great Britain, and Russia.

President Monroe thought that the idea of separating the old and new worlds was a very good idea, and thought that the British idea of a joint declaration a good one. Secretary of State J.Q. Adams thought the idea fine but objected to the joint declaration, noting that the United States would appear as “a cock-boat in the wake of the British man-of-war”. And he then urged that the United States unilaterally issue such a declaration, knowing perfectly well that the British would grumble but it would be just as effective as the joint declaration. He carried the day, and on 2 December 1823 President Monroe announced the policy in his state of the union message to Congress. In time it would become known as the Monroe Doctrine and is still one of the bedrock foreign policies of the United States and has prevented European meddling in the new world ever since.

But the thing is, as good as the US Navy was in 1823, and it was very good, indeed, its handful of frigates weren’t going to stop any European power, and in truth this state would continue until the quite late in the 19th century. For all that time, the doctrine was enforced, mostly by intimidation, by the premier naval power, Great Britain. That would continue until the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, when the United States Navy became a world-class navy able to accomplish the mission.

And so here in 1823, a bare eight years since the last battle between our countries, at New Orléans, we find the beginnings of the ”Special Relationship” that has had so much effect on the history of the 20th century, and freedom itself. One could make a fair case that British forbearance was one of the main causes of the defeat of the Confederacy, and one should remember that Britain entered the First World War primarily because of the rise of the German Navy, but in 1921, unwillingly, to be sure, but peacefully, ceded naval equality to the United States, knowing that equality could not possibly last.

Nor should we forget that British gold, looking for places to make a profit, was largely the method of financing the industrial revolution in the United States. What we have here is a twofold lesson then. Countries can indeed be friends, at least if they are similar in outlook, and free and unfettered capitalism benefits all parties. Here we have a case study of British gold benefiting immigrants to the United States from all over the world, not to mention those British  investors, and the American owners.

And so because of the free association of the United States and the United Kingdom, looking out for their interests in an enlightened manner, the continents of South and Central America have for best part of 200 years been mostly free from interference from the European powers.

In 1961 John F. Kennedy addressed the Canadian Parliament, I’ve always thought his words applied with equal force to the UK, particularly since we are the two primary maritime powers of the modern world, and oceans have always been highways to us and not barriers. Here is what he said.

Geography has made us neighbors.

History has made us friends.

Economics has made us partners.

And necessity has made us allies.

Those whom nature hath so joined together, let no man put asunder.

What unites us is far greater than what divides us.

Jess raises several other points in her fine article this morning which we will be addressing as time goes on. And that too is part of the reason that I asked her to write here.

Related articles

• 10 surprising birthday facts about President Monroe (constitutioncenter.org)
• Do the right thing – even if it’s unpopular (lincolndailymanagement.com)
• The limits of American power, a historical perspective (oup.com)
• The sheer delight of historical slang… (mmbennetts.wordpress.com)