Noonan: Defense Begins at Home ("Take it away, FreeRepublic")

Opinion Journal ^ | March 10, 2005 | Paggy Noonan

[RobFromGa]

Freedom may be on the march, but America is still vulnerable to attack.

Thursday, March 10, 2005 12:01 a.m.

There are two predominant journalistic memes since the Arab spring began. The first, from the left: What if Bush was right? This was most famously and appropriately grappled with on Comedy Central, when Democratic foreign-policy thinker Nancy Soderberg consoled Jon Stewart with the hopefully facetious, but either way revealing, advice to hang on, things can still turn bad with North Korea or Iran. The other, from the middle and the right: As I wrote in this space two years ago, the invasion of Iraq will likely give rise to a surge of democratic feeling that will inspire the entire Mideast. This is known as making it clear to one's fans and foes that you were on the right side of history.

[DCMB]

Peggy may have a new main squeeze (a liberal one) and she's under a spell :-)). I've always thought she had a way with words and admired her post-9/11 writings on life in NYC. Mark Steyn is my new favorite. HE is a giant.

[PGalt]

weirdly Wilsonian

pathetic Peggy

[1rudeboy]

I remember Peggy writing a similar article before Sept. 11th. Strange coincidence, and I hope it doesn't happen again.

[RobFromGa]

Mark Steyn is my new favorite. HE is a giant. In my book, Mark Steyn is #1 as well. I also enjoy Thomas Sowell, Bruce Bartlett (NRO), and usually Ann Coulter. Steyn is incredible when you consider the amount of material he generates, and how high quality it all is. Genius is a good word to describe him, he is by far the most talented wordsmith of the bunch.

[xzins]

LOL! Peggy, I'm sure you're lurking out there someplace. :>)

I always like your writing until the "GW is a wacko dreamer" piece flowed from your pen. Now I learn that in specifics he's not a wacko...that it's only his general vision that makes him so.

Sigh....in checkers, it's the small moves that make the kings.

And, yes. I still like you. You are hereby alotted an occasional opportunity to say something that thoroughly p's me o.

[jackbill]

Two points that Peggy doesn't seem to understand:

1. There isn't enough money in the universe to cover all of the potential threats.

2. The money that is being spent is being spent on government workers.

[Sharkfish]

bump for later

[ohioWfan]

I haven't read Peggy since her "God-drenched mission inebriation" Inaugural Speech analysis. (I used to read most of what she wrote, but that sucker punch of a column made me lose any interest in her 'thoughts').

Has she yet admitted she was wrong based on current events, or is this (Take it away Free Republic) paragraph all she's written about it?

In light of what's happened since the Inauguration, I should think any intelligent commentator would retract from such a silly column and see that she/he just missed the 'vision thing'.......

[Texas Patriot]

Well I have to presume like everyone else here that Ms. Noonan will be lurking to see our response to her Column so I must take this opportunity to say Howdy to one of my Favorite columnists so “Howdy Peggy” have to say I agree with you about 85% of the time and right now I think your about half right on the motivations of our President. Sure there is a Wilsonian aspect to it but I also believe that the President Does say what he means in that Democracies Don’t usually War with each other, that they can usually work out their differences at the negotiating table.
But having said that I Agree with you that Civil Defense is lacking here, The Government really only prepares to take care of itself and the military. Then there is the negative connotation to being self prepared (i.e. you’re a survivalist!!) but that must change. I would think that you would be in favor of this since it is the essence of a conservative to be dependent on the Government for as little as possible. I believe that it is time, especially since 9/11 and the hurricanes in Florida, that the government be honest and say that there is no way they can protect us all and we should take measures for our own protection these urgings were evident after 9/11 but they have since disappeared and in fact they have been discredited (duct tape and plastic sheets) so the attitude that is prevalent among many is, only the Gov’t can protect us so we wont even try to protect ourselves.
But enough about that I’ve rambled far too long I’d really just like to say I enjoy reading your column (even when you don’t agree with me) it is very well written and it makes me think.
You have a fine mind and you think for yourself and as others on this form have said I find you very, very CUTE and you have a great Figure as well, so what ever your doing exercise or aerobics keep it up were watching.

[nikos1121]

"I continue to think the president's inaugural address, suggesting as it did that he was on a mission to expunge all political tyranny from the globe, and asserting that our nation's survival depended on this utopian project, was a rather crazy speech, weirdly Wilsonian and at odds with conservatism's ancestral knowledge of the imperfectability of this world and the inability of politics to heal all that wounds us. (Take it away, FreeRepublic.) Samuel Johnson was a genius of literature, but he knew his politics: "How small of all that human hearts endure / That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!" "

I like Peggy's writings esp her clarity of thought, (if she were single I would boldly ask her out to dinner,) however, I felt that her criticism of the president Inaugural was a bit of "sour grapes" on her part, because perhaps she was not asked to help write it. We all know how well she writes speeches.

But Peggy, let me suggest that you step back for a minute and project out to the year 2050, 2100 or even the year 5000 and re-read the president's inaug. It was a speech for us now, but I think more so for the people of future ages...It places a large foot print in the sand to all who go before us, (as did Lincoln's) asking that they join us and all who believe in freedom and are willing to fight for it.

The inaug addresses man's desire to be free. This will be true today and hopefully 10,000 years from now.

The American Revolution has not ended. It is being waged now in other areas around the world. It will continue into our exploration of the planets and any colonization that takes place there. Just today the images in Iraq of Arab insurgents killing other Arabs blankets the internet news services. For the brother of a dead police officer in Iraq or the thousands of others who have lost love ones, the president's inaug is a strong reminder that an idea, a belief can ignite people to take action and take control of their own destinies. It is also a comforting message to those there and in other places, (Ukraine, Lebanon, Iran, Taiwan, Ireland, etc.) seeking a better life and telling them that they are not alone in this endeavor.
It was a perfect speech for our world now and for the future.

nick

"Quite often in history action has been the echo of words. An era of talk was followed by an era of events. The new barbarism of the twentieth century is the echo of words bandied about by brilliant speakers and writers in the second half of the nineteenth." ----Eric Hoffer

[Jedidah]

Peggy --
You may consider the President's inaugural address "utopian" and "a rather crazy speech" for its high-flying rhetoric. Perhaps it was. But who among us, deep down, really believes Jefferson's assertion that "all men are created equal?" Let's face it, some of us are born with the odds stacked against us, socially, medically, or financially. Yet Jefferson's soaring rhetoric has inspired our nation throughout its history and helped us rise above ourselves. (As did your words when you wrote for the White House.) When did you become such a pragmatist that the inspiration of lofty vision and rhetoric no longer matters? You are absolutely right about the need for greater civil defense measures -- but a nation made defiant and inspired by a gutsy leader is most likely to heed your call.

[1rudeboy]

It mystifies me to read such vitriol from folks based upon her opinion of one speech. She is a speech-writer, for Crissakes!
Anyone looking for a great example of conservatives eating our own, stop looking right here.

[CGVet58]

ping 100% agreement.

[CGVet58]

it's the water (makes for some great pizza, though...)

[xzins]

Peggy's ok.

I can't ditch a team member for one crummy mistake.

[1rudeboy]

She's written some religiously-themed stuff that has literally brought tears to my eyes. Not an easy thing to do. Anyone who can do that using print has a gift, and is someone I respect.

I think I'm going to dig-around in my hard-drive garden and find the one I'm thinking of . . . interested?

[xzins]

Yes.

And I agree. Noonan is on our side.

I still disagree with her on the global yearning for freedom. Not only does history seem to tilt in favor of freedom....so does God.

[CGVet58]

"... window of time..."

exactly. Correlation of forces now is in our greatest favor. Incisive and decisive application of limited (but highly lethal as needed...) force/energy on the home-courts of the festering inbreds that are targetting us is reaping benefits even as we speak. Not to be too morbid, and certainly not to diminish the sacrifices of my warrior-kin, but we lose 2-3000 military and show two former islamic cesspools (Afghanistan & Iraq) liberated, Libya giving up her WMD, Lebanon squirming against the Syrian Yoke, etc.... or we lose hundreds thousands more in a general conflict (and see destroyed enemy nation-states...).

The alternative - to not do anything, or worse, to let the dhimmicrats/left in this country paralyse us into impotence - would make Chamberlain's appeasement seem a forgotten footnote to Western Civ history.

If the dhimmis get control of the focus here, we'll see a catastrophic war, mark my words. Oh, they'll fight at the head of the entire Nation's might applied in a full war effort - but only because there won't be anything else they can do. They historically have and will fritter/waste/condemn/make stillborn any options America has had/will have that could accomplish more with less risk. They scream about the 1500 (God keep them) lost in Iraq, but wouldn't blink at the loss of tens of millions from an all-out military war. They would just take the credit for it (if it turns out good - see Roosevelt/Truman) or deflect the blame by saying America was wrong (if they f*$ked up as LBJ did in Vietnam) and even use the language/re-writing of history to label the failure a "republican" disaster - ie:, "Nixon's" War (when it was LBJ that turned it into a mess).

Do it now, plant the seed of freedom, and we will help you. Attack us later, and we will destroy you. Jacksonian (Walter Russell Mead) in it's essence, and perfectly true.

[churchillbuff]

I'm still a strong admirer of Noonan's. I just think that she is very September 10 regarding the issue of advancing Freedom."""

The largest number of unfree, oppressed people in the world are in China. Bush never talks about liberating them. Do you think we should invade China?

[Just another Joe]

Our outward-looking stance is understandable. 9/11 tripped a series of events. We were attacked from without. And then we were at war. But 9/11 also presented us with a pressing domestic challenge: civil defense. Keeping people alive, or as safe as possible, or with options with which they're familiar, in case of attack. Not enough is being done in this area, not enough attention is being paid, not enough support is being marshaled, not enough emphasis put.

Did you pay more attention to the bombing in Afghanistan and the War in Iraq than you do to your community's emergency preparedness plan? Do you even know if your community HAS an emergency preparedness plan?

Why is it that Joe Normal doesn't pay attention, take precautions, learn what to do, learn where to go, learn who to talk to?
I'm willing to bet that during WWII you could ask any school age child or adult where the nearest civil defense bomb shelter was and you could get an answer.

Why, in these perilous days, is comparable information not generally known, even by adults?

Would you know where to go if you received official information that your community had been attacked with a biochemical agent? How about a 'dirty' bomb?
Would you know who to contact if YOU received this information from an unofficial source that you trusted?

Is the everyday person so blasé about events unfolding that they make no effort to learn these things?
Is the government, national, state, or local, so blasé about this information that it does not try to make the information known throughout its' sphere of influence?

What is to be done about making the changes in our lives so that we may live, prosper and grow the way the nation of the United States of America should, without giving up essential liberties?

If these ponderings and questions don't make you pause and think then you may as well stop reading right now and go about your everyday life with your head remaining in the sand like the ostrich you are.

If these thoughts do make you think, what will you do about your thoughts?

Some suggestions
Find out about your community's emergency preparedness plan.
If you don't already know, find out where the nearest emergency shelter is located.
Lay in a separate supply of nonperishable food and water along with a good first aid kit.

In the end, it's your responsibility to know the things that can save your life, and the lives of those you love, in the event of an emergency.