Henry's rhetoric never suggested that it issued from a man cowering in the corner reading poetry while guzzling wine and getting all weepy over the possiblity that there might actually be, well, WAR, with people getting hurt and all and profits being interrupted and, gee, its better to be nice than not nice and can't we all just get alooooong?????
Self-government has to do with rejecting international restraints on sovereignty, national restraints on state limited sovereignty of the Tenth Amendment kind and government that meets its responsibilities against domestic criminals and foreign threats, pre-emptively rather than waiting to be whacked first, particular after we have been whacked before. I do not care for democracy when it elects the Arkansas Antichrist or if it were to elect Mrs. Antichist. I love democracy when it elects Ronaldus Maximus. I prefer democracy to oligarchy because democracy's errors are more easily correctable. Read Ortega y Gassett's Revolt of the Masses but be SURE to also read the far more recent Christopher Lasch's Revolt of the Elites.
Sound instututions include the United States Army, the United States Navy the United States Marine Corps, the United States Air Force. We could use something like a State Department operated by patriots for a change. Maybe a patriotic spy agency that works for the United States and does so efficiently. The Roman Catholic Church, for all its flaws in this country under leftist stooges, is a sound institution as guaranteed on the Highest Authority. Many other churches are sound institutions as well. Homeschooling is a sound institution. A handful of schools are as well. There is a grave distinction between liberty and libertinism and more so with Randian self-indulgence. The Knights of Columbus are a sound institution.
If you fail to recognize the contribution of people like Norman Podhoretz, Midge Decter, the late Sidney Hook, Gertrude Himmelfarb, and, yes, Irving Kristol, the late George Meany, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, whatever their flaws and omissions, to many aspects of liberty, you are simply wrong.