Stand Up and Take It Like an American (Sometimes you pay a price for your beliefs) PEGGY NOONAN

opinionjournal ^ | 11/29/2002 | PEGGY NOONAN

[TLBSHOW]

Stand Up and Take It Like an American In a free society, sometimes you pay a price for your beliefs.

1. The continuance of the new patriotism which is marked not by a tinny boastfulness but by an intellectually and emotionally experienced fidelity to and respect for the founding ideas, documents and assumptions which have guided us since we declared our independence from the mother country 226 years ago.

[Pokey78]

Thanks! :-)

[Dark Wing]

ping

[Liberty Valance]

Cronkite is not from Texas. He did attend the University of Texas majoring in journalism. He returned in 74 to
give a speech at the LBJ library there. All i remember about that speech was that he got "streaked"...a popular form of protest at the time. I was there.

Liberty

[Jalapeno]

So in summation, naked people left a stronger impression than Cronkite's appearance did...

[KeyBored]

"they made a very good living at it without having to do anything nasty like labor, or creating value, or even coming up with an idea."

I was reminded of a quote attributed to George McGovern (South Dakota) who, as we all know, was extremely liberal. (I couldn't find this quote online - perhaps someone else can help me out)

Anyway, the quote was something to the effect " . . .if I [McGovern] had known the effect some of the regulations and taxes had on small businesses, I might have re-thought some of them". He apparently left Congress to run a small business. The business eventually failed due, in part, to excessive taxes and regulation.

Again, I couldn't find the exact quote, but I'm pretty sure this is the gist of it.

[MissAmericanPie]

Rather may have been born in Texas but we got him outta here as fast as we could. The insidious disease, liberal reasoning, isn't confined to the East and West coast, but it does seem to be where they find each other.

[TShaunK]

In other words,if you are going to call yourself a lumberjack you better be prepared to carry your end of the log.
Peggy Noonan is also one of the sexiest woman alive.

[jwalsh07]

Good one by Ms Noonan.

[Seeking the truth]

Your quote is pretty much spot on.

The business he bought was a struggling hotel in Connecticut located on the Merritt Parkway.

I lived close to this hotel (name escapes me this very moment) and drove by it every day. It seemed to me to be the case of a hotel without "location, location, location".

Whatever, it promply went went belly up again and McGovern was found to have never paid such things as room taxes, sales taxes...etc. To the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars!

This is when he uttered the phrase that you have referenced.

IMHO, even with this experience under his belt, he would still support any kind of tax if it would be "for the greater good of people" as he is, and always be, a socialist.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

if I [McGovern] had known the effect some of the regulations and taxes had on small businesses, I might have re-thought some of them". He apparently left Congress to run a small business. The business eventually failed due, in part, to excessive taxes and regulation.

Yes, McGovern had a motel for awhile, and got an education about the meaning of the laws he had been advocating in politics.

But that's life; if it wasn't McGovern it would have been someone else, advocating foolish policies which subvert the right of the people to earn not only by the sweat of their brow but by frugality and diligent leadership (i.e., hiring and supervising others).

[Gritty]

The high point of the American continent is the heartland - the coasts tend to collect what shakes loose.

Although true to a large extent, I think the malady is more specific than this.

In his "Cross of Gold" speech (at the National Democrat Convention in 1896), William Jennings Bryan said:

... the great cities rest upon our broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country.

In most rural areas of the coasts (excluding the big cities) you find the outnumbered and beleaguered conservatives. It is the paternalistic, elitist, libertine philosphies of the large cities which grow Liberals like toxic mold in a petri dish.

Peggy Noonan lives in New York. she would encounter the same Liberal bigotry in Chicago.

[dix]

Uncle Walter did however spend his formative years in Houston, Texas. He graduated from San Jacinto High School, but it might have been called Central High, or South End High when he went there. I think he also graduated from The University Of Texas.

We are usually very proud of out luminaries in Texas, but he ain’t one. As far as Dan Rather is concerned, he was a hack television reporter at channel ll. Well we had a monster hurricane named Carla in 1961, and Rather covered it in a very dramatic fashion. Somebody at CBS saw him, and whisked him up to New York. He was simply in the right place at the right time. If not for that he would have remained a nobody hack, which he still is as far as I’m concerned.

[Rummyfan]

Great one by Peggy Noonan....

Peggy Noonan, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham - what a great bunch bunch of conservative representatives!

[Afronaut]

I like many Americans practice these principles, The elected officials have pushed them aside in a quest for control. I have lost faith totally in my goverment.

Name one principle listed that an elected official has these days?

living an honest life - charity, responsibility, accountability, courage, humility,

[KeyBored]

RE: your analysis of how Dan Rather was "discovered" (covering Hurricane Carla in '61)

Dan Rather being foisted on the rest of us is collateral damage that probably wasn't considered at the time. Just another example of how destructive hurricanes can be.

[Lady Eileen]

......Americans have forgotten basic principles of living an honest life - charity, responsibility, accountability, courage, humility, etc.....

....the moral excellence and righteousness of Christianity.

[freesia2]

Pokey -- If the Peggy Noonan ping list is yours, I'd love to be on it. Thanks.

[freesia2]

In most rural areas of the coasts (excluding the big cities) you find the outnumbered and beleaguered conservatives.

Gritty, I agree with you. I think the rural/urban divide is the more significant.

[texasbluebell]

As far as Dan Rather is concerned, he was a hack television reporter at channel ll. Well we had a monster hurricane named Carla in 1961, and Rather covered it in a very dramatic fashion. Somebody at CBS saw him, and whisked him up to New York. He was simply in the right place at the right time. If not for that he would have remained a nobody hack, which he still is as far as I’m concerned.

Rather seems to be taken with hurricanes; here's a later one than the one you mention. And yes, he's still a hack.

[nicmarlo]

Daschle/Limbaugh (and now Peggy Noonan); another great article, ping.

. . . Let me not pick on a teenager, for teenagers are by definition unfinished. . . . Let's pick on adults. Let's pick on Tom Daschle. He, as a leader of a great political party . . . After the dreadful showing of the Democrats in the election he held a news conference in which he famously blamed Rush Limbaugh and other conservative radio talk show hosts for inciting people to . . . well, to not liking Tom Daschle. Rush says mean things about Tom. His listeners, who Tom Daschle subtly suggests are possibly unstable and insane--how could they not be, they're conservative--get a little too excited when they hear Rush, and start to make rude sounds. "The threat level goes up," says Tom Daschle.

Oh, please. Boo hoo. When people disagree with you they criticize you. . . .

Tom: Grownups pay a price for where they stand! Being put down by conservatives is the price you pay. Is it really too much?

------------------------------------------------------

(Please Freepmail me if you want on/off my Daschle ping.)