Conservatism Lives!

I am often fond of saying that I don’t actually know anyone. I just happen to be fortunate enough to occasionally know people that know people. Such is the case with Oliver North. I don’t know North. I’ve never met him or even seen him in person, but I happen to know a guy who knows North well. By all accounts, including (and most importantly to me) my friend’s account, North is the real deal; an honorable man, a student of history, a patriot, and a soldier through and through. North weighed in today on the current economic situation and offered his take on what lies ahead. Any time someone that I respect offers an opinion, I try to listen. His full piece is here, a couple of highlights are below. Enjoy.

For the last seven years, according to Congressman Jim Moran, “we have been guided by a Republican administration that believes in the simplistic notion that people that have wealth are entitled to keep it.”

Actually, that “simplistic notion” has been the lynchpin of the American system of free enterprise for the past two centuries. It has served to make the United States the most bountiful, wealthy and charitable nation on earth. Yet, Mr. Moran says that system “doesn’t work in the long run.”

My fellow Americans, welcome to the long run.

Among the G-20 “official representatives” are those like Brazil’s socialist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva — who blame the United States for the current economic downturn.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who claims credit for having come up with the idea for this confab, has said that there is urgent need to “regulate capitalism” and that the G-20 gathering is a “great opportunity” to “build the capitalism of the future.” Among other things, he wants to eliminate “offshore tax havens” and is pressing for the means to enforce new international “codes” against “excessive risk-taking.”

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and others in the European Union are advocating creation of a global regulatory agency for financial oversight and “international transparency” for banking activities. He supports giving the IMF unprecedented authority for surveillance over transactions by borrowers and lenders.

In the rush to establish “adequate regulation and oversight” over financial transactions, too many G-20 leaders are willing to sacrifice national sovereignty and personal privacy.

“In the long run,” to use Mr. Moran’s words, that’s too high a price for Americans to pay.

I just finished a fantastic book that I want to recommend to any and all readers of the RR blog; “American Heroes In The Fight Against Radical Islam” (available here). The book was written by Oliver North and edited by a guy that I have had the pleasure of getting to know a bit over the last two years named Chuck Holton. The book is a fascinating, ground level account of North’s experiences while he was “embedded” as a journalist with the Marines in Iraq on nine separate occasions. It pays tribute to our men and women who serve and fight on our behalf and on the behalf of the Iraqi people. I think you’ll be hard pressed to find a better representation of what our troops are doing and why.

“We love death-the Americans love life-that is the difference between us.”

-Osama Bin Laden in a videotaped message following the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks.