President Dwight D. Eisenhower talks with Britain’s Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip following their arrival in Washington on October 17, 1957. (Reuters / National Museum of the U.S. Navy / U.S. Department of Defense)

There has been a debate over how to celebrate Independence Day: Tanks or no tanks? (No tank you!) Etc. I have found that talking about this is a little like talking about religion — at some point, you should simply save your breath.

We all have different views of nation and patriotism. We have different tastes, ideals, and so on.


Personally, I’m not big on a display of military hardware. I think that’s what commies and caudillos do — strutting around, flexing their muscles, “Me strong man.” I am a defense hawk. I think the United States should be No. 1 militarily. But frankly, plenty of countries have military strength — the PRC, for example. I think the true greatness of America lies in moral, spiritual, and philosophical realms.

This week, I happen to be in London, and yesterday, I passed a statue of Abraham Lincoln. There are statues of Lincoln all over the world. I have seen (and snapped photos of) many of them. Why are they there? People understand that America is an idea, among other things. Some of my friends hate this idea: that America is an idea. But it’s true.

I would rather our president said one word in favor of human rights for North Koreans than paraded all the tanks we have.



My new favorite sentence is from Eisenhower, relayed by David Frum. In 1959, the president said, “If my message to you on this Fourth of July could be put into one sentence, it would be this: State the facts of freedom and trust in God, as we have ever done.”

• On Monday, President Trump tweeted, “It was great being with Chairman Kim Jong Un of North Korea this weekend. We had a great meeting, he looked really well and very healthy.” That is really sweet.

North Koreans, as a rule, do not look really well and very healthy. They are cruelly malnourished. I once heard former president Bill Clinton say that North Korean soldiers, when they defect to us, often weigh less than 100 pounds.

And do you remember Oh Chong-song, the defector who made that stirring “dash for freedom” at the DMZ in November 2017? Here is an article about him:

Parasitic worms and a chronic liver infection identified in a North Korean soldier who dramatically defected are providing clues into health conditions inside the secretive rogue state, experts said Wednesday.

Yes.

Here is an article from earlier this year:

An estimated 11 million people in North Korea — over 43 percent of the population — are undernourished and “chronic food insecurity and malnutrition is widespread,” according to a U.N. report issued Wednesday. The report by Tapan Mishra, the head of the U.N. office in North Korea, said that “widespread undernutrition threatens an entire generation of children, with one in five children stunted due to chronic undernutrition.”

I believe that American leaders, and others in democracies, should bear this in mind.

• In a post several days ago, I mentioned a statement by Vladimir Putin, the Russian strongman. I will quote from that post:

In an interview last week, Putin said that liberalism had become obsolete. By “liberalism,” he did not mean Oberlin College. He meant the Western way, the American way: the rule of law, the separation of powers, free enterprise, a free press, human rights, and so on. (What has recently been attacked as “David French-ism.”) Specifically, Putin said, “Every crime must have its punishment. The liberal idea has become obsolete. It has come into conflict with the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population.” Asked about Putin’s view of “Western-style liberalism,” President Trump talked about the political failures of Los Angeles and San Francisco. (See this article, for instance.) In Budapest, Viktor Orbán is, of course, in accord with Putin. Last year, he proclaimed, “The era of liberal democracy is over.”

Playing off Putin’s interview, the Russian embassy here in London decided to get cute. It tweeted out a little poll, asking, “What is the best way to prove liberalism is alive?” The embassy presented three options, which were “Leave the EU,” “Remain in the EU,” and, simply, “Liberalism is dead.”



Well, I have my own answer to the question “What is the best way to prove liberalism is alive?” As an American citizen, I can tell Putin’s Kremlin to go to hell. And they can take their cutesy, tweety embassies with them.

(Reagan loved a joke. An American citizen and a Soviet citizen were arguing about which country was freer. The American said, “I can march up and down in front of the White House, saying ‘Down with Reagan!’” The Soviet answered, “So what? I can march up and down in Red Square saying ‘Down with Reagan!’”)

• People like to argue over what is Left, what is Right, what is Communist, what is fascist. While these debates can be interesting, I myself ultimately lose interest. I think of what an old professor of mine said: “Who cares whether the boot is red or black?” As long as it is stomping on the human face, it is damnable, and must be repulsed. The enemies of freedom are birds of a feather.



• Everyone’s gotta weigh in on Nike vs. Arizona. I will do a little weighing in — although not decisively, because I am a little torn. First, I suppose I should recap (re-Kaep?).

Nike was going to put out an American-flag shoe, but Colin Kaepernick, the SJW quarterback, objected, and Nike nixed the shoe. Then the governor of Arizona nixed the tax-incentive package that had been offered the company.

Okay.

On one hand, I don’t like the idea of government pronouncing judgments on particular companies. Of checking them for political hygiene. I think government should be more neutral in such affairs.

On the other hand, I think it’s good for Nike to know that pressure can come from more than one direction — that the country is bigger than Colin Kaepernick.


I’ve always heard that quarterbacks have too much power — that our society makes too big a deal of them. Maybe it’s true . . .

(Jack Kemp loved to tell a story. One day, his family was in the House gallery. He was on the floor, making an argument about tax cuts. A man in the gallery muttered to his wife, “What does he know about economics? He was a football player.” Kemp’s little daughter turned around and said to the man, “My daddy was not a football player. He was a quarterback.”)

• I could go on and on — haven’t I already? — but maybe I should end with Lee Iacocca, who died yesterday at 94. I saw him in an airport once (Detroit’s) — giving off charisma.

I have a memory of Bill Buckley. Iacocca produced an autobiography, and was told, at some early stage, that it had already sold 600,000 copies. Iacocca — who knew cars but not the publishing industry — said, in his innocence, “Is that good?” (It is amazingly good.) WFB, an author, just marveled at this.