On July 4th, 2010, Ramparts of Civilization was born.    As defined in the vision for the site, I hoped to do my small part in framing how much amazing goodness and accomplishment had found residence in the ongoing story of western civilization, at a time when the recognition and appreciation for such threads in our lives appeared to be progressively wanting:

“For some time I have felt a progressive dread that the clarity, beauty, and magnificence of the 2600 year journey of Western Civilization has been neglected by our current nature to the tenuous point of irrelevance.  All the hard learned lessons of the concept of individual freedom, creative expression, intellectual objectivity, and appreciation of the human spirit have been sublimated to a bland equivalence and desire to achieve a “soft landing” as a relic of history.

            Not so fast. On this blog, like minded individuals will man the ramparts and defend the concept of the Western Ideal, founded on the philosophy of the ancient Greeks, communicated through the ingenuity of the Roman engineer, unleashed through the miraculous words of a Nazarene carpenter, protected by the courage and literacy of the medieval monk, forged in the genius of the Renaissance,  released in the power of the Enlightenment, made available for all to participate by the miracle of the American Revolution, propagated through the Industrial Revolution, and defended by the brave warrior citizens when at times darkness threatened to descend and smother. ”                        btf     July 4th, 2010

I thought I would give it a go for a year or so, and see if I could satisfy my need for telling a good story.

And yet, here we are, with this tome, 500 essays later, easily a half million written words, and I keep thinking there is a story or two, or a version or perspective, that remains worthy of setting down to type.  At times, working late at night or on a weekend in between my myriad of other responsibilities I thought I was crazy to go on. Sometimes the writing, always performed in tabla rosa style without significant edit, was found seriously wanting. Other times I was quite pleased with the instantaneously inspired diction.  Most of all, It was the small cadre of loyal readers that would let me know they were still there and enjoyed the effort that kept me going.

It has been estimated that the average blog lasts a hundred days.  Ramparts can justifiably be proud that it is continuing to blog along with a lifespan now approxiamently 33 times beyond average – and is thereby self designated – well above average.  Analytics suggest that in the almost nine years since inception, over 40,000 unique visitors from 176 countries have immersed themselves in over 85000 page views (and of course have additionally innumerable bots).  Its briefly very inspiring until you realize a site like Drudge achieves that kind of traffic in less than three minutes. Still, a few people out there, every day, link up to read about the many subjects Ramparts has found compelling, and that is gratifying enough.  Though the pace of articles have slowed over the years due to innumerable time constraints, it has proven to be a place people have returned, patiently looking to see if there was something new they could spend a few minutes reviewing.  And that loyalty has been enough for me.

A look back over the five hundred reveals some essays locked in their time, and some that stand up well.

At 100, Ramparts in 2011 took a moment to celebrate the anniversary of the amazing American naval victory at Midway June 4th, 1942. America, reeling from the cataclysmic defeat at Pearl Harbor six months before and the subsequent humiliation in the Philippines, fashioned in the space of six minutes the destruction of four Japanese carriers, and with them, any hope of the Japanese expansionary vision to dominate the Pacific.  Brilliant and risky strategic maneuvers by the Admiral  Nimitz, careful intelligence obtained through the breaking of the Japanese naval code by the team lead by Naval Commander Joseph Rochefort, who gave Nimitz correct actionable intelligence from only 10% of interpretable code, and a tactical error by taskforce Admiral Nagumo to determine to refuel his attack planes without fully identifying the strength of the enemy against him lead to the complete carrier vulnerability for the 37 dive bombers of the American carrier Enterprise to feast upon the carriers covered with deck armaments and fuel. Four Japanese carriers lost, and with them the end of Admiral Yamamoto’s dream of a ring of impenetrable island forts to hold off the Americans.

The final defeat for Japan in an ever diminishing ocean against an ever stronger opponent was preordained from that moment.  The myth that totalitarian regimes produced men of steel while democracies produced soft, self interested soldiers was forever put to rest at Midway…”

At 200, Ramparts in 2012 put in perspective what was one of the great political spasms of American politics, the attempt to recall Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin and effort the overturning of a revolution by the citizenry to wrest back power from the establishment Deep State.  The stunning 2010 election of Walker and an even more revolutionary legislature was a massive tea party blow back to  intrenched interests that saw the election of Barrack Obama in 2008  as the zenith  achievement of the permanent state.  The wave was national, but the epic epicenter of the fight was the state of Wisconsin, a blue state in perpetual debt from an onerous public employee stranglehold on budgets.   The Wisconsin  reversal of the permanent state through Act 10 legislation was considered intolerable by the public unions and their democratic allies, and the full weight of national money and pressure fell upon the Wisconsin capital. Tens of thousands of daily protestors, multiple legislative recall elections,  an epic Wisconsin Supreme Court election converted into a national referenda, the leaving of the state of the democratic legislative caucus to attempt to block the legislative act created a year and half of national political drama.  Yet the stolid Walker and intrepid legislative warriors held firm throughout.  By April of 2012, the left saw only one way out, the cutting off of the head of the snake through the attempted recall of Governor Walker himself, attempting the first political successful recall of a sitting governor in American history:

“The battle is positioning for a titanic climax which will have profound effect the national question.  Can a nation democratically face up to its fiscal responsibilities when the electoral process is progressively owned by those who will most benefit from maintenance of their levers of power and an ever expanding population of entitled who are rewarded for their vote?”

At 300, Ramparts in 2013 looked at an embryonic private enterprise effort that could turn out to be President Barrack Obama’s proudest achievement, the conversion of the space industry of the United States from a governmental industrial complex to a competitive private entrepreneurial enterprise.  The President, less interested in any identified potential from private industry then the obvious reordering of budget priorities from the bloated governmental space enterprise to other bloated state enterprises, managed to put his trust in free enterprise for at least one area of American private initiative.  In his desire to remove the resources of the national government from huge expenditures for which he would discern  no social value, Obama opened up contracts to entrepreneurs like Elon Musk of SpaceX , that had no obvious capacity  or experience to take on the challenge.  In a otherwise oppressive style toward private initiative in other sectors such as private energy fracking initiatives  charter schools , or health savings accounts, Obama allowed this one sliver of initiative to shine through.  And how by 2013 it shone, with multiple companies taking on the challenge, multiple rocket innovations including the once incredible concept of reusability, and a new American industrial innovative dominance in a  21st century science:

“The president deserves credit for stumbling upon a prime example of how trusting the arena of ideas and the process of private market competition can lead to dramatic improvements in human development and life quality.  If he is not careful, he might just make America and economic leader in the current century as great as the last.  Were he only to have such stumbles in other areas of our moribund economy.  Reflecting upon the overarching principles of  human behavior versus utopian ideal, we once again turn to Winston Churchill for some prescient word – ‘Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot.  Others look upon it as a cow they can milk.  Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon.’

At 400, Ramparts in 2016 looked back at a founding father George Washington, on the occasion of his birthday.  A multiple Ramparts star, Washington was celebrated not for his military genius nor his eloquence, but the unique skill he showed with every challenge and every calamity to stand at the ramparts and rise above the chaos, securing the ultimate triumph:

“When it came time years later to select a chief executive that would form the initial government of the United States, the selection again turned to one man, the Virginian, George Washington.  He was selected not for any impassioned rhetorical brilliance or acknowledged philosophical depth, but again, because he was the single individual every competing interest group felt they could trust. He was selected for acknowledged ownership of the American Ideal through the worst of times, and his willingness as a man, to give up power when it was his to take.”

Now at 500, Ramparts looks to the past to continue to show us the future and help us reflect on the way forward.  In this world of ever more diminishing grasp of the core understandings that make life worthy and progress possible, there is still a role I think for this tiny little blog to provide its very tiny contribution to the conversation.  As my hero Winston Churchill would say, there’s reason to keep buggering on…