Do Something Now. If not you, who? If not here, where? If not now, when?
Theodore Roosevelt
Tag: Theodore Roosevelt
07MAY2019 – Quote of the Day
To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.
Theodore Roosevelt
06MAY2019 – Quote of the Day
In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.
Theodore Roosevelt
05MAY2019 – Quote of the Day
The one quality which sets one man apart from another- the key which lifts one to every aspiration while others are caught up in the mire of mediocrity- is not talent, formal education, nor intellectual brightness – it is self-discipline. With self-discipline all things are possible. Without it, even the simplest goal can seem like the impossible dream.
Theodore Roosevelt
04MAY2019 – Quote of the Day
There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag…We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language…and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.
Theodore Roosevelt
09JUL2019 – Quote of the Day
I ran this one a year and a half ago but it’s well worth running every year.
The Man in the Arena as it is called, is part of a speech called Citizenship in a Republic made by Theodore Roosevelt in Paris, France on April 23, 1910. It’s well known but well worth requoting.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
09MAR2026 – Quote of the Day
I have always been fond of the West African proverb “Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.”
Theodore Roosevelt
Lost World
The “Age of Mamdani” is upon New York City. And anyone who frequently reads this site knows that I expect the bottom to drop out of the city in a way that will make the previous Democrat mayors’ terms look positively idyllic by comparison.
But as much as I indulge in seeming schadenfreude, it’s gallows humor. New York City used to be a world-class city. Even in its ruins there still exist some absolutely astonishing resources hidden among the squalor.
I’ll say something. When I lived in New York my favorite indoor space was the American Museum of Natural History. Ever since I was a kid barely old enough to walk I would wander around mesmerized by the dinosaurs and all the other creatures to be found in that magical place.
And almost as fascinating was the Hall of African Mammals. With the huge exhibit of a small herd of African Elephants and the other monumental creatures like the rhinoceroses a small boy could be transported to another world.
But now this incomparable citadel of knowledge and wonder will be held hostage by people who hate the culture that produced it and made it into a legacy for all New Yorkers. Already they removed the statue of Teddy Roosevelt that had stood for a century in front of the entrance. Its motif with the “great white hunter” on horseback walking with the third world natives in their primitive costumes enraged the George Floyd crowd. So it had to go.
Next thing you know some exhibit of primitive aborigines will outrage some woke group and that exhibit will be banned.
And after that someone will decide that there just aren’t enough Palestinian exhibits or somewhere on a sign there is some vestigial reference to Christianity. Probably someone will be triggered by a date still using B.C. or A.D. and more scrubbing will be needed or some other facet of third world life will need to be reinforced for the good of the public.
I guess I don’t anticipate dinosaurs becoming controversial but I guarantee something in the African exhibits will offend someone in the New York African American community and the wholesale purge will begin.
And when push comes to shove, I think I will feel worse about the loss of the American Museum of Natural History than about the whole rest of the city and its inhabitants put together. I know that’s an awful thing to say. But it’s true. I guess murdering magic is a terrible thing to the little kid that’s still inside of me.
Of Dinosaurs and Decline
I have a young grandson who is fascinated by dinosaurs. I told him that if the rioting in New York City subsides I’d like to bring him to the American Museum of Natural History and let him see their dinosaur collection. And that got me thinking.
As I’ve mentioned previously a culture needs its myths. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the center of the American Myth was New York City. The rich and powerful built a modern-day Rome. Monumental buildings and cultural centers were built and artefacts and art works were collected from around the world. Even an enormous garden called Central Park was built in the center of the island, the most expensive real estate in the world, to provide an oasis from the concrete jungle that was built to house the business hub of a modern empire.
And from my point of view, the crown jewel was the American Museum of Natural History. The Museum was essentially free to residents of New York City. You were allowed to pay any amount you wanted for admission even a penny. Out in front was a larger-than-life sculpture of Teddy Roosevelt on a horse with African and Indian bearers escorting him on one of his expeditions. And inside was assembled a spectacular collection of natural history specimens that would fuel the imagination of anyone with a speck of imagination or curiosity.
There were magnificent dinosaur skeletons. Specimens of Tyrannosaurus rex, Allosaurus, Brontosaurus (now renamed Apatosaurus to satisfy the boring needs of pedagogy), Triceratops, Stegosaurus and Duck-billed dinosaurs called Edmontosaurus annectens are on display in spacious halls that allow the spectators to walk around these marvels. In addition to the dinosaurs there are skeletons of wooly mammoths, mastodons, wooly rhinoceros, giant ground sloths and other prehistoric mammals. There are also halls filled with the preserved bodies of mammals and birds from Africa, Asia and the Americas displayed in dioramas that used painted backgrounds and other materials like native vegetation to simulate the animals in their native habitat. Scenes of lions, rhinos, tigers and elephants provide remarkable vistas. Other halls include collections of gemstones, artefacts of aboriginal peoples from six continents and even a life size model of a blue whale are on display.
The museum with its heroic statue of Roosevelt is itself an artefact of a civilization at its peak of wealth, strength and confidence. Everything fits into the myth of American, and by extension, Western civilization expanding and illuminating the world. We gathered these specimens from the four corners of the Earth and we had studied and determined their meaning. We were the masters of the planet and we were confidently stepping into the future. There was even a planetarium that would teach our children of their place in the universe and our eventual explorations beyond Earth.
So, in 2021 the statue of Teddy Roosevelt was removed from the entrance of the museum. Soon I’m sure that roving bands of BLM rioters will loot the museum and sell the dinosaur bones to crack cocaine dealers as trophy crack pipes. Our myth about Teddy Roosevelt as the great white hunter is no different than Rome’s Julius Caesar and the Huns’ Atilla. Not everything in the myth is true but the myth fits the needs of a people. When you give up your myths it means you’ve given up on your reason to live as a people. That’s what we’re seeing.
Maybe I should bring my grandson to see the Beijing Museum of Natural History’s dinosaur collection. It would probably be safer and less depressing.
President Trump in the Arena
In 2018 and 2019 I posted Roosevelt’s “Man in the Arena” speech as one of my quotes of the day. Here it is:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
I thought of this quote when all the usual suspects started criticizing the President for his courageous decision to eliminate General Soleimani. Chuck Schumer criticized the President for not consulting Congress. The stupidity of this argument being that Congress is a sieve of destructive leaks and passing along this information might have compromised the mission and even led to intelligence personnel being captured or killed.
Then you have that nitwit Pelosi claiming that Soleimani was such an important Iranian that killing him was unthinkable. So, the man who personally arranged for the killing and maiming of thousands of American servicemen and who was currently looking to increase that score shouldn’t be eliminated because his work was too important. I know of nothing more idiotic said by a top US political leader since Pelosi’s last blunder where she claimed that we had to institute Obamacare before we knew what it included. She is indeed a dope for all seasons.
And all the talking heads of the networks working overtime to frighten the American public with propaganda about American deaths from the missile barrage and declaring that killing Soleimani was an unthinkable tactical blunder that we would all rue.
All of these naysayers are the critics of Roosevelt’s speech. Bystanders sniping at the Man in the Arena. But President Trump is that man. In a situation like the current United States deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan there is no safe or easy choice. Every day is fraught with peril and every decision must be weighed.
With the Iranians looking to distract their citizens from their poverty the mullahs used Soleimani to generate good news by attacking their enemies through proxies in other places like Iraq and Syria. And with the knowledge that President Trump wants to withdraw US troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and place them in secure bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait it would be easy for the Iranians to claim a victory if they attacked our vacating troops. They would spin it that they chased us out.
If the President does intend to redeploy our troops away from Iraq and Afghanistan it would be preferable to accompany such a change with a show of strength to remind the hostile (and friendly) nations in the area that American military strength isn’t something to be despised.
To that end killing Soleimani just as he was ramping up attacks on Americans in Iraq was a high risk, high reward option. Killing him in such a situation demonstrated our operational intelligence capability, technological superiority and the high regard our President has for the safety of our troops. He would show that the death of an American contractor in Iraq needed to be avenged with the killing of the man who was ultimately responsible for that death. And no consideration was given to the rank of either man.
But of course, consideration was given to what the retaliation by the Iranians could have been. Getting into a major war with a regional power like Iran is a very serious situation. Such a war would be a horrible problem for an election effort and would throw the advantage to the Democrats in November.
And that risk means that ordering the attack on Soleimani was a very risky decision that called for the most careful exercise of judgement. None of the other men who served as President in the last thirty years, neither of the Bushes or Clinton or Obama would have taken that risk under the present circumstances. They would have hunkered down and endured the slow drip of casualties and then withdrawn our troops under fire. President Trump showed a fine sense of tactical judgement and he has been rewarded by circumstances that put him in a strong strategic position with respect to Iran. The Man in the Arena deserves praise and recognition for his wisdom and courage.