I've been deeply impressed in the last few years with the energizing potential that talk radio has had on what I consider to be the mainstream of American political opinion. Commentators such as Hugh Hewitt have created a dialog based not on the emotive slogans that have long been the mainstay of the left, but rather a citadel built of bricks based on American culture and bonded with the mortar of reasoned argument. The result is an impressive monument to the polis--to the democratic basis that is the glory of liberty. I would like first to salute all of those pioneers--especially Rush Limbaugh--for their trailblazing efforts. Add those who I have found a particular joy in listening to, such as  Hugh Hewitt, Dennis Prager and Dennis Miller, and I am well pleased to add my own voice to the envigorating chorus of political debate that characterizes this present-day Athens.

I became a Reagan conservative almost from the start, responding to his fiscally conservative and firm mission of defense in the age of the threat of nuclear conflict. My father was an Air Force SAC officer, so I lived with the reality of of the SIOP plan and Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) throughout my formative years. The Cold War wasn't quite so cold for us, since wherever we were was likely fairly high up on the Soviet targeting list. But under this Damaclean threat, I found as a young student that the beating pulse of American culture thrived not in the collective impulse pushing in from Europe, but rather in elements of individual liberty--both political and economic--that seemed to drive American innovation. And this innovation, this vibrant drive to make things better on an individual basis, built an amazing economic engine that, as Alan Greenspan so eloquently emphasized in his recent book, a resilience capable of overcoming even the potentially annhiliating threat of a Mexican-type nuclear standoff. Resting our economic freedom on a bedrock of military strength, we have been able to defend our liberties in the face of successive threats, and I for one intend to defend these liberties that give us such a cultural strength. It is precisely this strength that draws the envy and ire of our present opponents, but I have faith that we will be able to drive ahead and, so long as we avoid the collective traps which have seduced much of Europe, to prevail.

Professionally I am a writer, publisher and teacher of history at the University of North Texas, one of the few universities I have found where some number of the faculty have sympathy with conservative ideas. I am also a teacher of Western martial arts, European arts recorded in fighting treatises of the 14th and 15th centuries. I find both the combat and philosophical aspects of this Art reinforces my political, economic and cultural beliefs, because the arts emphasize individual initiative, innovation and personal valor in service of doing one's duty. Like sports, pressing against another thinking, striving human being--yet sharing camaraderie with that same opponent--is a hallmark of the healthy competition that epitomizes our exceptional American culture.

In this blog I intent to comment on events as they unfold, linking my studies of the past with the events of the future in an effort to add some small contribution to the dialog that is our democracy.

Brian R. Price
Principale, Schola Saint George
Publisher, Chivalry Bookshelf