Liberty.

On the same day, July 4th, 1826, fifty years to the day from the birth of this great nation they founded, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died. What are the chances? How about zero? Such an improbable occurrence was our Creator’s not-so-subtle way of reminding us that the United States of America is something special, something worth preserving. And no wonder…

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Those are the only secular words I find as moving and wise and compassionate and eternally truthful as the Eight Beatitudes of the Gospels. And those words are America. This country may be built upon a piece of land, house millions of citizens, and enjoy many traditions, but those things are not what America is. America is an idea; a noble idea that essentially boils down to the shocking belief that the masses are in fact not asses.

Yup, it’s the liberty, stupid.

Although each one of Andrew Breitbart’s BIG brainchildren is charged with covering wildly different topics, I like to think that Liberty is the muse we all share in common. Something else we have in common is that the Left holds no sway over us. The deadly siren song they’ve sung for ages  –  just compromise a little and we’ll like you — that has successfully drawn so many from our side onto the sharp rocks of self-mutilation only encourages us to defeat them all the more.   

And so with the launch of each new BIG the left dies a little more inside, and with the combined intellectual firepower of Schweizer, Frank Gaffney and Blackfive on the banner, the appeasers are gonna need to get a few more guys.

Welcome to the party, Big Peace. Welcome to the family.

A little less than a year after announcing it, in front of Vice President Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and many other American foreign policy elites at Frank Gaffney’s “Keeper of the Flame” Award Dinner in October 2009, we are finally launching Big Peace.

It took nine months because this site has to be done right, and with Hoover Institution Research Fellow and bestselling author Peter Schweizer, we found the perfect editor. Because I am not a foreign policy or military expert, I needed to create a core editorial unit that represented the highest-end understanding of policy while at the same time bringing, at a time of war, a “boots-on-the-ground” perspective.

Frank Gaffney, the Founder and President of the Center for Security Policy provides over thirty years of expertise in national defense including as stint as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy under Ronald Reagan. Jim Hansen and the mil-bloggers at Black Five are bringing years of cutting edge reportage from the front lines of multiple wars.

For the last 10 months, Big Government has been the “Big home”” for these stories but Big Peace is now their proper venue. For instance, bestselling author Brad Thor broke the story two months ago that Mullah Mohammed Omar had been captured by Pakistani ISI. That story was also confirmed by Lt. Col. Oliver North and Baba Tim. Notice the Obama administration and the Department of Defense have not officially denied this story. We also broke the story about the Obama Administration’s decision to move Guantanamo Bay prisoners to Thompson Correctional Facility in Illinois.

These major stories and more now have a natural home at Big Peace. Journalists, former Pentagon officials, foreign policy officials, foreign dignitaries, members of the armed forces, elected officials, and assorted insiders will use the dynamic “Big Group Blog Template” to make American and international security front page news once again. And, of course, you, our readers will be able to contribute to the discussion through our dynamic interactive comments section on each post.

As the site’s resident skeptic of main stream media accountability, I have noticed that the amount of reporters and media outlets covering national security and the war has dwindled and skepticism over American military commitment has waned now that there isn’t a Bush or a Republican in charge. The war beat is getting short shrift. Big Peace was created to fill this void and to provide biased coverage.

The site is pro-freedom, pro-liberty, and pro-American but will not be an outlet for false information or propaganda. The unique mix of Schweizer, Gaffney, and Blackfive and our collective reputations will provide a check and balance.

When I told American artist Steve Penley, a close friend, about the idea of Big Peace, he was so excited that he offered his brilliant talent to create the banner artwork. I think that it conveys better than my words what this site is all about. Reagan put it best: Peace through strength.

Earlier this week, Andrew Breitbart paid tribute to the late Ron Silver at the Center for Security Policy’s Keeper of the Flame dinner.  Attendees included Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.