Hat tip to Cox and Forkum for the cartoon. You can read their related commentary and links HERE.
I've heard leftists complain about the statement "God Bless America". They like to say "Why SHOULD god bless America?" They believe America is evil, and that anyone who is patriotic is a brainwashed fool.
A great deal of this is learned in our public schools, where not only do they not teach American history anymore, they teach disrespect for our country. Many of our teachers consider patriotism to be an outdated idea at best, a dangerous one at worst. They prefer to think of themselves as "citizens of the World", with no allegience to any specific country. They believe nationality and patriotism are evil concepts, and that citizenship and the vote should be granted to anyone within our borders, regardless of how they got here or why they came, and they teach these ideas to their students.
Thomas Sowell's article Is patriotism obsolete? touches on this. An excerpt:
...Patriotism is not chic in the circles of those who assume the role of citizens of the world, whether they are discussing immigration or giving aid and comfort to the enemy in wartime.
The decline and fall of the Roman Empire was as much due to the internal disintegration of the ties that bind a society together as to the assaults of the Romans' external enemies.
The pride of being a Roman citizen was destroyed by cheapening that citizenship by giving it to too many other people. The sense of duty and loyalty eroded among both the elites and the masses.
Without such things, there could be no Roman Empire. Ultimately, without such things, there can be no United States of America. In neither case have tangible wealth and power been enough to save a country or a civilization, for the tangibles do not work without the intangibles.
(bold emphasis mine) Any American who says "Why SHOULD god bless America?" clearly has no appreciation for what America is about. It isn't about geography or ethnicity, as much as it is about an idea. Individual liberty, as expressed by John Locke and the Continental philosophers; the Scottish Enlightenment.
There are those in our country who wish to disintigrate the ties that bind our own society together, so that they can replace it with their own ideas, like socialism and communism, which are the antithesis of the American idea. Socialism is the stepping stone to Communism, which has no use whatsoever for individual liberty.
So I say God Bless America indeed. May it's idea live on and prosper, here and throughout the world.
Related links:
INDEPENDENCE DAY 2006
CELEBRATING THE FOURTH OF JULY
And I saw this on TammyBruce.com:
God Bless America: The Song
Did you know it was written by Irving Berlin in 1918, and revised in 1938? Here are the Lyrics:
"While the storm clouds gather far across the sea,
Let us swear allegiance to a land that's free,
Let us all be grateful for a land so fair,
As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer. "
God Bless America,
Land that I love.
Stand beside her, and guide her
Thru the night with a light from above.
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans, white with foam
God bless America, My home sweet home.
The first part, the first four lines, I don't recall having heard before; don't think they taught us that in school. Yet those storm clouds seem to be there now as much as ever. According to Wikipedia, it was originally written as a victory song, but ended up evolving into a peace song.
You can read about the history of the song by Wikipedia Here.
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