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July 3, 2008

Exclusive: Thoughts on the Fourth of July

Pam Meister

The Fourth of July, otherwise known as Independence Day, is upon us. Many of us have three day weekends and are busy planning picnics, trips to the beach or trips to the mall to take advantage of the inevitable Fourth of July sale. The occasional display of patriotism will also be on hand as communities across the nation put on fireworks shows - something I tend to avoid. Not because I don't like fireworks, but it's mainly due to my lack of patience with the wall to wall traffic that accompanies them. I don't believe cursing in the car in front of my kids is a productive way to spend the holiday.

Maybe, if you're lucky, you'll hear someone sing America's national anthem this weekend. Not the version of the anthem that was sung in Denver this week, but the real one, written by Francis Scott Key, called "The Star Spangled Banner."

Oh, you didn't know about that? Denver's mayor, John Hickenlooper (the brainiac who recently proclaimed "greening" as "the new patriotism") invited René Marie to sing the national anthem during his annual State of the City Address. It's a fairly standard occasion, one that would hardly lift eyebrows, right? The problem is Ms. Marie didn't sing our national anthem. She sang the first verse of what is known as the "black national anthem," "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing," and put it to the tune of the actual national anthem. No one knew of her intentions beforehand because, according to Ms. Marie, "I don't think it is necessary for an artist to ask permission to express themselves artistically."

Had she restricted her comments to "I don't think," that would have sufficed nicely.

But I can't decide which is worse: Ms. Marie's self-serving hijacking of the national anthem to make a political statement at an inappropriate time and place, or the response by members of World Can't Wait (a revolutionary communist movement) and other hate America types upon hearing the anthem performed at a "support the Marines" rally in Berkeley just a couple of weeks ago. Ah yes, patriotic Americans are actually Nazis in disguise. Who knew?

That René Marie and the World Can't Waiters don't see the irony of their being allowed to put their "America sucks" attitude on full display in public is truly distressing. While in countries like China they might have been confronted by soldiers, beaten, and even killed for daring to publicly protest government policies (who can forget Tiananmen Square?), our soldiers protect the rights of citizens to trash their country and the soldiers protecting their rights.

Only in America.

Patriotism, it seems, is becoming harder and harder to find these days. Effete latte-sipping elitists believe overt patriotism like flag-waving is uncool at best and "corporatized, Orwellian symbols of state power and pride" at worst. Remember the whole "flag pin controversy" with Barack Obama? When asked why he wasn't wearing a flag pin, he could have said something like, "I forgot," or, "I never really thought about it" and life would have moved on. Instead, he created the controversy himself by his claim that sporting such a pin "was a substitute for I think true patriotism." Or, as Rick Moran puts it:

The unspoken message here (actually hinted at by Obama) is that those who actually do wear lapel pins are fake patriots. "True patriotism" or "speaking out" is genuine patriotism while those who indulge themselves in flag waving or flag wearing are charlatans. After all, isn't patriotism "the last refuge of scoundrels?"

Perhaps when he was speaking to his private audience in San Francisco, Obama should have said that bitter Middle Americans were not only clinging to guns and religion, but also to their flags. He probably would have gotten even a bigger laugh.

Obama is not the only American who is "Flagophobic." (Hey, if we can be Islamophobic, why not Flagophobic?) Right Wing News has a post entitled "The Best Quotes from the Left Since 9/11," and I thought I'd share a few of the juicier ones with you here:

"America has an almost obscene infatuation with itself. Has there ever been a big, powerful country that is as patriotic as America? And patriotic in the tinniest way, with so much flag waving? You'd really think we were some poor little republic, and that if one person lost his religion for one hour, the whole thing would crumble. America is the real religion in this country." - Norman Mailer

"My daughter, who goes to Stuyvesant High School only blocks from the World Trade Center, thinks we should fly an American flag out our window. Definitely not, I say: The flag stands for jingoism and vengeance and war." - Katha Pollitt, The Nation, October 8

"While the rest of the country waves the flag of Americana, we understand we are not part of that. We don't owe America anything - America owes us." - Al Sharpton at the "State of the Black World Conference" in Atlanta

Are they right? Should we forget the flag, Mom and apple pie and behave more like the "citizens of the world" the Left so desperately want us to be? "UN über alles" could be our new international anthem, and we could fly UN flags from our homes instead of Old Glory. Just look to Coca-Cola as an inspiration: in response to boycotts against its products in the Middle East, the company has proclaimed that it is not an American company but an international company. If that's the case, I think they should move their corporate headquarters from Atlanta to Brussels, where they might feel more at home.

Thomas Sowell wonders: does patriotism matter? He relates the success during the 1920s and 1930s of French teachers' unions to purge classrooms of texts that depicted any courage or self-sacrifice in that country's defense against the German invaders during World War I - replacing them with books that encouraged internationalism and pacifism. Soldiers were no longer heroes but victims, as were their families.

The result? Despite their superior firepower and strength, France surrendered to the Nazis after just six weeks:

At the outset of the invasion, both German and French generals assessed French military forces as more likely to gain victory, and virtually no one expected France to collapse like a house of cards - except Adolf Hitler, who had studied French society instead of French military forces.

In American classrooms today, multiculturalism and moral relativism abound. While our nation's history should be presented, warts and all, it seems as though the warts grow bigger with each passing day. You know, Columbus was responsible for genocide, the dead white men who founded our nation were a bunch of clods, and America was the only country in the history of the world that participated in slavery. And other countries, including those whose governments oppress their peoples (I'm sure you can think of a few) are presented as merely different or their actions watered down due to outside pressure from special interest groups. "It's all good" seems to be the motto of the day.

Will the "It's all good" philosophy serve the next generation in good stead? Or will they collapse like the French when challenged? We'll have to see.

I guess I'm just not with it. Despite being bombarded with anti-American rhetoric from everyone from know-it-all Europeans to know-it-all American politicians to know-it-all Hollywood celebs, I'm proud to fly the American flag and I get emotional when I hear "The Star Spangled Banner." I salute our troops and thank them for the difficult job they undertake to protect the freedoms of all Americans - even those who don't appreciate what they have.

And I thank my lucky stars for the men who, back in 1776, signed a document that started the grandest political experiment in modern history. If that makes me "obscenely infatuated" as Norman Mailer says, then so be it. I'd rather be rabidly patriotic than inflicted with a mortal case of self-hatred.

God bless America. Happy Fourth of July, everyone!

Pam Meister is the editor for Family Security Matters.

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