The topic seems to be a question much in the news lately, thanks to comments made both by New York Governor Cuomo and at the funeral of John McCain, of unhappy memory.*
*And by the way, since when did funerals become occasions of settling scores? I always thought the purpose of a funeral was to pray for the soul of the deceased, rather than to speak out against people you didn’t like or agree with. Silly me.
Let’s first start with the proposition that America was always great, and didn’t need to be made great again, and do our own little fact check. (Personal opinion as always, of course.) After some reflection, it would seem to this writer that the following statements can be accepted as more or less true:
America was always great, except when the early settlers passed laws repressing Catholics.
America was always great, except when government officials reneged on treaties signed with American Indian tribes.
America was always great, except when blacks were legally deemed to be property and owned as slaves in the South.
America was always great, except when its laborers were treated brutishly and inhumanely, exploited by businessmen and denied the dignity that is inherent in work.
America was always great, except when rights of free speech were taken away from opponents of World War I.
America was always great, except when half the population—females—were denied the right to vote, as well as other rights, in many states.
America was always great, except when blacks had to fight for common civil rights, from voting to home ownership, and Jews were frequently the target of discrimination.
America was always great, except when politicians sent young soldiers off to fight wars without giving them clear direction on what they were fighting for.
America was always great, except when it sanctioned the murder of unborn children in the womb, and the sick and elderly based on their quality of life.
America was always great, except when it persecutes those citizens who desire freedom to pursue their religious beliefs regarding fundamental precepts on things such as marriage and abortion, through a combination of legal oppression and social approbation.
I could go on, I suppose, but I think you get the point.
Let’s look at the opposite viewpoint, though, the idea that America was never great. How does that stand up? These statements would seem obvious:
America was never great, except when it fought overseas to free people from tyranny and oppression.
America was never great, except when it contributed billions of dollars in financial aid and massive numbers of volunteers to help nations stricken by natural disasters.
America was never great, except when it provided ordinary people with the means to improve their lives without being held prisoner of a class system.
America was never great, except when it served as the crucible of innovation for doctors, scientists, innovators, inventors, and entrepreneurs who improved the quality of live for people around the world.
America was never great, except when it mounted efforts such as the Berlin Airlift to support people fighting for their freedom.
America was never great, except when it accomplished the unthinkable and landed men on the moon.
America was never great, except when it became the source of hope and inspiration, for people whose greatest dream was to come here (legally) and become, in every way, Americans.
Again, you get the point here.
From these lists, I think one can be allowed to draw a conclusion, or perhaps an observation, which might provide us with an answer to this question.
The greatness of America often is the result of intangibles—freedom to act, a spirit of creation—that in turn provides the means to accomplish great things. The lack of greatness, on the other hand, often manifests itself in specific acts, either sanctioned by the government (formally or informally) or as the result of what could be called evil in the hearts of its citizens.
The logical conclusion, therefore, is that America is mostly a great nation, but not always a good one; that its titanic accomplishments can be offset by the darkness in the hearts of its citizens; that we are torn between our better angels and the demons that seek to posses us. The eradication of disease is a great accomplishment; the promotion of eugenics is an evil one.
Greatness and goodness can both be lost. A nation that oppresses its citizens or doesn’t allow them to succeed is no longer great. A nation that legally sanctions immorality or pursues immoral ends is no longer good. We needn’t see this as unique; it’s a contradiction that exists in all nations, because it exists in all humans. It’s why, for all our kvetching, things never seem to change—because people never change. It’s why we can’t achieve perfection in this life; if we could, we would have had no need for a Savior.
There has been, perhaps, a tendency for Americans to conflate greatness with goodness, perhaps more often than people from other countries. They do have one thing in common, though, which is that the pinnacle for each is something unattainable: perfection. We can, and must, always strive for it, with the knowledge that we will never achieve it but every step in that direction is a good thing.
But make no mistake—there is a difference between goodness and greatness. And sometimes a lack of one can make for a lack of the other.
This whole Colin Kaepernick thing is fascinating for many reasons, not the least of which being that there are so many sides to it all. Dreher points out a lot of them, and I'd actually been thinking along those lines myself. I mean, it's hard enough for me to have pride in a country that sanctions the murder of unborn children, encourages (in some cases) the murder of the elderly and infirm, demands that Christians kowtow to prevailing opinion on things like homosexual marriage, and the like. And that doesn't even begin to get into questions like sending young men and women into combat for reasons that don't clearly present themselves.
So make no mistake about it, I understand where someone could be coming from with this stand. And I do think Kaepernick has the right to do what he's doing; whether or not the First Amendment applies to private industry, there's still such a thing as freedom of political expression in this country - at least for now. Provided that one recognizes the possibility of blowback for their actions, there should be no question about having the right to take a political stand. For years blacks had what they thought of as their own national anthem, so this itself is nothing new.
I also don't go for the idea that his actions somehow "disrespect" the military. While the military may well be credited for winning American independence in the Revolution, the truth of the matter is that this army was led by a politician - George Washington - and was spurred to action by an entire Congress of politicians, the Founding Fathers. It is no lack of respect of America's armed forces to say that the National Anthem stands for more than just them. To say so might actually disrespect the rest of America. The Anthem belongs to all of us, after all. It does seem that in the last few years we've turned almost every major holiday in this country, with the exception of Christmas, Easter, and Valentine's Day, into some type of tribute to our soldiers. Let's honor them by all means, but leave us not turn everything into a cause célèbre.
Things get murkier when it comes down to the case of Kaepernick specifically. This may blow my cover when it comes to how much I pay attention to the NFL, but until this I didn't even know that Kaepernick was partly black. I just saw a scruffy guy with a beard and a lot of tats, and when you put him in a football uniform there isn't much else showing. That's why I was confused when this first came to light, because I wondered what was in it for him. Now I understand that a little better, but it hardly answers my questions. Most of these questions have been raised by others, but that very fact means they're good questions:
How much has Kaepernick himself done for the black community? Does he pledge money? Does he have a foundation or charity? Has he personally become involved with the families of any of the people he claims are laying dead in the streets?
Does Kaepernick really believe we should be taking him seriously when he's making as much money as he is? Being a celebrity doesn't mean you sacrifice your right to have an opinion, of course, but when you've been as much of a success in America as Colin Kaepernick has, any complaints about inequality and lack of freedom tend to ring hollow. Has he done anything to overcome this?
Speaking of which, how much discrimination has Kaepernick himself faced? To the extent he hasn't been singled out, could it be because he's lighter-skinned than many blacks? And from there, does this open up a larger discussion about attitudes toward light-skinned blacks in the greater black community? Do they have a hierarchy themselves?
I have a hard time believing Kaepernick's sincerity considering he's become a borderline quarterback who stands a good chance of being cut by the 49ers before the start of the season. Why is it that I'm cynical enough to believe he's either (a) trying to deflect attention from his failures on the playing field by trying to curry favor with blacks and liberals; (b) trying to prevent the 49ers from releasing them by setting them up to appear racists and reactionaries if they do; (c) hoping another team will see positive PR coming from picking him up; or (d) a combination of the above? Note that I'm not accusing him of any of this - I'm merely saying that a cynic might think so. Not that there's any room for cynicism in professional sports. Not at all.
Finally, how much does this reflect on Kaepernick's leadership? As the quarterback he is, as one wag put it, the CEO of the team (at least on the field). Does he show leadership by refusing to stand with his teammates as one on the sideline? Does he show leadership by calling attention to himself and his individual actions, rather than the team as a whole? Does he show leadership by creating such a distraction? You tell me.
Truth be told, I find the discussion about Kaepernick far more interesting than Kaepernick himself, which might be the cruelest cut of all if he is in fact just trolling for publicity. Dreher asks a couple of pertinent questions, and where I break severely with him is in the way I react to them:
We may see no contradiction between being a good Christian and a good American, but what happens when Americans as a whole look at dissenting Christians and call us un-American for the things we believe and do? Will we stand for the National Anthem then? If so, will we stand for the America we think is real, versus this politicized, debased America that the mainstream holds to? Or will it be more important for us not to stand, and to accept whatever consequences come with that?
[...]
What will it cost us if we lose the ability to stand together for the National Anthem? Is it worth what we stand to gain
Dreher typically reacts with horror to this thought, of America breaking up, but I don't; I've a hard time thinking of this as a unified country for some time. Dreher craves order, and freaks out when there's even a whiff of anarchy (and I don't mean the French Revolution kind); were it not for that, I wonder if he wouldn't be able to see that this ship sailed a long, long time ago. We're split, not just on ideological disagreements, but increasingly on fundamental questions of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. When I ask the questions I did in my opening paragraph, I'm not just wondering about a hypothetical situation - it already exists. Dreher, for as pessimistic as he is, only intellectualizes that we might have passed the point of no return, when the only question is whether the split is peaceful or not. For many of us, thought, the upside of such a split continues to seem far greater than the downside of remaining one nation, even though it may not be under God (or so we think, anyway) and doesn't offer either liberty or justice for all.
I think the time is coming, and in fact is already here. We just haven't felt the shockwaves yet.
My own opinion is that things are slightly better now in the United States than they were a couple of years ago, when I originally wrote this piece. There's no hiding the bad, to be sure (as I wrote yesterday), and the culture is, if anything, increasingly decadent, but it could be worse - Donald Trump is no savior, but he's a hope, and at least he's not Hilary Clinton. And maybe, just maybe, this country's descent into Hell might be slowed down just long enough for a miracle. Who knows - we might even watch 1776 this year.
The Fourth of July used to be a special day for me. For a couple of years, I was the chair of the 4th of July parade in Richfield, Minnesota, and in the years before and after that it was always a treat to go to a parade. We lived for the fireworks show at night; in addition to the shows on the Fourth, Bloomington had a show on the evening of the 3rd; if the weather was nice we drove to the top level of a nearby parking ramp, where we'd listen to the radio and eat popcorn while waiting for it to get dark enough for the show to begin. The Fourth itself meant movies, almost in the same way that Christmas does - The Music Man, with Robert Preston, and my favorite musical of all time, 1776. Yes, those were good times.
It's been a few years now since I've paid the Fourth any attention at all, and this year will be no exception. I can't celebrate it anymore, because in my opinion there's nothing to celebrate. Over the course of these last years, we've seen America go straight to Hell, and last week's obscene Supreme Court decision just emphasizes the fact. It's not only the decision itself, disordered as it is; it's this whole idea that the American Experiment has finally come to an end. States' rights are going, if not gone; a relentless political correctness, from which dissent is not tolerated, governs our public discourse, as companies and special interest groups increasingly punish people simply for expressing their own thoughts; religious freedoms are not only done away with but scoffed at; police forces are increasingly militarized; in the name of national security, the Federal government becomes more and more intrusive in our lives; our very history is either forgotten or airbrushed. Increasingly the world revolves around international financiers, investors more concerned with the bottom line than the High Altar. To them it is money that makes the world go around, not the laws of gravity. They've succeeded in reducing man to a statistic in a budget, a mere number that represents not a human soul but a profit/loss statement. To them things such as gay rights are ideas to be pandered to; they see them not as troubled individuals but consumers with money to spend, and that's the only kind of morality that matters to them. The poet Allen Ginsburg, in his epic Howl, called it Moloch, as is so evocatively illustrated here:
And who is there to turn to? Not the humans running the Church; as rights are stripped away and depravities are legalized, we get lectures on climate change. Not political parties: the leftist Democrats, held captive by fanatical extremists, are the driving force behind many of these changes, while the timid Republicans, more interested in retaining power than doing anything with it, stand idly by. Besides, the parties are just flip sides of the same coin anyway; they both want our money, the only difference being what they plan to do with it.
Man, that is depressing, isn't it?
We're all to blame for it, in a way, thanks to Original Sin. We've allowed marriage to be corrupted through our own actions, just as we've played our own roles elsewhere. There's more to it than that, of course; the Devil is alive and well in this world, in these United States, and he's finding many a willing disciple. This doesn't mean we're helpless, though. The pessimistic (but realistic) Rod Dreher has advocated what he calls the "Benedict Option," which involves groups of orthodox believers gathering into what might be called community support groups, where they exist to strengthen each other's faith, families and future. It's not a retreat from the world, as some would have it, but a circling of the wagons. And it's necessary because, as Dreher puts it, things are not going to get better. Others advocate a more activist approach, attaching the issue head-on and refusing to be pushed around. Still others think things can be turned around by electing the right individuals, that America at its heart is still a conservative nation. The number who believe in that last category grows smaller and smaller, and if you're inclined to believe it I've got a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to discuss with you.
In short, America seems to have devolved into a Godless, licentious nation, consumed with hedonism, basing everything on feelings rather than any kind of logical thought. Not the sex you want to be? Easy - just change. Feel like marrying two or three other people? Well, why not? Think killer whales are human? They probably are. If you even bother to believe in God, you can create Him in whatever Image you want, knowing that He just wants you to be "happy," whatever that means nowadays. What's frightening is not the question of where it all ends; it's that, deep in our hearts, we already know what the answer is. It's not just America, of course, but the whole world. The whole world isn't celebrating July 4th, however, and I'm not sure how we can, either.
In this atmosphere, watching a movie such as 1776 where we witness the birth of the republic, seeing what all these men were willing to risk their lives for, and then to look at what that cause has become, is beyond depressing. To see an immoral lifestyle legalized (in the process overturning state laws passed by citizens) by a group of nine unelected officials, the same group (if not the same individuals) responsible for legalizing the murder of unborn human beings, all based on supposed rights that can't be found in the Constitution - well, if I was one who cried, I'd have shed more than one tear over these last few years.
I mentioned above that what's really scary about this is that in our hearts we know where it all leads. A priest, talking about the various natural disasters that have befallen California recently, remarked that "When you keep giving God the finger, pretty soon he's going to grant your wish and leave you alone." It's tempting on the one hand to look at anything bad that happens and see in it the finger of God, just as it's tempting to look at those same events and decry the idea that God would punish people indiscriminately, the innocent as well as the guilty. But as we're reminded in Matthew 5:45, it rains on the just and the unjust. The fact that there may have been innocent people living in Sodom and Gomorrah did not save the cities from being destroyed. In fact, the Bible is replete with natural disasters as a sign of God's displeasure.
Speaking of which, it's worth noting that while some conservatives today suggest God is withdrawing His protection of America as a once-special country, there are others who would point out that America was founded on dubious propositions in the first place. Such are the probing questions asked in Christopher Ferrara's provocative book Liberty, the God That Failed, which suggests that from the very beginning, liberty was a chimera, "the false god of a new political order." Much the same message can be found in Hans-Herman Hoppe's Democracy: The God That Failed, So perhaps we've been thumbing our noses at God this whole time, and that the Hell we're going through was predestined to happen at some time or another; it's just our lot that it's happening in our lifetimes.
And yet - it's all been part of God's plan that we are alive here, now. There's obviously something we're meant to do, some role we're intended to play. It's not likely we'll be able to determine that on our own, which means we have to keep our eyes and ears open and our prayers constant. We must live lives that are good and pious, to the best of our abilities. We must try as best we can to influence those close to us: friends, family, neighbors, workmates.
Most of all, I think, we must realize that we cannot be both Christians and Americans. We can no longer live this hybrid, hyphenated life. We give unto Caesar what is Caesar's, following the words and examples of Jesus, but we can no longer excuse what America does simply because it is America. We pray for our country because patriotism is, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, a virtue, but we cannot go down with the ship - instead, we must head for the lifeboat created by Our Savior for our protection.
So in this weekend of rote patriotism, when for some of us there seems nothing left worth celebrating, try to remember that the things we truly celebrate are those things that are scorned by the rest of the world. In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ reminded us thusly: "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."
That reward is greater than any nation, any flag, any political or judicial victory. It is the hope which we carry to ward off despair, the true joy that protects the soul from depression, the light that shines in the darkness. If indeed America is beyond salvation, then damned she will be; our victory will be greater than that.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t believe for a second that these tests mean anything. If you believe that DNA patterns are so historically accurate that you can discriminate between, say, Ukrainian origins and Tatar origins—it depends on which Mongol horde in which century pillaged which village, right?—then you must also believe that the guys examining your cheek saliva in Twin Falls, Idaho, have an encyclopedic knowledge of human migration patterns that are still considered mysterious by experts at the British Museum.
But what I do believe is that something did occur several millennia ago, 59 miles southwest of Baghdad, at Babel, site of the most ostentatious tower in the world before it was surpassed by Trump Tower. Whatever happened at Babel may not be exactly what the Jewish scribes describe in Genesis 11, but some series of cataclysms caused the one race to disperse into many races, or at least appear to be many races.
But even if you do not believe this—even if you believe, like John C. Calhoun and David Duke and Louis Farrakhan and Baruch Goldstein, in the purity of certain races—aren’t we finding out that Americans are so genetically messed up that everybody is multiracial?
We’re mongrels and we know it.
It's that business about America being a melting pot - remember that from your grade school history books? Probably not; I doubt they teach anything that politically incorrect anymore. But it does seem as if so much of what we face in this country today is based on fault lines created over the centuries by what have now become artificial distinctions. What's the answer? Here, the satirist Briggs becomes provocative - and also, I think, serious:
So here’s an idea. What if we declared, by law, that all Americans are the same race? We’ll call the race “American.” It’s a nationality, it’s an ethnic group, and it’s a race.
As part of this law, we would make it illegal to subclassify or hyphenate anyone. Therefore, no more Asian-Americans, no more African-Americans, not even any Native Americans, because that word would become redundant.
Wouldn’t this be the most egalitarian thing we’ve done since 1787?
Provocative indeed. Briggs goes on to savage the ways in which current (and future) census policies not just recognize, but exacerbate, these divides, which is like prodding the lion behind bars. And what happens when it turns out the lock on the door comes free?
Read the whole thing. As is the case with the best satirists, Briggs makes some very serious points, not only about the hypocrisy of the whole thing, but about the elegy we might just as well offer, as we head for the Independence Day weekend, for the quaint notion of an American nation and an American culture, populated not by hyphens, but by - Americans.
By the President of the United States of America A Proclamation
The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.
Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans. mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity, and union.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington, this 3d day of October, A. D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.
It was a cinch I'd be behind on all the urgent social issues of the day because I'd quit watching the news on network TV, not being a big fan of socialism, and I wasn't walking around with a pile of degrees in Communism from Berkeley and Harvard. I was just a simple patriot. And unlike your silly lefties, I wanted to see my country protected from the swarms of raving, subhuman assholes who want to kill us because they hate cheeseburgers, golf, football, soap and water, toilets that flush, the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, clothing stores, and women who don't smell like donkeys.
It would also be helpful, I'd mention, if we could delaminate all the dunce-cap university professors who want to 'diversify' this and 'globalize' that, provide air-conditioned condos and SUVs for illegal aliens, healthcare and satellite dishes for armed robbers and serial killers, and can't wait to blame the United States for all the bad shit that happens in the world. They could globalize this. That was my basic message."
Today's revisionist history taught via Common Core and other left-leaning education systems has intentionally removed our Founding Fathers and replaced them as heroes and heroines with those that give the Left ultimate glory. Among the references removed is the War of 1812, which lasted until 1815. Yet with the controversy rampant around the nation with disgraced athletes (names not referenced, but we know the guilty parties), they have intentionally ignored the importance of the War of 1812, and if they tried their tactics in Baltimore, they would be mocked owing to the importance of Fort McHenry, the Battle of Baltimore, and the correlation of an attorney from Frederick who worked with President Madison to release a friend imprisoned during the War of 1812. In order to free the friend, that attorney went to observe the battle at the fort on a truce ship. When seeing that the young country had scored a victory in the Battle of Baltimore on the next morning following the battles, that attorney wrote Defence of Fort McHenry to celebrate the resistance of the young country against Britain by seeing the country's flag staying.
Today, in that attorney's hometown, his name is used in its local Minor League Baseball team. But what has been stored in Maryland archives is the famed document itself, Defence of Fort McHenry, which lead to the poem we know well today, from that attorney.
Much to the dismay of the protesters either in 1968 at Mexico City (which has been repeated now) or today (by certain disgraced athletes), who ignore American history in favour of advancing the Left's new narratives, we must remember the War of 1812, the Battle of Baltimore, and Fort McHenry, all of which has given us this important poem that was originally published on September 20, 1814, in the Baltimore Patriot and Evening Advertiser. Have so many people forgotten it?
Note that the term "To Anacreon in Heaven" refers to the Anacreontic Society, a group of amateur musicians of the 18th century in London. It was the attorney's request to Capt. Eades to use that tune.
NOTE: Mr. Key's poem used abbreviations for some words, and for purposes of modernisation in this article, I have used the full words as it would be read in poetry. Our Spelling and Poetry books had the poem in our poetry section, and obviously it was simplified in order to make it readable for our second-grade class, so I have kept the simplifications as I was taught this poem. Summary of these slight word changes: The term "O'er" is used when in modern English we would say "over". In the seventh line of the second stanza, "'Tis" is used in modern English where we use "It is" or "It's". The "e" is also not in the original poem in the third line of the fourth stanza, "heav'n". And as was the case in our capitalisation rules in school, in this case, "H" in "Heaven" is capitalised.
DEFENCE OF FORT McHENRY
The annexed song was composed under the following circumstances – A gentleman had left Baltimore, in a flag of truce for the purpose of getting released from the British fleet, a friend (Dr. William Beanes) who had been captured at (Upper) Marlborough. He went as far as the mouth of the Patuxent, and was not permitted to return lest the intended attack on Baltimore should be disclosed. He was therefore brought up the Bay to the mouth of the Patapsco, where the flag vessel was kept under the guns of a frigate (HMS Surprise), and he was compelled to witness the bombardment of Fort McHenry, which the Admiral had boasted that he would carry in a few hours, and that the city (Baltimore) must fall. He watched the flag at the Fort through the whole day with an anxiety that can be better felt than described, until the night prevented him from seeing it. In the night he watched the Bomb Shells, and at early dawn his eye was again greeted by the proudly waving flag of his country.
Tune - ANACREON IN HEAVEN
O! say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
Over the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the Rocket’s red glare, the Bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our Flag was still there;
O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
Over the Land of the free, and the home of the brave?
On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, over the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected new shines in the stream,
It is the star spangled banner, – O! long may it wave
Over the land of the free and the home of the brave.
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country, should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps pollution.
No refuse could save the hireling and slave,
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
Over the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.
O! thus be it ever when freemen shall stand,
Between their loved home, and the war’s desolation,
Blest with victory and peace, may the Heaven rescued land,
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto – “In God is our Trust;”
And the star-spangled Banner in triumph shall wave,
Over the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.
This whole Colin Kaepernick thing is fascinating for many reasons, not the least of which being that there are so many sides to it all. Dreher points out a lot of them, and I'd actually been thinking along those lines myself. I mean, it's hard enough for me to have pride in a country that sanctions the murder of unborn children, encourages (in some cases) the murder of the elderly and infirm, demands that Christians kowtow to prevailing opinion on things like homosexual marriage, and the like. And that doesn't even begin to get into questions like sending young men and women into combat for reasons that don't clearly present themselves.
So make no mistake about it, I understand where someone could be coming from with this stand. And I do think Kaepernick has the right to do what he's doing; whether or not the First Amendment applies to private industry, there's still such a thing as freedom of political expression in this country - at least for now. Provided that one recognizes the possibility of blowback for their actions, there should be no question about having the right to take a political stand. For years blacks had what they thought of as their own national anthem, so this itself is nothing new.
I also don't go for the idea that his actions somehow "disrespect" the military. While the military may well be credited for winning American independence in the Revolution, the truth of the matter is that this army was led by a politician - George Washington - and was spurred to action by an entire Congress of politicians, the Founding Fathers. It is no lack of respect of America's armed forces to say that the National Anthem stands for more than just them. To say so might actually disrespect the rest of America. The Anthem belongs to all of us, after all. It does seem that in the last few years we've turned almost every major holiday in this country, with the exception of Christmas, Easter, and Valentine's Day, into some type of tribute to our soldiers. Let's honor them by all means, but leave us not turn everything into a cause célèbre.
Things get murkier when it comes down to the case of Kaepernick specifically. This may blow my cover when it comes to how much I pay attention to the NFL, but until this I didn't even know that Kaepernick was partly black. I just saw a scruffy guy with a beard and a lot of tats, and when you put him in a football uniform there isn't much else showing. That's why I was confused when this first came to light, because I wondered what was in it for him. Now I understand that a little better, but it hardly answers my questions. Most of these questions have been raised by others, but that very fact means they're good questions:
How much has Kaepernick himself done for the black community? Does he pledge money? Does he have a foundation or charity? Has he personally become involved with the families of any of the people he claims are laying dead in the streets?
Does Kaepernick really believe we should be taking him seriously when he's making as much money as he is? Being a celebrity doesn't mean you sacrifice your right to have an opinion, of course, but when you've been as much of a success in America as Colin Kaepernick has, any complaints about inequality and lack of freedom tend to ring hollow. Has he done anything to overcome this?
Speaking of which, how much discrimination has Kaepernick himself faced? To the extent he hasn't been singled out, could it be because he's lighter-skinned than many blacks? And from there, does this open up a larger discussion about attitudes toward light-skinned blacks in the greater black community? Do they have a hierarchy themselves?
I have a hard time believing Kaepernick's sincerity considering he's become a borderline quarterback who stands a good chance of being cut by the 49ers before the start of the season. Why is it that I'm cynical enough to believe he's either (a) trying to deflect attention from his failures on the playing field by trying to curry favor with blacks and liberals; (b) trying to prevent the 49ers from releasing them by setting them up to appear racists and reactionaries if they do; (c) hoping another team will see positive PR coming from picking him up; or (d) a combination of the above? Note that I'm not accusing him of any of this - I'm merely saying that a cynic might think so. Not that there's any room for cynicism in professional sports. Not at all.
Finally, how much does this reflect on Kaepernick's leadership? As the quarterback he is, as one wag put it, the CEO of the team (at least on the field). Does he show leadership by refusing to stand with his teammates as one on the sideline? Does he show leadership by calling attention to himself and his individual actions, rather than the team as a whole? Does he show leadership by creating such a distraction? You tell me.
Truth be told, I find the discussion about Kaepernick far more interesting than Kaepernick himself, which might be the cruelest cut of all if he is in fact just trolling for publicity. Dreher asks a couple of pertinent questions, and where I break severely with him is in the way I react to them:
We may see no contradiction between being a good Christian and a good American, but what happens when Americans as a whole look at dissenting Christians and call us un-American for the things we believe and do? Will we stand for the National Anthem then? If so, will we stand for the America we think is real, versus this politicized, debased America that the mainstream holds to? Or will it be more important for us not to stand, and to accept whatever consequences come with that?
[...]
What will it cost us if we lose the ability to stand together for the National Anthem? Is it worth what we stand to gain
Dreher typically reacts with horror to this thought, of America breaking up, but I don't; I've a hard time thinking of this as a unified country for some time. Dreher craves order, and freaks out when there's even a whiff of anarchy (and I don't mean the French Revolution kind); were it not for that, I wonder if he wouldn't be able to see that this ship sailed a long, long time ago. We're split, not just on ideological disagreements, but increasingly on fundamental questions of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. When I ask the questions I did in my opening paragraph, I'm not just wondering about a hypothetical situation - it already exists. Dreher, for as pessimistic as he is, only intellectualizes that we might have passed the point of no return, when the only question is whether the split is peaceful or not. For many of us, thought, the upside of such a split continues to seem far greater than the downside of remaining one nation, even though it may not be under God (or so we think, anyway) and doesn't offer either liberty or justice for all.
I think the time is coming, and in fact is already here. We just haven't felt the shockwaves yet.
It has been said that there is never a second chance to make a first impression. My first impression of Muhammad Ali was a negative one, and for the most part it has been the impression that has remained with me ever since.
The picture above is from "The Fight of the Century," March 8, 1971. It is the 15th and final round of the epic battle, and Joe Frazier, in the green trunks, is headed for his corner after having knocked Ali down, while referee Arthur Mercante prepares the count. Ali got up well before the 10-count, to no avail; the knockdown was the icing on the cake of a unanimous decision for Frazier, the winner and still champion. It was Frazier, the champ, who was the fighter with something to prove that night. Ali, as was his wont, had well and truly overshadowed him in the buildup to the bout, and because of the circumstances surrounding Ali's loss of the crown and Frazier's subsequent ascendancy to the throne, there were many who would not accept him as the real champion until he defeated Ali in the ring.
That fight seemed a true battle of good vs. evil, with a polarized America choosing sides between Frazier, the hard-working everyman who was either modest and unassuming or a tool of "The Man" taking on Ali, who - depending on who you listened to - was either an American-hating radical or a man who spoke truth on an unjust war. And believe me, everyone took sides. I may or may not have a TV Guide somewhere that has my mother's writing on it; she had kept score of the fight as we listed to round-by-round recaps on the radio (there was no home television), marking an "F" for Frazier, a "C" for Clay, whose conversion she never really bought. The Madison Square Garden crowd, which had started out chanting "Ali, Ali!" at the beginning, was shouting "Joe, Joe!" as the courageous Frazier won a brutal fight. Ali had lost, and there were many, many Americans who were glad. And then things began to change, and someone who was alive in the late '60s and remembered what was going on might find it just a bit ironic. For although Fitzgerald famously said there were no second acts in America, Muhammad Ali enjoyed a second act that not only defies precedent, it almost defies explanation.
Back when it all started, when this brash young man was called Cassius Clay, he had something going for him. He'd won a gold medal in the 1956 Olympics, and as a pro he offered a style that was unique in boxing, that of the dancer with the quick hands. It wasn't unprecedented, but he was better at it than most. His shtick was something you either loved or hated - he liked to talk, and was good at it; he was called a "loudmouth" (such a charming, innocent phrase back then) who enjoyed predicting when his opponents would fall, often in bad verse. Eventually, he worked his way up to a title shot against the champ, Sonny Liston, a thug and mob enforcer, one who had hardly endeared himself to the sporting public, but he seemed unbeatable nonetheless. Clay's victory was one of the great boxing upsets, and his youthful effervescence was seen by many as a breath of fresh air in a sport that for too long had been shrouded in corruption and cigar smoke.
Following that first fight, Clay announced that he would be changing his name and religion, adopting the faith of the radical Nation of Islam, founded by Malcolm X.* He refused military induction, reciting a list of grievances against America (many valid, to be sure) and pointing out the Viet Cong had never treated him as badly as had White America. (Probably because they didn't know who he was and hadn't had the chance to do something really bad to him, like killing him.) His popularity, already starting to wane as the public tired of his vaudeville act, fell further, even as the liberal elite, sensing a kindred soul in the fight against Vietnam, began the long process of rehabilitating his image. And of course his refusal to fight, whether principled or not, simply meant that another young American, probably black, had to go in his place. As a political act it might have had significance, although that significance is probably exaggerated today; for practical purposes, it changed nothing.
*Ali first announced that he would be known as "Cassius X," an idea ditched after he split with Malcolm X.
Anyone born in the last 40 years or so could be forgiven for seeing Ali as a lovable teddy bear, a combination of George Foreman and Shaquille O'Neal. That isn't how it was at the time, though. He was known for cruelly taunting his opponents, carrying Ernie Terrell (who had made the fatal mistake of referring to him as Clay) for several rounds after he could have knocked him out, inflicting unnecessary punishment while repeatedly yelling, "What's my name?" (Right) He also had this habit of coming up with names for his opponents that were not merely unflattering, they were often crude and insulting. For Joe Frazier, who had spoken out in favor of Ali's right to fight, his thanks was to be called a gorilla and an Uncle Tom. (Incidentally, Ali had promised that if he lost that first fight to Frazier, he would crawl across the ring on his knees and kiss Frazier's shoes; he didn't, of course. Like most bullies, he never backed up his words when things went against him.)
And always there was the incessant chattering, his motormouth travelling faster than the propeller on an Evenrud; writing at the American Spectator Larry Thornberry observed that "The doggerel verse he spouted, which some insist on calling poetry, was puerile and sub-junior high school grade." He used to say it wasn't bragging if he could back it up, and his sycophantic supporters agreed, but as Walter Brennan used to say in The Guns of Will Sonnett, "no brag, just fact." Maybe it was all an act with him - sportsmen are in the entertainment business, after all - and perhaps I might be able to overlook it, were it not for that meanness and crudity that was always just below the surface.
A big show was made when he lit the Olympic flame in Atlanta in 1996, already plagued by Parkinson's, and if his image hadn't already been rehabilitated, it surely was in that moment. Among other things, he was presented with a replacement gold medal for the one he had won in the 1956 Olympics and subsequently "lost." I don't recall anyone mentioning at the time that the reason he needed a replacement was because he claimed to have thrown the original in the Ohio River after being refused service at a whites-only restaurant. Some suggest that was simply a story he made up; his friend Bundini Brown later told a writer that "Honkies sure bought into that one!" and added that Ali had simply lost the medal. So even an act that was, if not noble, at least understandable, was a fraud. At the time of his death he was hailed as a hero of racial reform, yet the man once said that "No intelligent person wants to mix races.” Of Caucasians, he said "You're my enemy. My enemy is the white people!" After his conversion to Islam, he was quoted as saying, "I don’t need no white man’s Jesus."
If all of this makes it sound as if I wasn't a big fan of Muhammad Ali, I wasn't. I can recall only one time when I tolerated his winning a bout; it was the rematch with Leon Spinks, after the young man had upset Ali in a split decision to win the title. As time passed and it became plausible to think that Ali had lost the fight in order to guarantee a big gate for a rematch, I turned against Spinks for agreeing to a rematch so quickly (he was stripped of his title by one organization for ignoring a mandatory defense against the top contender), and so when Ali did win the title back for a third time, before an enormous crowd in the Superdome, I could at least tolerate it. He retired after that fight, but he was unable to stay away from the spotlight, and launched an extremely ill-advised comeback, which tarnished that reputation.
None of this is to say that Ali wasn't a gifted, even great fighter; the three fights against Frazier (only the first of which he lost) were memorable, particularly "The Thrilla in Manila." He beat George Foremen at a time when Foreman, like Sonny Liston before him, was thought unbeatable. He was a fighting champion, taking on all contenders and bringing title fights back to home television, if only for a time. Of course, even then one has to acknowledge the memorable time when Ali pressed the great Joe Louis (whom Ali had also referred to as an Uncle Tom). Joe, could you have beaten me, Ali kept asking, and although Louis was reluctant to be dragged into the conversation, he finally allowed as to how when he had been champion, sportswriters had looked at the quality of his opponents and accused him of going on what was called the "Bum of the Month" tour. "Are you calling me a bum?" Ali yelled, to which Louis replied, "I'm saying you would have been on the tour." That's my favorite story about Muhammad Ali, one that always makes me smile, and it's significant that in it, he's the butt of the joke.
Understand that I wished no ill on Ali. His fight against Parkinson's was courageous, and in his last years he truly became a figure to be pitied, even if pity was a quality he seldom showed others. It is a mistake to speculate on what happens to people when they die, what the state of their soul was, what the disposition of that soul was. As someone said, it's far above my paygrade. And so as any good Christian must, I pray that at the very end, when he was offered the choice, Ali chose to accept the loving God represented by Christ. We'll never know, unless we find out after our own particular judgment. But neither is it right to sanctify the deceased, to make them something less than human. We see too much of that in our touchy-feely society as it is, and each time we see someone given this treatment, it becomes less dignified. People change, after all, and it's likely that Ali changed many of his more racially-charged viewpoints (at least publicly). But we do him no favors by whitewashing the past, pretending that these things never happened. it's often a powerful moment when they do - whitewashing the past, pretending Ali wasn't like this, does him no favors. Oh well; that's the way we are nowadays.
Muhammad Ali, named after a famous abolitionist, was a man, with good points and bad. For whatever reason, I never fell under his spell, and since this is a personal blog with personal views, this is what you're going to get. If you don't like it, think of it at least as a corrective to the saccharine "journalism" you've heard too much about.
Here, in its entirety, is "The Fight of the Century," so heralded at the time that Frank Sinatra could only get in by taking photographs for Life magazine; Burt Lancaster earned his attendance by providing color commentary for Don Dunphy's blow-by-blow on the closed-circuit broadcast. It isn't shown nearly as often as Ali-Frazier III, so if you haven't seen it before, watch and appreciate what a battle it was - and what a fighter Joe Frazier was.
Yeah, don't remind me. I know I've been away for awhile. I'm reminded of it often enough by The Boss. (That's Mr. Hadley, in case you're wondering.) Just consider this a cameo appearance if you want, but I promise I'm going to try and come back here more often.
Anyway, I have a couple of pieces for your consideration. The first hearkens back to the "Scam of Higher Education" series I did a couple of years ago, and it concerns the new director of Islamic Studies at Duke University. (I asked Mitchell if he wanted to take this one, since he used to work at Duke; his reply was more or less unprintable, but by and large suggested that if I wanted to write about Duke, now or at any time in the future, I was more than welcome to do so.)
Anyway, this gentleman, Omid Safi, compares recent Israeli "crimes" to the Holocaust. I'll let youread all about it here, but what bothers me about this is not only the dishonesty that apparently accompanies his "scholarship," but the laziness of it all. I mean, how many times do we have to read about something being compared to the Nazis or the Holocaust? It's just plain lazy - lazier than the number of F-bombs that show up in a Martin Scorsese movie. I used to think that just dropped them in there to meet the word count minimum, but it's a stroke of pure creativity compared to how many times liberals compare _________ (fill in the blank) to the Holocaust and equate ___________ (various conservatives) to Nazis.
Just give me an effing break, will you?
The second item this week is more thought-provoking. It's by one of my favorite pundits, Judge Andrew Napolitano, and he asks a disturbing question: what if democracy is a fraud?
Yes, I know - there are a lot of conservatives who throw that question around the same way liberals toss around Nazis. But, setting aside the provocative nature of the headline, there's some real food for thought here:
What if democracy as it has come to exist in America today is dangerous to personal freedom? What if our so-called democracy erodes the people’s understanding of natural rights and the reasons for government and instead turns political campaigns into beauty contests? What if American democracy allows the government to do anything it wants, as long as more people bother to show up at the voting booth to support the government than show up to say no?
He goes on to elaborate with a number of similar points, before he comes to the conclusion, which is a crusher:
What if the late progressive Edmund S. Morgan was right when he said that government depends on make believe? What if our ancestors made believe that the king was divine? What if they made believe that he could do no wrong? What if they made believe that the voice of the king was the voice of God?
What if the government believes in make believe? What if it made believe that the people have a voice? What if it made believe that the representatives of the people are the people? What if it made believe that the governors are the servants of the people? What if it made believe that all men are created equal, or that they are not?
What if the government made believe that it is always right? What if it made believe that the majority can do no wrong? What if the tyranny of the majority is as destructive to human freedom as the tyranny of a madman? What if the government knows this?
What do we do about it?
I've always been one to defend the United States from those (primarily very traditional Catholics) who charge that the nation was conceived in sin, so to speak, that religious freedom itself was license for the kind of hedonistic libertarianism we seem to have today. While the Founders may not have been Catholics, they were great Americans nonetheless. As someone once said, the United States is the worst country in the world in which to live, except for all the rest of them.
Nowadays, that defense is harder and harder to maintain. What do we do about it, indeed? Thoughts?
As many of you know, I'm something of a recovering political scientist. In my younger years I was heavily involved in the political scene: chairing committees, volunteering for candidates, hosting a cable-TV show, attending conventions, even running for office. Fortunately, I've gotten all that out of my system.
However, having caught the political bug when I was eight years old, an interest in politics - even from the point of view of a detached observer - isn't something you shed overnight. Although I've made progress - I don't watch the debates on TV, I don't belong to any groups, and some years I don't even vote - I still keep an eye on what's going on. When I have time, that is.
It's in that spirit that I must say this year has been, from a spectator's standpoint, one of the most entertaining campaigns in years. I mean, who doesn't like to see a political party have a nervous breakdown, even if it's the party you once belonged to? And who doesn't get a charge out of seeing the other party on the verge of nominating a candidate none of them really like, because the only alternative is to vote for an aging socialist? Believe me, this isn't the kind of entertainment you can get simply by watching old TV shows.
It's also been instructive, insofar as it demonstrates just how out-of-touch with the rest of us are the elites governing this country, If you've paid a scintilla of attention to what's been going on, this won't come as news to you. It does, though, apparently come as quite a shock to the elites. Things that I've been saying, that others have been saying - for years! - come as something of a revelation to these party hacks, and not in a good way. It's the kind of revelation they turn from, much like some of the Biblical figures who cover their ears when a prophet gives them some bad news, and usually just before they're struck dead or turned into a pillar of salt. That the same thing is likely to happen to today's elites seems to be promising*, but it does beg the question: what happens next?
*Promising, in the same way that a ship full of lawyers sitting at the bottom of the ocean is considered a good start.
One of the nice things about being out of the political prognostication business is that I don't have to have an opinion on everything. If people, other than good friends, were to look to me in hopes that I could make sense of this year's campaign, I think I'd probably run screaming from the room. Since I don't have to have an opinion, however, I can simply relax in my recliner and chortle at the continuing bloodshed. That doesn't mean I don't have some opinions on the matter, though.
First of all, Marco Rubio needs to grow up. His namecalling of Donald Trump is beneath a man whom many already think is too young and too inexperienced to be President. When Jack Kennedy ran for president in 1960, he did everything in his power to convince voters that he was up to the task, that he wouldn't be learning on the job, that his youth did not signal inexperience, but rather a new and vital energy. Rubio seems content to demonstrate the kind of etiquette you see on the playground, sticking one's tongue out and saying "nyaaaah."
This isn't to suggest that Donald Trump is any better - but he is, at least in one way. When it comes to insults and namecalling, he's far better at it than Rubio, or anyone else out there. It comes off as confidence, nay arrogance, and often cringeworthy, but he doesn't sound like a petulant kid. Furthermore, he's played an important role in demonstrating to the public that the emperor, in the form of the Republican establishment, has no clothes. We may wish there was a different messenger delivering the message, but you can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Someone had to expose these phonies for what they were, and Trump was apparently the only one willing to do so. Those who wish it were being done by someone else have to wonder if perhaps it's because nobody else felt that way. Or had the guts.
I'll probably be voting for Ted Cruz in the Texas primary today, because he's closest to my way of thinking, but I can't help wishing he was running a better campaign. There's no way Rubio should be beating him in some of these contests. All the same, I'm grateful for how he's made enemies within the Republican establishment. We'll just have to see what happens, but I think he has to win some Southern state outside of Texas tomorrow, or it will become much harder to take him seriously as someone who can beat Trump.
Speaking of the Republican establishment - have they been taken to the woodshed, or what? For years, I've said there was no material difference between the two parties. For example, they both want to spend your money, they only differ on where and why. But neither of them care about you. And their elitist attitude, topped off by the once invaluable but now excretory National Review, has been a shock. It's true that the politicians are out of touch, way out, but so are the pundits. If future candidates have gotten the wake-up notice that these fools aren't to be trusted, consulted with, believed, or even tolerated on the same continent, then that's been a good thing.
Which leads me to the collapse of Fox News. Yes, Fox has truly proven they aren't any better, or smarter, than CNN, MSNBC and the rest. They distort the news as much as any of them, they run with their own agenda and bend the news to make it fit, they advocate rather than report, they depend on personalities rather than serious journalists, and you can't believe a word they broadcast. For years I used to defend Fox News from the charges made by people who looked at the quality (or lack thereof) of programs on Fox broadcasting. I would point out that just because the broadcasting arm filled their time with slutty sexual innuendo and disgusting urban rap, you couldn't append that to all of Fox. The News Corporation was a completely separate entity, only sharing the Fox name. No more - with the exceptions of Lou Dobbs and Stuart Varney (and occasionally Neil Cavuto), Fox has proven that they don't know the meaning of the world quality - or of a lot of other words, either.
With all of that said, does it matter who wins in November? Well, as someone said, things could hardly get worse with Trump in office. He has said some very good things, and considering the shape of America right now, perhaps blowing the whole thing up and starting over is a good thing. It's certainly what needs to be done with our political parties, and soon - they've both shown themselves not only useless but duplicitous, utterly contemptuous of the common American, and thoroughly in tow with Big Business, for whom they will do anythng to keep them happy. Speaking as a conservative (whatever that means, nowadays), the spinelessness with which the Republicans in Congress exercise their authority reminds me of a story Churchill once told.
Referring to then-Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, Churchill proceeded to tell the story of how, as a child, his parents had refused to allow him to see a circus sideshow act called "The Spineless Wonder." He then added that, until now, he had supposed he would have to live his entire life without seeing a spineless wonder - but then he saw Ramsay MacDonald.
Nor do the Democrats offer anything in response. Bernie Sanders seems to think you can give away everything to everyone, and his supporters are too dumb to know any better. They are, however, right in one important way - they sense something rotten in their party, they get the feeling their own elites are contemptuous of them, trying to push Hillary down their throats whether they like her or not. And is there a politician alive, including Trump, as unlikable as Hillary? Has any candidate since Herbert Hoover ran for reelection during the depression invoked as little enthusiasm among her supporters as she has? More important, neither of them respect the public and their concerns any more than the Republicans do.
Immigration, political correctness, the economy - none of this really matters to them, not as long as they can live in a world outside of the one they've created. Peggy Noonan, with whom I've had many a quarrel over the years, hits it on the head with this diagnoses, and follows it up with a column that accurately indicates why the elites are so far out of touch, one which I'm surprised The Wall Street Journal would publish considering their responsibility in creating that world. Peggy had something to do with it as well, but when it comes to repentance, better late than never.
How does it all end? I don't know, other than I sense it won't be good. This country is headed for a fatal division between multiple factions, one which defies peace talks because none of the parties even speak the same language, hold the same values or believe in the same things. It is a dialogue that cannot happen, because there is no common ground left. That's bad enough when you've only got two sides, as was the case with the Civil War. When you've got four or five, as is the case today, the only question worth debating is whether or not the splits will be violent. I pray I'm not around to see it happen (although, again, it would be entertaining as a spectator - one who didn't have to live in it), but unless God decides it's time to call a halt to the whole thing, the disintegration of the American Experiment seems to be a fait accompli. One could argue that this was destined to happen from the beginning, and that seems increasingly to be the case. And whether or not that's the case, when you get to the point, as I have, that you don't even feel like celebrating the Fourth of July because there's nothing worth celebrating - well, in that case perception becomes reality.
Noonan ends her first column with words that would once have been overly dramatic, but now seem prophetic: "In Washington there used to be a widespread cliché: 'God protects drunks, children and the United States of America.' I’m in Washington a lot, and I’ve noticed no one says that anymore. They stopped 10 or 15 years ago. I wonder what that means."
The Fourth of July used to be a special day for me. For a couple of years, I was the chair of the 4th of July parade in Richfield, Minnesota, and in the years before and after that it was always a treat to go to a parade. We lived for the fireworks show at night; in addition to the shows on the Fourth, Bloomington had a show on the evening of the 3rd; if the weather was nice we drove to the top level of a nearby parking ramp, where we'd listen to the radio and eat popcorn while waiting for it to get dark enough for the show to begin. The Fourth itself meant movies, almost in the same way that Christmas does - The Music Man, with Robert Preston, and my favorite musical of all time, 1776. Yes, those were good times.
It's been a few years now since I've paid the Fourth any attention at all, and this year will be no exception. I can't celebrate it anymore, because in my opinion there's nothing to celebrate. Over the course of these last years, we've seen America go straight to Hell, and last week's obscene Supreme Court decision just emphasizes the fact. It's not only the decision itself, disordered as it is; it's this whole idea that the American Experiment has finally come to an end. States' rights are going, if not gone; a relentless political correctness, from which dissent is not tolerated, governs our public discourse, as companies and special interest groups increasingly punish people simply for expressing their own thoughts; religious freedoms are not only done away with but scoffed at; police forces are increasingly militarized; in the name of national security, the Federal government becomes more and more intrusive in our lives; our very history is either forgotten or airbrushed. Increasingly the world revolves around international financiers, investors more concerned with the bottom line than the High Altar. To them it is money that makes the world go around, not the laws of gravity. They've succeeded in reducing man to a statistic in a budget, a mere number that represents not a human soul but a profit/loss statement. To them things such as gay rights are ideas to be pandered to; they see them not as troubled individuals but consumers with money to spend, and that's the only kind of morality that matters to them. The poet Allen Ginsburg, in his epic Howl, called it Moloch, as is so evocatively illustrated here:
And who is there to turn to? Not the humans running the Church; as rights are stripped away and depravities are legalized, we get lectures on climate change. Not political parties: the leftist Democrats, held captive by fanatical extremists, are the driving force behind many of these changes, while the timid Republicans, more interested in retaining power than doing anything with it, stand idly by. Besides, the parties are just flip sides of the same coin anyway; they both want our money, the only difference being what they plan to do with it.
Man, that is depressing, isn't it?
We're all to blame for it, in a way, thanks to Original Sin. We've allowed marriage to be corrupted through our own actions, just as we've played our own roles elsewhere. There's more to it than that, of course; the Devil is alive and well in this world, in these United States, and he's finding many a willing disciple. This doesn't mean we're helpless, though. The pessimistic (but realistic) Rod Dreher has advocated what he calls the "Benedict Option," which involves groups of orthodox believers gathering into what might be called community support groups, where they exist to strengthen each other's faith, families and future. It's not a retreat from the world, as some would have it, but a circling of the wagons. And it's necessary because, as Dreher puts it, things are not going to get better. Others advocate a more activist approach, attaching the issue head-on and refusing to be pushed around. Still others think things can be turned around by electing the right individuals, that America at its heart is still a conservative nation. The number who believe in that last category grows smaller and smaller, and if you're inclined to believe it I've got a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to discuss with you.
In short, America seems to have devolved into a Godless, licentious nation, consumed with hedonism, basing everything on feelings rather than any kind of logical thought. Not the sex you want to be? Easy - just change. Feel like marrying two or three other people? Well, why not? Think killer whales are human? They probably are. If you even bother to believe in God, you can create Him in whatever Image you want, knowing that He just wants you to be "happy," whatever that means nowadays. What's frightening is not the question of where it all ends; it's that, deep in our hearts, we already know what the answer is. It's not just America, of course, but the whole world. The whole world isn't celebrating July 4th, however, and I'm not sure how we can, either.
In this atmosphere, watching a movie such as 1776 where we witness the birth of the republic, seeing what all these men were willing to risk their lives for, and then to look at what that cause has become, is beyond depressing. To see an immoral lifestyle legalized (in the process overturning state laws passed by citizens) by a group of nine unelected officials, the same group (if not the same individuals) responsible for legalizing the murder of unborn human beings, all based on supposed rights that can't be found in the Constitution - well, if I was one who cried, I'd have shed more than one tear over these last few years.
I mentioned above that what's really scary about this is that in our hearts we know where it all leads. A priest, talking about the various natural disasters that have befallen California recently, remarked that "When you keep giving God the finger, pretty soon he's going to grant your wish and leave you alone." It's tempting on the one hand to look at anything bad that happens and see in it the finger of God, just as it's tempting to look at those same events and decry the idea that God would punish people indiscriminately, the innocent as well as the guilty. But as we're reminded in Matthew 5:45, it rains on the just and the unjust. The fact that there may have been innocent people living in Sodom and Gomorrah did not save the cities from being destroyed. In fact, the Bible is replete with natural disasters as a sign of God's displeasure.
Speaking of which, it's worth noting that while some conservatives today suggest God is withdrawing His protection of America as a once-special country, there are others who would point out that America was founded on dubious propositions in the first place. Such are the probing questions asked in Christopher Ferrara's provocative book Liberty, the God That Failed, which suggests that from the very beginning, liberty was a chimera, "the false god of a new political order." Much the same message can be found in Hans-Herman Hoppe's Democracy: The God That Failed, So perhaps we've been thumbing our noses at God this whole time, and that the Hell we're going through was predestined to happen at some time or another; it's just our lot that it's happening in our lifetimes.
And yet - it's all been part of God's plan that we are alive here, now. There's obviously something we're meant to do, some role we're intended to play. It's not likely we'll be able to determine that on our own, which means we have to keep our eyes and ears open and our prayers constant. We must live lives that are good and pious, to the best of our abilities. We must try as best we can to influence those close to us: friends, family, neighbors, workmates.
Most of all, I think, we must realize that we cannot be both Christians and Americans. We can no longer live this hybrid, hyphenated life. We give unto Caesar what is Caesar's, following the words and examples of Jesus, but we can no longer excuse what America does simply because it is America. We pray for our country because patriotism is, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, a virtue, but we cannot go down with the ship - instead, we must head for the lifeboat created by Our Savior for our protection.
So in this weekend of rote patriotism, when for some of us there seems nothing left worth celebrating, try to remember that the things we truly celebrate are those things that are scorned by the rest of the world. In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ reminded us thusly: "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."
That reward is greater than any nation, any flag, any political or judicial victory. It is the hope which we carry to ward off despair, the true joy that protects the soul from depression, the light that shines in the darkness. If indeed America is beyond salvation, then damned she will be; our victory will be greater than that.
These discussions often seem extreme, and yet how many things that once seemed equally extreme are taken for granted today? No, the time to discuss them is now, before they reach critical mass, but to look at them with a level head, rather than a Chicken Little sky-is-falling mentality. Don't panic - but on the other hand, don't poo-poo it either.
Anyway, Dreher links back to a past article asking whether or not Catholicism and liberal democracy are fundamentally irreconcilable. It's a discomforting question, one that makes you uneasy regardless of how you feel about it. It's well worth your time reading all the articles linked to here, and thinking about your response to it. Despite the results of the elections a couple of weeks ago, which might broadly be considered a victory for conservatism - which, though not to be equated with religious freedom, nonetheless represents an ideology perhaps less hostile to religion - I remain vaguely pessimistic about the whole thing. We already know that the America in which I grew up is gone forever, let alone the America that our forefathers remember. The questions remain - how far gone? And what, in fact, does America stand for anymore? Can you stand for it as well, or do you feel like a stranger in your own strange land?
Make no mistake that I'm still thankful for living in this country, which may well have the worst system in which to live except for all the rest, but what will the future bring for us? And are we prepared to make a stand for our beliefs? Who, indeed, knows?
