Singing Patriotic Songs

My chorus is doing some outreach concerts over the next few weeks. One of them is for the South High School alumni. This is an older group with a lot of veterans from WWII and Korea, and they requested some patriotic music. Our director pulled out the old war horses: God Bless America, Battle Hymn of the Republic, Shenandoah, America, the National Anthem, and God of Our Fathers. These are the songs that stirred America’s soul.

But this time, as we practiced them tonight, it didn’t seem the same. Ronald Reagan’s Morning in America has turned into a nightmare. Here is a country where half of working Americans pay no income tax. Here is a country that saw 85,000 people go on Social Security Disability last month, while only creating 80,000 new jobs. Here is a country on the brink of a second recession after never really recovering from the last one. Here is a country where people are all but strip searched before boarding an airplane. Here is a country where government is now trying to tell you what you can eat. Here is a country where drones are flying overhead watching us. Here is a country where those that are working hard and pulling the freight are told they are no damn good. Here is a country where the number of people on food stamps has almost doubled in the past three years. This is a nation where Homeland Security, the agency set up to protect the nation, now considers those who cherish freedom as terrorists.

So…when I go to sing those patriotic old chestnuts, the lump in my throat is one of disdain as I watch this country willingly turn over its liberty to Big Brother in exchange for a few shekels of security. This is not my America.

Are we a nation of sheep, dazzled by celebrity while scorning substance? Are we a nation of brain dead automatons who have numbed our brains with electronic gadgets? Are we a nation that has lost our sense of right and wrong and morality as we replace God with government, replace common sense with political correctness, replace responsibility and individual initiative with government dependence?

Even scarier is the use of thuggery and coercion to achieve progressive view of “social justice.” The IRS is hiring tens of thousands of new agents to enforce the health care law. Really?

As we willing enslave ourselves to an omnipotent federal government, we are losing are humanity. We are losing our sense of self. We may be singing about freedom, but it has ceased computing in our psyche as the Newspeak has long stopped making sense. It is no wonder that discontent and a malaise are devouring our nation.

Now is the time, America, to pick yourself up by your bootstraps and stand and say that we aren’t going to take it anymore. We are suspicious of big government. We do cherish our freedom. Maybe the elected officials don’t inspire, but we can inspire ourselves to build a nation where opportunity is equal to all, and the government serves the people rather than the people serving the government. It can be done.

And then we can once again sing Battle Hymn of the Republic and hold our heads high, secure in the rebirth of American exceptionalism and our freedoms.