To the point where the words which framed, (words which will follow these remarks), the philosophy which dictated and the dreams that made possible the birth of this nation, are once again a source of pride and given the respect and honor by our leaders that our history and heritage demands. I wish for a nation to embrace anew all the good this nation has stood for and represented throughout the world repudiating those individuals and forces we have permitted to lead us down into the dark valley of disgrace and despair.
I wish for the return of our land to the rule of law, law evenly and equally applied to all men and women alike without exception or exemption for the well born, those of wealth, position and power.
I want to see a basic common sense standard of right and wrong, tolerance and morality restored in the halls of governance, our houses of worship and in our daily lives.
I want an America recommitted to the maintenance of this republic, revitalized with hope, a people who will no longer tolerate, in passive surrender, the divides of hatred, corruption, the divisiveness of scapegoating and finger pointing and religious bigotry upon which so many current political figures feast and thrive.
We must return to a common sense perspective that embraces our commonality rather than accentuating our differences. That embrace, born of true toleration and acceptance of individual differences, philosophies, cultural heritages, sexual orientation and political proclivities is now and has always been the central strand in the fabric of the American experience.
We must as a people reject manipulation by and manipulation of the media. Life is indeed not a succession of sounds bites but an ever evolving traceable experience. It is only when snippets of the thread are isolated and framed in exaggeration that they loose context and are twisted into seconds of discord.
We cannot live in fear, and we cannot allow the demagogues preaching a gospel of fear to rule our lives, for if that be true; they have won and our nation is lost!
We cannot accept that anyone else who has a personal credo different from our own has the right to impose the strictures of their beliefs upon another. That is not tolerance; that is either theocracy or despotism, the outcome determined by the initial basic assumption.
As surely as a drunken man stumbling in the darkness happens upon an unseen pool of quick sand will be lost, so this nation is being pulled down in a murky stew of conflicted popularized philosophies propagated to explain and define right and wrong. They have little but give excuse for man’s abuses.
All people are entitled to their own religious/philosophical beliefs, and that is what they are, one’s own private life guiding principles. The holding by an individual of a set of principles that emanates from the words: “I believe” does not give the holder the right to the imposition of that belief system or any principle/tenant thereof upon another, and where one might be given to argue that their actions and advocacies are dictated by a higher law, the law of a God dictating that their notions of right and wrong may and should be imposed upon all others, completely negates any role of a secular civil power in the regulation of a nation state. That is anarchy opening the door to dictatorship!
Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others. - Edward Abbey
We must step back from the path this nation is traveling and privatize religion in an absolute separation of church and state as was intended. We cannot bind up the wounds of this nation and heal so long as the debate over such things as Abortion and stem cell research spill over out of houses of worship to become political clubs in the electoral process. When that happens we are no longer a tolerant people content in our beliefs and protected in the privacy of our own individual good consciences.
We have much to do in restoring our reputation worth and dignity in the eyes of the world. I suggest we begin that restoration at home in 2007, and be quick to assume another adventure of violence on foreign soil until we have had to gather ourselves together in a functional community as a nation and have adopted the notion that henceforth we are determined to ascertain both the long range and short range impact and outcomes of our actions, and we cannot not do that without the restoration of mutual trust, toleration and respect across this once great land.
Now let us consider the words by which this nation was framed and a little music to remind us of our own personal pride. It is still there down inside somewhere beneath all the confusion, fear and cynicism that has been heaped upon us as a people as of late.
The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen ColoniesIn CONGRESS, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.
From George Washington_
It is at all times difficult to draw with precision the line between those rights which must be surrendered, and those which may be preserved; and, on the present occasion, the difficulty was increased by a difference among the several States as to their situation, extent, habits, and particular interests…thus, the Constitution which we now present is the result of a spirit of amity, and of that mutual deference and concession, which the peculiarity of our political situation rendered indispensable.
Letter from George Washington to the Confederation Congress, accompanying the Constitution, September 17, 1787,
CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES,
AS ORIGINALLY ADOPTED.*
We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America.
The Oath Of Presidential Office_
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
The U.S. National Anthem
"The Star Spangled Banner", was ordered played at military and naval occasions by President Woodrow Wilson in 1916, but was not designated the national anthem by an Act of Congress until 1931.
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The Star Spangled Banner" (MP3 - 908 KB)
The words were written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key, who had been inspired by the sight of the American flag still flying over Fort McHenry after a night of heavy British bombardment. The text was immediately set to a popular melody of the time, "To Anacreon in Heaven."
The National Anthem consists of four verses. On almost every occasion only the first verse is sung.
Oh, 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 thru the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,Gave proof thru the night that our flag was still there. Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er 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, o'er 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 now shines in the stream:' Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave O'er 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 of of their foul footsteps' pollution.No refuge could save the hireling and slave'From the terror of flight and the gloom of the grave:And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand between their loved home and the war's desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n 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 O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
America the Beautiful (Presentation # 1)
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America The Beautiful (Renditions #s 2&3)
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