The Sad Reality of the Star Spangled Banner in 2009

I sat and watched the NASCAR race at Dover’s Monster Mile yesterday. Like every race, it started with a prayer followed by the National Anthem a fly over by the military. If you have never been a part of NASCAR’s opening ceremony, it is nothing short of amazing. I recommend going to a race while you still can.

As I listen to the National Anthem in 2009, I am in some disagreement with the lyrics as I have grown older and wiser. Back in the day, the vision created in the Star Spangled Banner was a correct vision, but in 2009, I am not sure those words are accurate anymore.

I wonder how many Americans know the lyrics anymore? Do they even teach them in the public schools or is it not politically correct to teach the lyrics in fear you might hurt an illegal child’s feelings? Do Americans know there are lyrics beyond what you hear at the beginning of nearly every major sporting event in the United States? In case you don’t know the lyrics to the Star Spangled Banner, here they are:

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 through 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 their foul footsteps’ pollution.

No refuge 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

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!

All four verses end the same: O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave! Although I want to believe in these words as some of the most important words in the anthem, I am having my doubts as to whether or not they are true in 2009.

As I look at the United States in 2009, the word freedom seems like a rhetorical tool to trick us in believing it’s going to be all right, now go celebrate the Fourth of July. Everything isn’t alright. There is much sickness revolving the word freedom in the United States in 2009, and perhaps we should analyze the illness before we promote a fallacy as our country moves towards uncharted territory which is anything but freedom.

Let’s look at the First Amendment, the symbol of freedom of speech and freedom to choose a religion without any federal control. Look at the numerous bills in Congress like  the cyber-bully act and the hate laws which restrict free speech, to the debate on the Fairness Doctrine in hopes of regulating talk radio, to a recent blog on the White House Web site that actually uses the terms restriction of speech. Are these symbols of a free country? I don’t believe so. Who would have believed that something you say in America that hurts someone’s feelings may actually be considered a punishable crime? That day is here. I have no doubt I say something every day that hurts someone’s feelings. I am quite blunt when I write this blog.

What about taxes which further remove the freedoms our forefathers granted us. There was no federal income tax when Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the forefathers set up our system of government. Now citizens live in a soft tyranny based on the federal income tax system. Try not paying your taxes based on the concepts of freedom and  you quickly see you are in the sites of the IRS’s gun. Try avoiding your personal property taxes. You soon find out the property you own that is worth a couple hundred thousand dollars will be quickly confiscated from you if you don’t pay a couple thousand dollars in taxes on it. There is no freedom to own personal property in this country when it can be confiscated for not paying an unjust tax.

Since we are talking about private property, let’s talk about eminent domain. If you work hard for your property and through urban sprawl you farm becomes more value to the government as commercial property for a shopping mall that will create more revenue for the government, they have the right through eminent domain laws to take over your property and justify it over their need for tax revenue. Is this freedom?

I look at the attacks on the Second Amendment, attacks designed to eventually remove the right to bear arms. These arguments are made to further remove our freedoms. An unarmed people face tyranny proven in the  past by regimes like Josef Stalin’s. It’s all about compliance.

We have a government that wants to restrict our movements, track our movements with GPS devices, and photograph our movements with cameras placed everywhere. They want to tax our movements in the name of environmentalism and tell us if we are driving too much. The automobile is American evil in 2009. Is this freedom?

I agree that any society needs a set of laws, but when laws become too restrictive freedom dies. There are too many laws and bills coming down the pike that restrict freedom. It’s hard to stand and take the words to the National Anthem seriously in 2009 knowing freedom is dying. I stand for an America of the past—an America my grandfathers fought for. Every time I hear the anthem these days, I find myself questioning the closing lyrics.

I don’t want to question them. I want to hear them and know they are among the truest of words, but anymore, I feel they are just false rhetoric. It’s really a sad day in America.

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Originally posted at Bungalow Bill’s Conservative Wisdom