Patriotism: Can you believe that these prophetic words were spoken almost 2 decades ago?

Question

Younger parents aren't sure that an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach modern children. And as for those who create the popular culture, well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style. Our spirit is back, but we haven't reinstitutionalized it. We've got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom — freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It's fragile; it needs protection.

So, we've got to teach history based not on what's in fashion but what's important: Why the Pilgrims came here, who Jimmy Doolittle was, and what those 30 seconds over Tokyo meant. You know, four years ago on the 40th anniversary of D-Day, I read a letter from a young woman writing of her late father, who'd fought on Omaha Beach. Her name was Lisa Zanatta Henn, and she said, "We will always remember, we will never forget what the boys of Normandy did." Well, let's help her keep her word.

If we forget what we did, we won't know who we are. I'm warning of an eradication of the American memory that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the American spirit.

Answer 1

Here's a quote that's over 200 years old:
"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. "
So said Dr Samuel Johnson.

Consider the import of those words and be very careful when people try to make you appear to be in error for not jumping on the jingoist bandwagon that is rampaging through America, trampling on thought and intelligence on its way.

Answer 2

Is there any country on earth that is totally without sin? Yet only America is to be ridiculed for past misdeeds. You cannot look at events that occurred in past generations through the lens of modern sensibilities. America is a work in progress. When it was founded, even with all of it's warts, it was the best government ever conceived and the best hope for mankind.

Study of the Founders will show that they were fully aware of that issues such as slavery, was contrary to what they were trying to achieve. The great compromise left little choice. Permit slavery in some states or have no union at all.

These brilliant men may have been forced to make a deal with the devil but they made sure they left us with a Constitution that permitted us to later, abolish that very abomination.

Now, over two hundred thirty years later, we are much closer to the ideal the Founding Fathers foresaw and we are still the greatest country on earth and the best hope of mankind.

Those who are satisfied to simply focus on the negative and ignore all the great and wonderful gifts America has brought to the world are pretty sad people. Such people would probably look at beautiful Thoroughbred horse, lift the tail and complain about the smell. They choose to ignore all the grace and beauty that that horse actually is.

Do not fixate on such people. They live in a state of negativity that can only bring them sadness and despair. If you are unable to find happiness in this country, I doubt you could find it anywhere.

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Answer 3

There WERE no indigenous people of the US. The people that were on this continent before the Europeans took it over were savages. They owned slaves, too. Black skinned ones. Fellow savages from other tribes. They cut the hearts out of living people and threw them into volcanoes. They have no more right to this land than we do. Europeans wanted it and they took it. That's been going on all over the world for thousands of years, but in the liberal mind for some reason when the Europeans did it HERE, it was a heinous act.

And someday some people will take this land from us, and that won't be a heinous act, either. This land didn't belong to the indians, it doesn't belong to us, and it won't belong to whoever takes it from us. The land belongs to those who can hold it. Period.

The Founding Fathers, and the citizens who were there in the beginning of this great nation must vomit in their graves at the selective revisionist history going on in the bleeding hearted liberal public schools and universities.

As far as I'm concerned, I can't wait till this country is conquered. That will be the day that the cancer that is bleeding hearted liberalism will die, only to sprout up someplace else...only to die there, too, eventually.

Answer 4

I hope that we never forget the brave,personal sacrifice of so many young men from the U.S. on D-day at Normandy and in the weeks following. I will never forget either my father's self-sacrifice in the Pacific war-theatre. Nor will I ever forget or forgive(because no apology has ever been made) all the U.S. CIVILIAN members of my family and close friends who were killed,imprisoned and lost everything because U.S. policy decided to sacrifice them duplicitously on the altar of U.S. intervention in WW II.

It might also be instructive to us not to forget that we deliberately and mercilessly bombed civilian targets in Tokyo,Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well as Dresden and Cologne in Europe. We used some of the most horrendous and mortiferous weapons known then to mankind,for the express purpose of ,as the specific memorandum to that effect said, causing TERROR,and not to destroy any military target. Little children in Dresden had their skin and limbs literally sucked off by the force of the firestorm that raged after the bombings. I will never forget that we as a nation were capable of wreaking this TERROR. (I know that some valiant British pilots,notably Charles Wiggin,a much decorated hero of the Battle of Britain,refused to fly these missions. I hope that some of our pilots were as brave and ,if I knew who they were,I would never forget them either!.)

As for the Pilgrims,I am directly descended from them in an unbroken line,and I never forget that they were observers of one of the most obnoxiously intolerant forms of Calvinism known in Europe. I have never forgotten why they came to the north-american continent!

Followers of Cromwellian style militant protestantism,their smug, puritanical,narrow-minded beliefs made them intolerable to their more transigent and humanist neighbours in England. When they left England for Holland,even the Dutch Calvinists couldn't stomache them so that, eventually, it was hoped that they would make less of a nuisance of themselves in that harsh northeastern american hinterland.

Please,the best lesson we can teach our children is to keep an open mind and not to confuse fairy-tales and myth with History. I agree with you that what we are supposed ¨to be about¨is freedom and I cherish all the freedoms you mention but I would add ... freedom to seek knowledge,freedom from those who would impose sanctimonious self-aggrandising cant in the place of honest self-introspection.

Answer 5

I agree with you. I understand the importance of modern scholars to point out the sometimes hypocritical lessons in our history such as slavery, the good things we have done should not be forgotten. Too much scholarly energy is spent on degrading our greatness, academia should work on balance.

Answer 6

It is very important to remember the sacrifices made for this nation, and to never forget this.

Answer 7

Don't forget what you did:

That includes preserving the institution of slavery and the genocide of the indigenous people of the US.