August 21, 2013
Time to say good-bye to the Star-Spangled Banner?
By Richard Winchester
Has the time come to replace Francis Scott Key's
"Star-Spangled Banner" as America's national anthem? Certainly the
phrase "land of the free" no longer applies to this country. I'm
beginning to wonder if "home of the brave" is also anachronistic.
Several recent episodes - Paula Deen's travails, George
Zimmerman's trial, revelations that the IRS targeted conservative
organizations, news (including reports on 8/16/13) that the National Security Agency
has spied on citizens' e-mails and telephone calls, and now the Missouri rodeo
clown's misfortune - highlight just how crimped freedom in the U.S. has become.
Don't forget the steady stream of so-called "hate crimes" legislation
that has been passed in the last decade or two, and the "speech codes"
enacted by dozens of colleges and universities.
(These aren't the only indications that freedom in
America means less and less. I won't even raise the issues of Eric Holder's
Department of Justice's (DOJ) treatment of journalists or the Obamians' mania
for regulation.)
Start with
Paula Deen's case. Earlier this year we learned that, decades ago, and after
being robbed at gun-point, the cooking
diva uttered - in private - the N-word. Despite abjectly apologizing, Deen lost
her gig on the Food Network and several other lucrative business arrangements.
A publisher canceled her new book contract. Her life and career in tatters,
Deen's been cast aside by America's "powers-that-be."
Zimmerman's
situation is too well-known to require much comment. We need to recall that,
shortly after Trayvon Martin died, a little-known office within the Department
of Justice colluded with the Florida and national civil rights industries, the
so-called "Justice Brothers" - Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson - and
compliant Florida officials in an effort to railroad Zimmerman into jail. After
a jury acquitted Zimmerman, Holder joined with the "Justice Brothers"
and the civil rights industry threatening to bring a civil suit against him. (Zimmerman
and his family are in hiding, fearing for their lives.)
It isn't
necessary to remind readers of the pall cast on freedom when government
agencies like DOJ, the IRS, and NSA behave as Hitler or Stalin wanted. Now, our
Dear Leader tells us these are among "the phony scandals" being trumped up by the GOP.
The
facts of the Missouri rodeo clown controversy are these. On Saturday,
August10th, at the Missouri State Fair in Sedalia, during the bull-riding
event, a rodeo clown, allegedly named Tuffy Gessling, wore an Obama mask and a
broomstick affixed to his posterior. (Rodeo clowns are individuals almost
always attired in clown costumes, who try to protect thrown riders from bulls
trying to gore and/or trample them. If it sounds dangerous, it is!) After the
Obama-masked clown entered the arena, another clown with a mike yelled
"This bull's going to get'cha, Obama!" Additional banter followed.
The crowd
majority's assessment wasn't officially recorded. One individual, however, told
the mainstream media that the spectacle was like a KKK rally.
Official
reaction was swift. The masked clown was banned from Missouri rodeos for life.
The Missouri State Fair Commission ordered the state's Rodeo Cowboy Association
to crack down on anyone responsible for the stunt. All clowns, rodeo officials,
and sub-contractors have to undergo "sensitivity training," which is
like the "re-education" experiences the victorious North Vietnamese
inflicted on defeated South Vietnamese anti-communists after Saigon's fall in
1975.
Mark Ficken, a
public school superintendent
and the president of the Missouri Rodeo Cowboy Association, who was the radio
announcer at the event, resigned to protest the incident. This has not,
however, kept Ficken's employer - the Boonville (MO) School District - from
launching an investigation into the affair. That may lead to Ficken's
termination. (Will another life and career be ruined?)
Missouri's
Lieutenant Governor, Peter Kinder, a Republican, denounced the incident as
"disrespectful to POTUS." (Poking fun at presidents has been as
American as apple pie, but not when this one is concerned, apparently.)
"Hate
crime" legislation and campus "speech codes," criminalize
thoughts, not acts.
What do these
developments have in common, beyond the fact that each has resulted in
constricting freedom?
Almost all
entail government entities behaving more like medieval lords than public servants.
America's ruling class, whether in Washington, DC or in state capitals, behave
more and more like they - and not Jane or John Q. Public - are the ultimate
arbiters of what's permissible in America.
Other than the
IRS and NSA "phony scandals," race is the core of these incidents. If
Martin had been white, it's unlikely that Zimmerman's name would be almost
universally recognized. Almost no one, for example, has heard of Roderick
Scott, a black man who killed a white teen, Christopher Cervini, in April,
2009. Scott
was acquitted by a jury in December, 2009, on the basis of self-defense.
Unless things
change, race will be the American republic's destruction. Either the
race-baiting civil rights industry and their guilt-ridden white allies will
impose a totalitarian thought-control regime on this country that will make
Stalin's Soviet Union seem permissive by comparison, or there will be a
backlash that makes George Wallace's movement like look an ACLU conclave.
The former may
be the more likely outcome. Deen's, Zimmerman's, and the Missouri rodeo clown's
cases indicate the U.S. has already gone pretty far down that road.
There is
another commonality to the racially-charged incidents. In every case,
pusillanimous government officials or business persons caved to the civil
rights industry and their guilt-driven white useful idiots. Each time that
happens, Edmund Burke's
adage that "all that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men
[and women] do nothing" is reinforced.
When
pusillanimity crops up again and again, one may also wonder if Francis Scott
Key's claim that America is "home of the brave" still applies.
If you focus
on our military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan there is no doubt that the
U.S. has brave men and women who go in harm's way. Men like J. Christopher
Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and Tyrone S. Woods, who were murdered in
Benghazi on September 11-12, 2012, must have been brave souls. Men and women in
our police and fire departments, or who try to protect our nation's borders, as
well as unacknowledged clandestine operatives in hazardous locations all around
the globe, and rodeo clowns, fit the notion of bravery to a "T."
How, then, can
I doubt that America is still "home of the brave"?
Look at our
elites. When have we seen "profiles in courage" inside the White
House? In the halls of Congress? Inside the Supreme
Court (except for Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel
Alito)? Among the Joint Chiefs of Staff? In state capitals? In city halls?
Too many
wetted fingers raised to the wind dampen one's inclination to believe that
bravery is a hallmark of American politicians.
Moreover, what
about the rest of us? Does the average American have the courage to stand up to
the treatment meted out to the Missouri rodeo clown, or to the man who posted
an anti-Muslim video on the Internet, who's been in jail without bond since
last fall?
I'll still
stand and cover my heart when "The Star-Spangled Banner" plays. But,
I'll have my doubts.
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