I started out to write a Sci-fi piece about a time traveler from the future looking for the America that once was to go along with a piece I wrote last year when I imagined myself as living in the year 1776 . The more I wrote the less I felt like celebrating; being reminded of McCain-Feingold and how it has chipped away at our freedom of speech, the Kelo decision and the loss of private property rights to eminent domain and other current events. I’d wanted to show the present day as not much better off than the future America, a mere shadow of its former glory where a time traveler would jump back into his machine and press ever back in time to when liberties and freedoms were revered and respected.
We stand at a cross roads in time, a chance to restore individual liberties as shown when the District of Columbia lost out to private ownership of handguns in favor of the original intent of the constitution’s God given right of the individual; not to be confused with a group of individuals in the form of a militia. Our hopes kindled if only for a moment as a stand was made and won, even if only temporarily, may that spark keep the embers of freedom alive for the next generation.
The evening holds the promise of fireworks, bottle rockets to light up the night sky, linked firecrackers that pop and fizzle and children holding sparklers making ziz-zags with the help of wary parents. My wife stood up in church and asked us to make believe that instead of a bottle rocket arching carelessly across the darkness, imagine standing across the harbor as Francis Scott Key penned the words which became our national anthem. That popping sound is distant musket fire with fierce and often fatal results as the lead balls tore life from those in the heat of battle. Until the morning mist rose it wasn’t know if we’d survive, our hopes of freedom under constant assault from a significantly superior military force managed to come out with the help of our God.
Let us find a way to acknowledge our dependence on divine intervention, for surely the back woods marksmen who took on the Red Coats must have employed many prayers to overcome such incredible odds as our nation won the day. Take a few moments to recognize the fragile balance between freedom and subjugation and act responsibly that we might hold onto freedom for another season.
The Star-Spangled Banner
We stand at a cross roads in time, a chance to restore individual liberties as shown when the District of Columbia lost out to private ownership of handguns in favor of the original intent of the constitution’s God given right of the individual; not to be confused with a group of individuals in the form of a militia. Our hopes kindled if only for a moment as a stand was made and won, even if only temporarily, may that spark keep the embers of freedom alive for the next generation.
The evening holds the promise of fireworks, bottle rockets to light up the night sky, linked firecrackers that pop and fizzle and children holding sparklers making ziz-zags with the help of wary parents. My wife stood up in church and asked us to make believe that instead of a bottle rocket arching carelessly across the darkness, imagine standing across the harbor as Francis Scott Key penned the words which became our national anthem. That popping sound is distant musket fire with fierce and often fatal results as the lead balls tore life from those in the heat of battle. Until the morning mist rose it wasn’t know if we’d survive, our hopes of freedom under constant assault from a significantly superior military force managed to come out with the help of our God.
Let us find a way to acknowledge our dependence on divine intervention, for surely the back woods marksmen who took on the Red Coats must have employed many prayers to overcome such incredible odds as our nation won the day. Take a few moments to recognize the fragile balance between freedom and subjugation and act responsibly that we might hold onto freedom for another season.
The Star-Spangled Banner
O say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
O 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 thro' 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 on the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner: O, 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 wash'd 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.
O thus be it ever when free-men shall stand
Between their lov'd home and the war's desolation;
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd 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!
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