Tom P‘s Comment of the Day on the 4th of July begins by noting that “if the principles depicted in the above quotes were taught in our schools and supported by the populous,” many of today’s most contentious issues would not be the battle grounds they are. I think that’s right. Unfortunately, not only are the vast majority of those quotes not taught, almost none of the speakers and writers who issued them could be identified by the average citizen. The second group is a bit more challenging, but minimally educated Americans should at least know Clarence Darrow, Daniel Webster, George Orwell and William O.Douglas. Do they? I doubt it. I supposed it would be too much to add Thomas Sowell to the “must recognize” list. I hope, but am far from sure, that Thomas Jefferson’s famous opening to the Declaration of Independence would be known to all, but then Joe Biden, President of the United States, recently confused it with the Constitution, so I have my doubts.
In Part 1, I would say that basic civic and cultural literacy mandates recognition of the names and significance of Presidents Adams, Lincoln, Carter, and Wilson, Ben Franklin, Herman Melville, John Marshall (if I do say so myself), yes and George Bernard Shaw and Jimmy Durante too, dammit!
Here is Tom P’s Comment of the Day on the posts, “Ethics Quotes For The Fourth: On Liberty, Freedom, and Democracy” (Parts 1 &2):
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If the principles depicted in the above quotes were taught in our schools and supported by the populous, there would be no necessity for cramming LGBTQ propaganda down everyone’s throat. Affirmative Action, DEI, Critical Race Theory, and the 1619 project; none of these divisive concepts could gain any serious traction. The liberty-stealing, totalitarian progressive movement would have been stillborn.
The progressive movement was born in the minds of lesser men and women lacking the courage and initiative to strive to excel while still playing by the rules. To be sure, they have been aided by politicians’ lust for power and money. However, the politicians are not solely to blame. It is also the businessmen who also lust for power and riches who “lobby” or bribe politicians to give them an unfair competitive advantage.
Finally, it is mankind’s lust to obtain something for nothing as long as his neighbor gets stuck with the bill that may be the root cause of our problems. Walt Kelly’s POGO stated, “We have met the enemy and he is us” and Paul Harvey cautioned that “Self-government won’t work without self-discipline”. Both of these warnings need to be heeded if our Republic is to be saved. We each must do our part. Freedom does not come without a cost.
Ethics Alarms 
Wonderful comment. Succinct and spot on. Well deserved COTD
Back in 2019 I actually heard a string of probably the ultimate Independence Day quotes. This is the important part of what I wrote:
After the Independence Day parade ended, I decided to make my way over to the National Mall to try to scope out the arrangements for the actual Salute to America, stopping only to switch a lens out and secure all my camera gear. Surprisingly, I found the gates already open, when they weren’t supposed to open for another 2 hours. I passed through a rather cursory security check (although under the watchful eyes of several fatigue-clad, rifle-toting security officers from both the Metro police and the Feds) and tried to get as close to the Lincoln Memorial as I could. I passed the Washington Monument and the World War II Memorial, dodging in and out of what was to become a huge crowd.
Right before the WWII Memorial was where about 100 (if that many) Code Pink and miscellaneous folks had set up the so-called Baby Blimp and the sculpture of the president tweeting while on the toilet. Here and there in the crowd was a flash of pink from a “make out, not war” sticker which they were passing out. They got a lot of sneers and very few takers. The joke was on them, though. Since the blimp was maybe five feet off the ground at the most, once you passed it, you wouldn’t see it or even know it was there, because it would be completely hidden by a stand of trees. This salute would go forward without some stupid and disrespectful stunt balloon intruding into every picture.
Eventually I made it to the fence that marked the end of the public area. There really wasn’t that much to see other than the Memorial and three screens – one large central one and two smaller ones, but that was no big deal. It was a good thing I had elected to bring my raincoat along, since there was rain on and off with about 30 minutes of heavy rain. A few people gave up, but the vast majority stayed, and, by the time the actual program started, the whole area from the Lincoln Memorial back to the Washington Monument and beyond, more than a mile long and a half mile wide, was full of people, the vast majority of them displaying patriotic colors, Trump gear (including of course the ubiquitous “MAGA” trucker hat) or both, including some, ahem, colorful slogans like “Faith, Family, Friends, Freedom and Firearms,” or Smokey the Bear with “MAGA” on his hat and the slogan “Only You Can Prevent Socialism.” The crowd was overwhelmingly white but there were several fiery Latinos, at least in my area, who spoke out strongly and loudly against illegal immigration and sneered at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as an idiot who just knew how to wear bright red lipstick and mug for the camera.
We didn’t’ lack for time for conversation, and I heard and had some interesting ones, ranging from one woman from California’s rhetoric about illegals being “parasites” who should be scooped up and sent home, to one family from Portland’s fuming at their mayor’s craven surrender of the streets to antifa, to one guy from South Dakota jokingly saying he had named his new vehicle “Elizabeth Warren” because it was a white Cherokee (ouch). I got several high-fives and fist bumps with my own rhetoric about how the IRA doesn’t sit in Westminster, Hezbollah doesn’t sit in the Knesset, and those who hate this country shouldn’t sit in Congress. Most of the attendees were cocksure of the results next year, although given the current stumbling clown car that is the Democratic primary, I can see how they might be, and most cheered on the Trump domination of the Republican Party as a restoration of influence to the rank and file of voters rather than the elites, pointing to some recent elections where the candidates who’d attacked Trump had gone on to lose in the primaries (notably Tennessee’s election of Marsha Blackburn to serve in the Senate). More than a few also said that Obama was pretty darn close to America rising up against him (I think that’s reaching the realm of fiction). There was also some conspiracy theory talk from one or two folks about JFK Jr. still being alive, just in hiding from a Hilary-orchestrated hit, lest the Kennedy clan again become prominent in the Democratic party and displace the House of Clinton (I just nodded along with those folks). Then there was the usual talk about how the left hates America and hates any kind of standards for personal behavior, hence the current culture wars.
Eventually the formal program got started. Frankly I wasn’t that worried about seeing it on the screen. It consisted of the patriotic tunes from the USMC drum and bugle corps, colonial music from the Old Guard fife and drum band, and a performance from the USMC silent drill team, all of which I’ve seen before at better angles. I tested my camera on a few passing airliners.
Finally the moment arrived and the President and the First Lady entered to thunderous applause and full-throated chants of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” and “Trump! Trump!” The energy was palpable, maybe even a little frightening. The Joint Service Color Guard, which had marched that morning in the parade, presented the flag, and the U.S. Army band and Soldier’s Chorus led the national anthem. Pretty much everyone sang, louder than a crowd at a football game, punctuated with cheers as Air Force One passed overhead from the south. The President began his speech, which by now I’m sure most folks have heard. I applaud him for sticking to the script. This was about why America was great and what it was all about to be an American. He hit all the high points – the Revolution, exploration of the frontier, American advances in technology, civil rights (at least the 19th Amendment and the civil right movement), the space race (predicting one day we’ll plant the flag on Mars), disaster relief, and of course the lengthy defense of freedom where we’ve been at the forefront. Throughout he spotlighted genuine heroes from each area: NASA Flight Director Gene Kranz, surgeon Sister Deirdre Byrne, Honor Flights founder Earl Morse, Medal of Honor winners, and so on.
He then launched into an extended salute to the armed forces, touching on each one of the five, their history, their heroes, ranging from the very well-known (MacArthur, Yeager) to the obscure (Coast Guardsman Douglas Munro, Marine Jeffrey Nashton) some heroic act or anecdote, and each service’s song, punctuated by a flyover from the north by aircraft from that service. Some of the rhetoric was kind of hokey, like “When the red racing stripes of a Coast Guard vessel break the horizon, when their chopper blades pierce the sky, those in distress know that the help is on their way, and our enemies know their time has come,” and “When Old Glory crests the waves of foreign shores, every friend and every foe knows that justice sails those waters. It sails with the United States Navy.” However, like opera composer Giuseppe Verdi, who brought audiences roaring to their feet early in his career with crudely heroic music, the president knew all the right chords to hit. The flyovers, of course, were a guaranteed hit.
Not spending too much longer, lest the crowd’s spirit cool, the President finished with an ode to past glories and future achievements:
“We will always be the people who defeated a tyrant, crossed a continent, harnessed science, took to the skies, and soared into the heavens because we will never forget that we are Americans and the future belongs to us.
The future belongs to the brave, the strong, the proud, and the free. We are one people, chasing one dream, and one magnificent destiny. We all share the same heroes, the same home, the same heart, and we are all made by the same Almighty God.
And from the banks of the Chesapeake to the cliffs of California, from the humming shores of the Great Lakes to the sand dunes of the Carolinas, from the fields of the Heartland to the everglades of Florida, the spirit of American independence will never fade, never fail, but will reign forever and ever and ever.
So once more, to every citizen throughout our land: Have a glorious Independence Day. Have a great Fourth of July.
I want to thank the Army Band, the National Park Service, the Interior Department, the incredible pilots overhead, and those who are making possible the amazing fireworks display later this evening.
Now, as the band plays “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” I invite the First Lady, Vice President and Mrs. Pence, the Service Secretaries and military leaders to join me onstage for one more salute to America by the famous, incredible, talented Blue Angels.
God bless you. God bless the military. And God bless America. Happy Fourth of July.”
As the band struck up the old Civil War marching hymn, the Blue Angels passed the Washington Monument and passed low overhead. They returned from the south for a starburst break over the memorial, as the crowd cheered and finally broke up to the strains of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.”
Stiff, still kind of wet, and not a little tired, I made my way back down the Mall, as they piped the beginnings of the Capitol Fourth concert over the mall wide system. After the President’s soaring rhetoric and the display of military might, the first part of that show, featuring the Muppets (?) almost seemed like a joke. The few remaining protesters stood by a now sagging blimp. They had accomplished precisely zero.
The President certainly delivered the goods in terms of throwing red meat to his base. Obama may have been able to deliver rhetoric in a pleasing baritone, but in terms of putting on a show, he’s not even in the same league as Trump. In terms of unifying the nation on the occasion of its birth, though, I’m not sure. He certainly knew how to appeal to traditionalists like myself, and he certainly knew how to appeal to the older half of this nation. Not so sure about the younger half. This was also just one more salvo, albeit a powerful one, in the battle for the soul of this nation.
You mark my words, this nation is headed for a reckoning, in which we are going to have to decide who we are and which path we are going to follow. Until the last decade or decade and a half I didn’t really question either. Although we might have been singing different notes, at least we were all on the same page of the same hymnal. Although there might be a passing dissonance or suspension, there was at least a basic harmony. We shared a common language, a common culture, a common history, and a common vision. Whatever differences we might have had were mainly managerial. Certainly when an outside problem appeared we didn’t hesitate to unite under one banner, and that banner was the Stars and Stripes. It wasn’t that long ago that Frank Sinatra was singing “the children in the playground, the faces that I see, all races and religions, that’s America to me” and both singer and listener meant it. Sometimes we disagreed, but we never tried to silence one another, certainly not by either personal or governmental bullying. We had one set of common, unique values, and that was the set spelled out in the Constitution. We secured our borders and put our own first, although anyone who wanted to become one of us was usually welcome, on the condition that he actually do so.
These days, in a lot of ways it’s the opposite. A lot of folks oppose the idea of a common language, a common history, a common anything, except as they themselves see it. A lot of folks define themselves by color, by religion, by sexuality, and a half dozen other things before they define themselves as Americans. A lot sneer at the values spelled out in the Constitution, especially in the Bill of Rights, when applied to those they disagree with. They’re not afraid to use government as the conduit to impose their hatred of religion on others. They have no problem using government to silence those they disagree with under the guise of “maintaining civility.” They have absolutely zero problem taking away the abilities of others to possess an independent means of defense, no matter what others might have done or not done, then looking the other way when others they disagree with are attacked, bullied, or worse. They certainly don’t have even the smallest issue with taking as much of others’ money as they can legally take, and using it as they see fit. They aren’t particularly interested in keeping this nation intact, especially when they can buy the loyalty of anyone allowed in with no questions asked.
A few even go so far as to publicly turn on the history and symbols of this nation and disavow them. Yet they get applause for so doing? The idea that the first flag of this nation, thirteen stars and thirteen stripes for the original thirteen colonies, carried at Saratoga, Cowpens, and in the great victory that gave us our freedom, is now somehow offensive because this nation, which was in its formative stages, hadn’t abolished slavery and wouldn’t for almost another century is ridiculous. Take that logic farther, and other flags – the 33-star banner that the Union forces flew in the Civil War, the 1824 flag that flew over the doomed Alamo, the 27-star flag that flew at the beginning of war with Mexico that determined the fate of a continent, the 31-star flag flown by Matthew Perry when he forced open the doors of Japan, even the original “star-spangled banner” that flew during the siege of Baltimore and was the muse for Francis Scott Key to write our national anthem, would all be out, because slavery didn’t end in the US until the passing and ratifying of the Thirteenth Amendment at the end of 1865. When the versions of the flag that were flown at the nation’s founding and its passing of the test whether it could stay together are considered offensive, something has gone very wrong. When they are considered offensive enough that one troublemaker can demand they disappear, something has gone really wrong.
It shouldn’t have come to this, but it has because we’ve allowed the fragile, the difficult, and the obnoxious to destroy with a pointed finger and an accusation, just like weak parents giving a difficult child what he wants to shut him up or wimpy neighbors doing whatever the neighborhood loudmouth says just to keep him quiet.
The ultimate result of this behavior is that the triggered, the angry, and the loud get power they shouldn’t have, and impose it on others. They decide they want to erase history, then history can’t be read. That’s no different than tearing up the map of your journey because you don’t like where you’ve been. Without a map, you have no idea where you are going or where you’ve been. When you have no idea of where you’re going or where you’ve been, you shouldn’t be surprised when you walk in circles or lose your way completely.
I’m not interested in this nation walking in circles or losing its way. I hope this reckoning goes the right way.
I’m back. I guess we all know here now which way the reckoning went, at least for now. However, when I wrote this I certainly wasn’t expecting China to unleash a deadly virus on the world nor for the death of one lifelong Petty criminal at the hands of a crazy but not racist police officer to almost tear this nation in half. That said, I think every bell rings on both sides and there’s a good chance that the clapper is headed back the other way now, and when the bell peals a lot of what happened in the past 3 years is going to come apart. Hopefully in a couple of years we will be gathered on the mall for another Salute to America merica, although this time the Air Force Thunderbirds should be the closing act.
Well said Steve. Nothing else to say.
Steve-O-in-NJ wrote, “…patriotic tunes from the USMC drum and bugle corps… and a performance from the USMC silent drill team”
Speaking of that, for those that may not have had the opportunity to see this, the following is a collection of photos and video of that when I was visiting my daughter at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms California while my son-in-law was deployed to Afghanistan.
Brilliant, as always, Steve.
jvb
To make the founding documents and quotes irrelevant in the minds of ignorant new generations all they have to do is pretend that they don’t exist and refuse to teach them or if they’re forced to teach them they openly declare, or strongly imply, that the writings are irrelevant old fashioned 18th century writings that are completely out of touch with 21st century times. It’s obvious for anyone that’s paying attention that this is exactly what’s been going on throughout a majority of our K-12 public education systems and most of our higher education institutions for many years, civic knowledge is actively suppressed and absurd anti-constitutional thinking is promoted.
Indoctrination complete.
Was Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt correct when she said that the consolidation of public schools and dumbing down to the least common denominator would be the downfall of the United States of America into the abyss of totalitarianism?
Do we have a generation or two or three where a majority of citizens are so civically ignorant and/or stupid, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez appears to be, that they’re willing to completely destroy the United States of America for the sake of their irrational and totalitarian goals of creating a delusional utopia?