The Tea Parties, whatever you think of their key themes of the danger of runaway federal spending and coming high taxes, also also tend to a background theme of patriotism that is worth thinking about as Independence Day approaches.
A recent Internet sensation was caused when retired Marine Lewis Shaeffer, attending a Georgia Tea Party, extemporaneously reminded the crowd of the usually neglected last verse of The Star Spangled Banner-- by singing it.
O, 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!
It reminds me: when you are told at some civic event that a prayer would be unconstitutional, you can suggest that we all just sing the full National Anthem instead! Who can call that unconstitutional?
And as the event concludes, we can sing America the Beautiful, including the magnificent lines of Katherine Lee Bates in the second stanza, "America! America! God mend thine every flaw. Confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law."
For this troubled generation--tempted to solipsism and secularism--those are words to live by, and prosper from.
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