You've probably heard this before, but it's always worth repeating. Something extremely cool about the "Star-spangled Banner," the American national anthem, is that it asks a question, and it's the question at the heart of everything in the American worldview.
"Oh, say, can you see
By the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed
At the twilight's last gleaming..."
So the anthem begins with a question and a scene. One man, a patriot, is asking another man, another patriot, "can you see it?" at sunrise after a long, dangerous night.
The "it" in question is going to be revealed to be the flag, our "star-spangled banner," which they had last fully recognized and honored as the sun set, daylight failed, and night crept over them the evening before.
Can you see it? Say! Can you see it?!
IS IT STILL THERE?!
"Whose broad stripes and bright stars
Through the perilous fight
O'er the ramparts we watched
Were so gallantly streaming..."
Here we find that the "it" is in fact the flag, our star-spangled banner, and we learn why the question is being asked.
The flag is described as having flown and streamed gallantly over ramparts of war through a perilous fight. All could have been lost. The flag, and even the fledgling country for which it stands, one nation under God and indivisible.
Say! Can you see it? Now that the light is back?
IS IT STILL THERE?!
"--And the rockets' red glare,
The bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night
That our flag was still there!--"
They could see it through the battle in the light of the rockets and bombs that threatened them, here and there in quick glimpses. But it was still there throughout! But now? At dawn?
Say! Can you see?
IS IT STILL THERE?!
"Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free
And the home of the brave?"
The urgency is palpable with every refrain. They have to know. It's the first thing they must know as the sun begins to light the sky, even before it rises.
IS IT STILL THERE?!
Say! Say!! Can you see? Can you see it?!
At the heart of every American beats the fundamental truth and reality that what we have here is precious, that it's worth fighting for, to the death if necessary, and that it's fragile. That at any moment it can be lost. That we have to remember to look for it because last night might have been the night in which it failed.
Every day, every year, every generation.
The American fight for freedom, to live in self-governance within ordered liberty, is ongoing and never-ending. The price of the land of the free is that it must be the home of the brave. We have to defend it, defend it, and defend it again, against all enemies foreign and domestic, because what we have is amazing, rare, fragile, and worth every cent of treasure, every drop of blood, and every risk to our sacred honor to protect it.
Our anthem is not a declaration. It is not a proclamation. It is not a statement.
It is a question.
Every time we sing our wholly unique national anthem, we as American ask the question again. IS IT STILL THERE?! Are we still America? Does that star-spangled banner yet wave?
Because it's a question, the answer is not known. It is not a guarantee. It cannot be taken for granted and isn't. And what an honor to ask and take up our part in the story, in the American Experiment, in the greatest country the world has ever known.
For tonight, the last night of our first 250 years, as the sun gave way to twilight's last gleaming and darkness overtook our land once again, the answer was still yes. We can see it even tonight in the red glare of rockets, with small bombs bursting in air, fill the sky with the noble tribute of fireworks once again.
And we all ask ourselves, will it still be flying at dawn?
This is what it means to be an American.
Happy 250th, America! Now for many happy returns!
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
-Thomas Jefferson
Declassified documents confirm what I've been saying for years: Anthony Fauci didn't just fund dangerous research at the Wuhan lab. He personally shaped what the intelligence community told the American people about COVID's origins. 18 agencies relied on his guidance. That’s the very definition of a cover-up.
https://t.co/A66w7XeFgl
Fact check me: The legacy media has spent more time talking about the reflecting pool than they did talking about the 300,000+ children who disappeared under the Biden administration.
@DavidLimbaugh According to Scripture, Iran will form an alliance with Russia and Turkey (Ezekiel 38-39). I just hate to see Trump as the one to set it up.
@DavidLimbaugh I typically agree with you, but I am not a fan of this. We won the battle, but lost the negotiations. Trump caved. Iran is better off than they were before the war. Trump would have been better off just eliminating the higher ups & then stopping. But Ezekiel 38-39 shows the way
Over the last 48 hours of “ceasefire” Hezbollah has attacked Israel 72 times, including:
• 25 assaults
• 63 rockets
• 1 missile
• 7 UAV strikes
• 2 IED explosions
• 1 infiltration of 5 terrorists
Now Iran cancels peace talks because Israel responded.
See the game here?
OMG
Denver Public Schools Board just voted UNANIMOUSLY to DISMISS lgbtq teacher Jennifer Honka after she reportedly made female students kiss each other and graded them on it
What is going on in these schools?!
Tells you everything.
Rather than: “let’s make sure many more Americans can become trillionaires”
Instead it’s: “let’s make sure that no other Americans ever reach that level of success.”
These people are parasites. Explicitly opposed to human flourishing. Amazing.
Meet Jamie Varley & John McGowan-Fazakerley, two men who were found GUILTY in the UK of m*rdering and r*ping an 11-MONTH-OLD baby that they adopted together.
Evidence showed that the baby suffered more than 40 injuries, including damage via "forcible penetration" in MULTIPLE locations.
Absolutely HORRIFIC
THIS IS INSANE. The California Post just exposed how election representatives in Los Angeles went out to Skid Row and PAID homeless people to vote for Karen Bass. They gave these people a couple of bucks, said 'sign here,' and boom, another ballot. One homeless woman said these officials collect votes 3 TIMES A WEEK.
It's infuriating to see how the government is preying on these people, asking homeless addicts to sell their birthright for TWO DOLLARS. Everyone in California should be outraged.
This is my favorite argument.
In Hiroshima, roughly 140k people died due to the nuclear bomb out of 350k. That’s 40% of the city.
In Nagasaki, 80k people died out of 263k. That’s 30% of the city.
In Gaza, 73k people have died (according to GHM) out of 2.3 million. That’s about 3% of the population. A substantial percentage of that are terrorists.
So Israel has dropped an amount of bombs on Gaza that exceeds the power of the nuclear bombs we dropped on Japan and yet the death toll is far lower both proportionally and on a raw numbers basis.
How is that possible if Israel is committing genocide? Maybe it’s because they’re not.
People clutching pearls when someone use the word "retard" and then advocating for the systemic killing of people with disabilities is a new level of hypocrisy.