Hundreds of Colorado students protest history curriculum changes that would promote patriotism

ARVADA, Colo. – Hundreds of students walked out of classrooms around suburban Denver on Tuesday in protest over a conservative-led school board proposal to focus history education on topics that promote citizenship, patriotism and respect for authority, in a show of civil disobedience that the new standards would aim to downplay.

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Patriot Day Screening in Corvallis: Last Ounce of Courage

Movie: Last Ounce of Courage
Date: Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Showtime: 7:00 p.m.
Theater: Regal Ninth Street 4 Cinemas
 1750 N.W. 9th St.
 Corvallis, OR 97330 (Map)
Phone: 541-928-7469
(Holiday, Drama)
Rated PG, (101 minutes)
Nationwide Release date: Sept. 14th
Theater: Regal Ninth Street 4 Cinemas (Corvallis)
Showtimes: 1:15pm, 4:00pm, 7:00pm, 9:40pm Read More......

America Is Me

Anthem for "We the People" by Mack Hayes - Tea Party salute.

Beautiful!
(Hat tip: Stella Guenther via Jean Worth)
Be sure to watch through the credits. Read More......

Honoring a fallen soldier

Killed in action the week before, the body of Sergeant First Class John C. Beale was returned to Falcon Field in Peachtree City , Georgia , just south of Atlanta , on June 11, 2009 . The Henry County Police Department escorted the procession to the funeral home in McDonough , Georgia . A simple notice in local papers indicated the road route to be taken and the approximate time.

Nowadays one can be led to believe that America no longer respects honor and no longer honors sacrifice outside the military. Be it known that there are many places in this land where people still recognize the courage and impact of total self-sacrifice. Georgia remains one of those graceful places. The link below is a short travelogue of that day's remarkable and painful journey.

But only watch this if you wish to have some of your faith in people restored. Read More......

Battle Hymn of the Republic

HISTORY - In 1861, after a visit to a Union Army camp, Julia Ward Howe wrote the poem that came to be called "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." It was published in February, 1862, in The Atlantic Monthly.

Howe reported in her autobiography that she wrote the verses to meet a challenge by a friend, Rev. James Freeman Clarke. As an unofficial anthem, Union soldiers sang "John Brown's Body." Confederate soldiers sang it with their own version of the words. But Clarke thought that there should be more uplifting words to the tune.

Howe met Clarke's challenge. The poem has become perhaps the best-known Civil War song of the Union Army, and has come to be a well-loved American patriotic anthem. Read more about the anthem here.

Listen to a beautiful student rendition here (Hat tip: Lou Copes). Read More......

Patriotism

Pajamas Media, October 6, 2007 - The storm of controversy around candidate Barack Obama’s decision not to display a flag on his lapel has PJM Sydney editor Richard Fernandez thinking about what it truly means to be a patriot. An excerpt from Pinning Down Patriotism follows:

In 1994 a relatively unknown Australian politician contributed an article to Quadrant, a political journal. Up until then, Australian patriotism had been redefined by the politics of the 60s to the point where it became synonymous with self-flagellation. The only thing that remained worthy of a real Australian, or so its public intellectuals argued, was a willingness to say “sorry”. Not so, the Quadrant article argued.

Much of [Paul Keating’s] rhetoric about building a so-called new Australia is built on a denigration of our past and its achievements. We are consistently told that Australia’s history is a litany of intolerance, bigotry and narrow-mindedness. … The truth is that, compared with other nations, Australia’s behaviour in the area of human rights, personal freedom and general tolerance has been impressive. This is an Australian achievement stretching back over more than 200 years of which we should be positive and proud rather than negative and ashamed. So much of Paul Keating’s attack on the national identity is the rhetoric of apology and shame rather than that of praise and gratitude.

The author of the article was John Winston Howard, then two years from becoming the Prime Minister of Australia. Howard clearly understood that modern politics had become not simply a contest for governmental power; it had become a “battle of history”; a fight for the nation’s soul.

Thirteen years later Jonah Goldberg, writing in the LA Times, would realize that American patriotism was being redefined in exactly the same way. It consisted in the willingness to say “sorry”. You could drape yourself in the flag, but only if the flag was sack-cloth lined with ashes. For those types of patriots, allegiance could only be owed to a contingent America, one purged of its ills. Patriotism consisted in an allegiance to a future amid a present in which there was nothing to love. Continued...

Fernandez writes under the name Wretchard at The Belmont Club. Read the discussion pertaining to his PJM article titled Easy To Be Hard; Easy to be Cold and for more see My Country Tis of Me, posted by Wretchard on October 7th. Read More......

NRO: What Is An American?

Archives: NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE, 9/25/2001 9:20 a.m. by Peter Ferrara, an associate professor of law at the George Mason University School of Law. - What Is An American? A primer.

You probably missed it in the rush of news last week, but there was actually a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper there an offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American, any American. ∴ So I just thought I would write to let them know what an American is, so they would know when they found one.

An American is English... or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. An American may also be African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Australian, Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani, or Afghan.

An American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim. In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan. The only difference is that in America they are free to worship as each of them choose.

An American is also free to believe in no religion. For that he will answer only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.

An American is from the most prosperous land in the history of the world. The root of that prosperity can be found in the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes the God-given right of each man and woman to the pursuit of happiness.

An American is generous. Americans have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need. When Afghanistan was overrun by the Soviet army 20 years ago, Americans came with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country. As of the morning of September 11, Americans had given more than any other nation to the poor in Afghanistan.

An American does not have to obey the mad ravings of ignorant, ungodly cruel, old men. American men will not be fooled into giving up their lives to kill innocent people, so that these foolish old men may hold on to power. American women are free to show their beautiful faces to the world, as each of them choose.

An American is free to criticize his government's officials when they are wrong, in his or her own opinion. Then he is free to replace them, by majority vote.

Americans welcome people from all lands, all cultures, all religions, because they are not afraid. They are not afraid that their history, their religion, their beliefs, will be overrun, or forgotten. That is because they know they are free to hold to their religion, their beliefs, their history, as each of them choose.

And just as Americans welcome all, they enjoy the best that everyone has to bring, from all over the world. The best science, the best technology, the best products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best athletes.

Americans welcome the best, but they also welcome the least. The nation symbol of America welcomes your tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, tempest tossed.

These in fact are the people who built America. Many of them were working in the twin towers on the morning of September 11, earning a better life for their families.

So you can try to kill an American if you must. Hitler did. So did General Tojo and Stalin and Mao Tse-Tung, and every bloodthirsty tyrant in the history of the world.

But in doing so you would just be killing yourself. Because Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American.

So look around you. You may find more Americans in your land than you thought were there. One day they will rise up and overthrow the old, ignorant, tired tyrants that trouble too many lands. Then those lands too will join the community of free and prosperous nations.

And America will welcome them.

NOTE: This piece has been erroneously attributed to an Australian dentist in an email that circulates regularly . Read More......