Today, Barack Obama and the American people proved that in America anything really is possible and that any child, regardless of race, can realistically dream of becoming President.

I wish President Obama the best of luck as President of the United States.  The people in our country will always disagree about the decisions and policies of the President and Congress, but I hope we can live up to the true message of the 2008 campaign; we can disagree without being disagreeable.

On this day, September the 11th, 2,974 innocent men and women lost their lives in what is arguably the greatest display of evil in the 21st century (and maybe the second half of the 20th as well).

While the image of what happened on that Tuesday may be permanently burned into our minds, the lessons learned have quickly faded; just as the lessons learned from Pearl Harbor, World War II and previous conflicts have faded from our collective memory.  Appeasing an enemy, whether it be Radical Islam, Hitler and the Nazis, or any other, will never succeed in bringing a favorable outcome. By giving into our enemy, we lose our honor and they gain a hunger more of our prized freedoms to fall.

Instead, the free peoples of the world should band together in an effort to protect our own Inalienable Rights and to pass on the great gift to other societies and cultures. When the world is truly free, we will be one step closer a peaceful world.

I can only hope that those 2,974 people who lost their lives on that day, 6 years ago, will have saved the freedoms and the lives of many more by awaking the world. That is the most fitting legacy for our heroes and even just the regular people who died on that day.

God Bless America and God Bless the Free World.

I posted a brief history of our National Anthem, with the poem lyrics because so many don’t actually know the song or where it came from. I think it is a pretty important song.

It is no doubt that some Mexican Immigrants (some illegal aliens, some not) want to sing the song: they should, espcially if they are here illegally – since they are trying to make a new life. Thats fine, I don’t mind it, but why must it be sung in Spanish?

While immigrants should learn the language, just learning simple song lyrics in English can’t even be that hard. Heck, all sorts of Americans sing languages that they don’t know, they just memorize the words. The song needs to be in English, because it was written in English.

Of course, the song can and should be translated, heck they might as well know what they are singing, but our Anthem needs to be sung in English. Furthermore, the official language of the country needs to be English. I fail to understand why this is a problem, it seems like such a simple idea, and it only simplifies things for everybody who speaks English.

Written during the war of 1812, the song describes a battle at Fort McHenry. Wikipedia has just about the best summary I could find:

On September 3, 1814, Key and John S. Skinner, an American prisoner-exchange agent, set sail from Baltimore aboard the sloop HMS Minden flying a flag of truce on a mission approved by U.S. President James Madison. Their goal was to secure the release of Dr. William Beanes, the elderly and popular town physician of Upper Marlboro, a friend of Key’s who had been captured in his home. He was being accused of aiding in getting British soldiers arrested. Key and Skinner boarded the British flagship, HMS Tonnant, on 7 September and spoke with Major General Robert Ross and Admiral Alexander Cochrane over dinner, while they discussed war plans. At first, Ross and Cochrane refused to release Beanes, but relented after Key and Skinner showed them letters written by wounded British prisoners praising Beanes and other Americans for their kind treatment.

Because Key and Michle Skinner had heard details of the plans for the attack on Baltimore, they were held captive until after the battle, first aboard HMS Surprise, and later back on Minden, after which some British gunboats attempted to slip past the fort and effect a landing in a cove to the west of it, but they were turned away by gunners at nearby Fort Covington, the city’s last line of defense. During the rainy night, Key had witnessed the bombardment and observed that the fort’s smaller “storm flag” continued to fly, but once the shelling had stopped, he would not know how the battle had turned out until dawn. By then, the storm flag had been lowered, and the larger flag had been raised.

Key was inspired by the American victory and the sight of the large American flag flying triumphantly above the fort.

Here is a fully copy of the poem, only the first part is actually used in the song:

O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through 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 mist 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. Oh! 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 washed out their foul footstep’s 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.

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes 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 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.

Last Saturday, when I was on my way to see John McCain I saw protesters.  Funny huh?  How often do you see protestors in a small town?

As almost every protester these days, these protesters were protesting the Iraq war.  They held signs that read Peace and No War.  Ironically, as I’ve tried to hint at in other posts.  Peace and Anti-War are not the same thing.

Peace is basically the lack of War.  I believe that the truest path towards peace is working to make every country on Earth a Democracy.  Sure, we all have different opinions about things but lets face it…. Everybody wants peace.

Being Anti-War is different.  See ironically, sometimes War is needed to maintain Peace.  That is what US forces in Iraq and Afganistan are after. 

So being Anti-War means that you support no war, no matter what the need for the war is.  Not for defense, not for the spread of freedom, not for the fall of communism.

And that is why I don’t support Anti-War movements but do support Peace movements.  There is a difference and it is a rather large and important difference.