The Virtues of Patriotism

[Draggingtree]

American Greatness

The Virtues of Patriotism

By John Fonte| May 23rd, 2019

The elections to the European Parliament underway now through Sunday present a major war of ideas between the “Europe of Nations” and the “Europe of Brussels”—between national democratic sovereignty and supranational authority.

On May 13, I participated in a conference in London organized by the White House Writers Group and attended by leading conservative intellectuals and political figures, including Yoram Hazony, Daniel Hannan, Roger Scruton, John O’Sullivan, Nile Gardiner, and Polish cabinet minister Anna Maria Anders, among others. The conference, “Europe at a Crossroads: The Virtue of Nationalism,” for the most part echoed Margaret Thatcher’s famous Bruges speech advocating a Europe of “independent sovereign states” in opposition to a democracy-deficient supranational EU that would “try to suppress nationhood and concentrate power at the center of a European conglomerate.”   

[Valin]

Memorializing Memorial Day

Ed Morrow

May 24, 2019

I grew up in the small town of Lunenburg in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. It was back when there were more cows than people in what was then primarily an agricultural state and when those people were predominantly Republican. It may only be correlation and not causation, but after the ratio of cows to people declined, Republicanism also declined in Vermont and Bernie Sanders manifested himself. But before that, and in my corner of the state, we didn’t doubt American exceptionalism.

In my school, we all stood as we said the Pledge of Allegiance. We were taught to admire our national heroes and respect America’s system of government. We also took great note of Memorial Day. There was an assembly for parents and the public, with the students of every grade performing some patriotic song or recitation of appropriate poetry. The first graders might sing a spritely “Yankee Doodle” while waving small flags, sometimes striking each other about the head and shoulders in the process. A 5th grader might recite the first stanza of “In Flanders Fields,” followed by another doing the second stanza with a chorus finishing the poem by somberly reciting the last. We’d sing songs you’re unlikely to hear school kids sing today like “The Battle Cry of Freedom,” with its hearty line “Down with the traitors, and up with the stars.” We sang the songs of the military services including the older version of the Army’s song with the rollicking lyric “The caissons go rolling along,” and the Air Force’s song, best known for its first line, “Off we go into the wild blue yonder.” We boys liked the line further on that goes, “Down we dive, spouting our flame from under / Off with one heckuva roar!” I didn’t learn till decades later that the lyric was actually “Helluva,” not “heckuva.” “Hell” was one of those words we kids weren’t supposed to use, “heck” being the preferred substitute in those more well-mannered times. A scrupulous teacher had amended the mimeographed lyrics she’d given so as not to offend our audience or corrupt our young minds.

(Snip)

Time soothes loss, but it shouldn’t be forgotten. On Memorial Day we need to keep fresh the memory of what it took to keep us a free people. Remember those who left us that legacy. Remember the men and women who never got to know their nephews and nieces or to watch their own children play on some town common. Remember them, and be grateful.

Remember.