Obama Gives Speech on Patriotism – Doesn’t Mention Freedom [Reader Post]

Got to hand it to him. It must have been tough to do. In a 29 minute speech on patriotism in which he invoked Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, Adams, Truman, King, the Pledge of Allegiance, World War II, Vietnam, and Iraq, he does not mention America’s greatest attribute and the single-most powerful beacon to the world: American Freedom.

He reminds us that his patriotism has been called into question, but claims that such criticism is actually a badge of honor because some of America’s greatest heroes have had their patriotism challenged.

My concerns here aren’t simply personal, however. After all, throughout our history, men and women of far greater stature and significance than me have had their patriotism questioned in the midst of momentous debates. Thomas Jefferson was accused by the Federalists of selling out to the French. The anti-Federalists were just as convinced that John Adams was in cahoots with the British and intent on restoring monarchal rule.

See the thing is, Senator Obama, those men wrote the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. We know those men are patriots. You Senator Obama, are not Thomas Jefferson or John Adams. You chose to attend a racist, America-hating church. Shortly after the worst attack on our country, you refused to wear the American flag. You would appoint justices who would undo the work of Jefferson and Adams by undermining and damaging the Constitution.

In his patriotism speech Obama does mention a few other types of Americans.

Meanwhile, some of those in the so-called counter-culture of the Sixties reacted not merely by criticizing particular government policies, but by attacking the symbols, and in extreme cases, the very idea, of America itself – by burning flags; by blaming America for all that was wrong with the world; and perhaps most tragically, by failing to honor those veterans coming home from Vietnam, something that remains a national shame to this day.

Now Obama does seem to like some of those guys. Like his terrorist buddy Bill Ayers, who bombed those symbols. Like Rev. Wright and the God Damned United States of Ameri-KKK-a. Seems that Obama prefers the company of those “national shames” to the exclusion of actual patriots.

Indeed if you scour the entire speech, the word freedom, appears only one time.

the joys of American life and culture, its vitality, its variety and its freedom, always outweighed its imperfections

That’s it. America’s good stuff outweighs her bad stuff. Wow. What a defense of freedom. What a testament to America’s greatness and exceptionalism.

Compare that to a guy who understood that America’s greatness is her freedom. From President Reagan’s Farewell Address.

Ours was the first revolution in the history of mankind that truly reversed the course of government, and with three little words: “We the people.” “We the people” tell the government what to do, it doesn’t tell us. “We the people” are the driver, the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast. Almost all the world’s constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which “We the people” tell the government what it is allowed to do. “We the people” are free. This belief has been the underlying basis for everything I’ve tried to do these past eight years.

~~~

An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world? Those of us who are over 35 or so years of age grew up in a different America. We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American. And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you didn’t get these things from your family, you got them from the neighborhood, from the father down the street who fought in Korea or the family who lost someone at Anzio. Or you could get a sense of patriotism from school. And if all else failed, you could get a sense of patriotism from popular culture. The movies celebrated democratic values and implicitly reinforced the idea that America was special. TV was like that, too, through the mid-’60s

But now, we’re about to enter the ’90s, and some things have changed. Younger parents aren’t sure that an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach modern children. And as for those who create the popular culture, well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style. Our spirit is back, but we haven’t reinstitutionalized it. We’ve got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom–freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It’s fragile; it needs protection.

So when Barack Obama says he is patriotic, but it never occurs to him to discuss the majesty of American freedom, it makes one think that Obama may be one of those “Younger parents [who] aren’t sure that an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach modern children.” After all, Obama took his kids to a church that regularly denounced America as evil. Do patriotic people do that?

And when Reagan says freedom is fragile and needs protection, he is talking about protection from those who would destroy it. He is talking about protecting freedom from rogue Supreme Court Justices who read the words in a Bill of Rights, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” as no right at all; and Justices who read the words in “nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation,” as meaning that private property can be taken away by the government and given to another private citizen.

So when Barack Obama, who has perfected the spellbinding political speech and who reminds us that words have meaning, gives a speech about patriotism and doesn’t mention freedom, he is telling us a lot about himself. Obama and his cohorts actively pursue an agenda that destroys freedom and rights enshrined in our Constitution. Since real American patriots actually fight for only one thing, American Freedom, one has to wonder how those who would destroy freedom can call themselves patriots at all.

Also find Bill Dupray at The Patriot Room.