Still Clinging to Guns & Religion

Here's a wonderful video and post provided by Perpetua of Carthage and American Daughter.

Today is the anniversary of D-day, the day in World War II that the US had the courage to invade Normandy. That was before I was born, and my father, who did fight in WWII was also a native Californian and fought in the Pacific.

In honor of D-Day, I am posting this video of a moment at a Tea party across the country from me in the state of Georgia. Thank you for still clinging to your God and your guns.

O 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!

What is shocking and somewhat dismaying to me is to see how many folk are describing this as a “second” and mostly unknown verse. There are in fact four stanzas, and when I was in school every student knew all four of them by heart. They were taught in all the public schools in music class.

The following presentation is from the songbook used in the public schools during World War II. It differs from the lyrics presented on the National Park Service website for Fort McHenry. In the original version, the words “Star-spangled Banner” were capitalized.

This grammatical change is significant. In those days, citizens had reverence for the patriotic ideal — hence the capitalization of “Star-spangled Banner” (which is faithful to Francis Scott Key’s original). However, the semantic erosion of our values reflected in this change pales in comparison to the assault by liberals on the phrase “In God we trust!”