Like the Grinch trying to steal Christmas, the Philadelphia Inquirer today attempted to cancel America’s birthday. Why? Because of George W. Bush, of course.
This is easily the most outrageous and ridiculous sliming of America I’ve read in weeks. I used to write for the Philadelphia Inquirer and have met this columnist many times. In case you needed any more verification that many in the odious media despise America, read this. (I’m printing it in its entirety because I don’t want you to go to their site and make them think that writing garbage like this means getting more interest for their failing newspaper.)
Put the fireworks in storage. Cancel the parade. Tuck the soaring speeches in a drawer for another time. This year, America doesn’t deserve to celebrate its birthday. This Fourth of July should be a day of quiet and atonement.
For we have sinned.
We have failed to pay attention. We’ve settled for lame excuses. We’ve spit on the memory of those who did that brave, brave thing in Philadelphia 232 years ago. The America those men founded should never torture a prisoner.
The America they founded should never imprison people for years without charge or hearing.
The America they founded should never ship prisoners to foreign lands, knowing their new jailers might torture them.
Such abuses once were committed by the arrogant crowns of Europe, spawning rebellion.
Today, our nation does such things in the name of our safety. Petrified, unwilling to take the risks that love of liberty demands, we close our eyes.
We have done such things, on orders from the Oval Office. We have done them, without general outrage or shame.
Abu Ghraib. Guantanamo. CIA secret prisons. “Rendition” of prisoners to foreign torture chambers.
It’s not enough that we had good reason to be scared.
The men huddled long ago in Philadelphia had better reason. A British fleet floated off the Jersey coast, full of hands eager to hang them from the nearest lampposts.
Yet they pledged their lives and sacred honor – no idle vow – to defend the “inalienable rights” of men. Inalienable – what does that signify? It means rights that belong to each person, simply by virtue of being human. Rights that can never be taken away, no matter what evil a person might do or might intend.
Surely one of those is the right not to be tortured. Surely that is a piece of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
This is the creed of July 4: No matter what it costs us, no matter how it scares us, no matter how foolish it seems to a cynical world, America should stand up for human rights.
No, not even the brave men who picked up a quill, dipped it in ink and signed the parchment that summer day in Philadelphia lived up perfectly to the creed. But they did something extraordinary, founding a new nation upon a vow to oppose all the evil habits of tyranny.
That is why history still honors them.
But what will history think of us, of how we responded to our great challenge? Sept. 11 was a hideous evil, a grievous wound. Yet, truth told, it has not summoned our better angels as often as our worst.
We have betrayed the July 4 creed. We trample the vows we make, hand to heart.
Don’t imagine that only the torturer’s hand bears the guilt. The guilt reaches deep inside our Capitol, and beyond that – to us. Our silence is complicit. In our name, innocents were jailed, humans tortured, our Constitution mangled. And we said so little.
We can’t claim not to have known. The best among us raised the alarm. Heroes in uniform, judges in robes, they opposed the perverse logic of an administration drenched in fear, drunk on power.
But did we heed them? Hardly. Barely . . .
We were so busy. Soccer practice at 6. A credit card balance to fret. The final vote on Idol. We left it to those in power to keep our precious selves from harm. Whatever it took.
We took the coward’s way. The world sees this, even if we are too dim to grasp it. We’ve lost respect. We’ve shamed the memory of Jefferson, Adams and Franklin.
And all for a scam. The waterboarding, the snarling dogs, the theft of sleep – all the diabolical tricks haven’t made us safer. They may have averted this plot or that. But they’ve spawned new enemies by the thousands, made the jihadist rants ring true to so many ears.
So put out no flags. Sing no patriotic hymns. We deserve no Fourth this year.
Let us atone, in quiet and humility. Let us spend the day truly studying the example of our Founders. May we earn a new birth of courage before our nation’s birthday next rolls around.
The idiocy of these dopey journalists astounds me. I would pose two questions before I go pull my hair out: Has America never sinned before we elected George W. Bush? And has America not done anything good?
No matter what you think about the War on Terror, we’ve freed millions of people from lunatic tyrants. The struggle for Afghanistan’s and Iraq’s survival still hangs in the balance but can you really argue no good has come from it?
Well at least I won’t run into him at the fireworks celebration. He’ll be crying his big liberal tears into his couch while my kids and I will be dressed up in red, white and blue watching fireworks and celebrating the greatest country in the history of man.
July 2, 2008 at 4:26 am
How myopic.
Ever heard of the trail of tears? How about the Tuskegee Experiments?
It’s been said, “Modern man knows everything about the last 10 days, something about the last 10 years, and next to nothing about the last 10 centuries.”
Gotta’ say my experience is that’s fairly accurate. This guy is a complete idiot.
God Bless
July 2, 2008 at 4:42 am
I’m not American (in fact my country just gave a national order to the biggest abortionist in Canada, so I’m not feeling that festive on my nation’s birthday today) but according to this journalist then, America shouldn’t have celebrated the 4th of July for the last 35 years…something about 50 million babies being killed or something like that.
July 2, 2008 at 9:37 am
I wouldn’t worry about it for too long. Americans will do what they always do on the Fourth of July: blow their fingers off and feel bad about it tomorrow.
July 2, 2008 at 2:48 pm
The revolutionaries were not exactly gentle with British prisoners. We can take an eighty-year leap to Camp Douglas in Chicago, and then…
No, no nation is perfect, but how many Americans died for the freedom of Britain, France, Holland, Belgium, China, and on and on and on?
We ARE unique in our excellence and generosity. God bless America.
— Mack Hall
July 2, 2008 at 3:59 pm
The scary thing is that this is how our media sees America. I wonder how they view Europe?
July 2, 2008 at 3:59 pm
It’s a outrage!
July 2, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Dang! I hate these America haters, but he is kind of right. It is absolutely awful… awful.. that we torture prisoners. I don’t care what the reason are. We are supposed to be the good guys! If American survival depends on torture, it is better not to survive. Prayer is our only way out of this mess.
July 2, 2008 at 9:21 pm
We don’t torture prisoners. We certainly make them uncomfortable but that’s not the same thing. As for Abu Ghraib, the responsible parties have been punished; most of the other countries sitting in judgment of America would have handed out medals and promotions.
Neither is Guatanamo Bay a jail – those are prisoners of war, not criminals, no matter what Justice Kennedy woke up believing the morning he wrote his opinion. The whole concept of charges or hearings (beyond military tribunals) doesn’t fit their situation. They are held for cause.
I join with all of us in praying that America becomes more virtuous, but I daresay that God is rather more upset with abortion on demand, corruption in business and government, and our squishy marshmallow chuches. It is either blind or willfully stupid for Mr. Satullo to maunder on about isolated incidents or disputed charges when ample and abiding evil is sitting right in front of him.
July 3, 2008 at 3:28 am
The long and the short of it is this, in spite of its faults (both perceived and otherwise) do we honor the country which cradles us in our infancy, shepherds us in our adolescence, fosters us in our pride and comforts us in our decline?
Is this country perfect? No, and it never will be.
Does it bend its will to almighty God? More than most, thank God.
Does it guarauntee a rosy future? No and none could.
Does it inherently povide for the possibility that we create a more perfect future? Yes. How can we ask for more?
God Bless America.
July 4, 2008 at 5:09 am
I’ll bet the writer of this column would LOVE this woman:
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/16762609/detail.html