Cameron Brown: Oh say, can you see?
How many national anthems begin with a question? Ours does, and it is a question about vision and clarity. A question each generation must answer. A question that is front and center on the national stage.
The contest before us presents two contrasting views of the condition of America — the condition of our freedom and liberty. Both views cannot be right, and so it is a contest that challenges our thinking about the purpose of America to be either a Redeemer Nation, or in the words of John Winthrop, “a story and a by-word through the world.”
As the banner of freedom parades before us, what do we see? How discerning are we of the signs of the times? Can we see past the maze of disinformation and propaganda? Can we navigate our way through these difficult days, or are we destined to veer off into the danger zone on the narrow road of truth? How is an open border good public policy? Afterall, don’t we lock our own doors at night? Defender or pretender? That is the great question before us, and while questions abound, answers grounded in common sense vie for listening ears.
Preceding the American Civil War, poet James Russell Lowell penned these words in his poem “The Present Crisis:” “Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide in the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side.” Oh, but can’t we all just get along, have a V8, go home and be happy? Unfortunately, a kumbaya moment this is not. To even the casual observer, America, and dare we say, Western Civilization, is in peril. Josiah Holland’s words ring true, “A time like this demands strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands.” How we need the Founders devotion to purpose. They pledged their lives, their fortunes and sacred honor to bequeath us a nation full of promise and opportunity, and ever since, America, at its best, has been aspirational. So, we can solve our own present-day crisis by an informed citizenry expressing the will of the people through free and fair elections. It is the people who decide the fate of the nation, not the corporate media nor false electioneering.
A keen observer of human nature, Maya Angelou made this perceptive observation: “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” In a larger sense, how do we feel about America today? Our feelings are born from our collective experience. Do we feel the uplifting hope and promise of America, or the weight of decline and the abandonment of precepts long established for our pursuit of happiness? In our pursuit of truth, a simple Biblical injunction may be the proof text for our discernment: “You will know them by their fruits.”
— Cameron S. Brown is president of the Kalamazoo Abraham Lincoln Institute and a former Michigan State Senator. Follow him at HistoryFrontiers.blog.
This article originally appeared on Sturgis Journal: Cameron Brown: Oh say, can you see?
