Redstate

By gamecock Posted in Archived — Comments (19) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

I have always been an American exceptionalist that loved America from the First Grade till today.

I have always been patriotic.

I shed tears upon hearing the National Anthem, speeches quoting the Founders, Lincoln, FDR, etc.

But the patriotism I had before 911 doesn't compare to the patriotism I feel to my bones everyday post 911. The patriotism I feel now is akin to the way one's feelings about one's parents changes over time after they die. At some point you are shocked and stunned in a very desperate way with the fact of who they were, how so very precious and important they were, and how much they loved you, and you can hardly bear the fact that you can't repay it more now that you realize just how important they were.

My parents were both passed away before 911.

Mother when I was 17, but Dad, just two years before 911. To not be able to talk to Dad and watch ballgames was already a source of great pain, but then to not be able to see him now.

And then it struck me.

I looked around at America in a whole new way, especially those in my communities and State, but also the whole country. I saw the country that my Mom and Dad lived and died in and left their mark upon. I was one of their marks, and this was my country.

And others wanted to destroy my country. To cause my Dad to die all over again. To cause all of us and all we have been, are and will be, to die, utterly, and forever.

The Cold War was never real to me. Probably because I was in a Carter-like liberal in denial.

After my 2000 conservative epiphany, though, when I read many books about Reagan and what he faced, I now realize how dangerous was the world I sleepwalked thru while Reagan won the war.

But on 911 and after, it really hit me just how much I loved this country and would do anything to preserve it for posterity.

I thought back to a College Professor that I didn't understand at the time. He would tear up talking about sitting on the banks of the Panama Canal watching our Boys go to fight Japan after Pearl Harbor. I didn't understand then. I was a young spoiled American that just took all this for granted. WWII was history and it had to be that way....

Well, when the WTC towers fell, I knew that things would be like they would be only if we fought and won. And what was to happen post-911 wasn't in a history book.

It was and is in us. George W Bush is one of us, and he has in him what many of us have in us. Hopefully a majority. I am confident it is a strong majority. But there is a strong minority that does not have in themselves what Bush and I and Millions have that will not let us ever stop fighting to save this country, and that is a love so deep that to live is to love this country.

It is THE emotion.

The emotion that animates a man to want to live. That cares about his fellow man. After the fall, and more specifically, after man united under one government totally alienated from God living in pure evil, God separated man into nations so that evil would not compound exponentially. So that nations could check each other and not be as likely to think himself God.

So it is God's plan that men look after themselves in groups that take care of themselves first and protect themselves from others. For when man is not so separated, he is less able to see God.

Patriotism is really a barometer to determine if a man is truly alive in God's world. Is a man's life connected with others or is he an Island to self?

This patriotism I have post-911 is different in kind from what it was pre-911. I think about this love everyday. And I guess it explains my complete and total contempt for people that show that they do not love this country by what they say and do.

They say they love this country, but what they really love is themselves and an imaginary country that never was and never will be. They are not connected to our people by love.

No.

They are connected to us and this land; more like a Scientist is to guinea pigs, or doctors to patients, or a hotel patron to the Hotel staff, or curious ex-patriots from Utopia nation. We just don't measure up to them. They just can't accept that this is as good as it gets. They hate life because they are surrounded by Neanderthals compared to them. They hate their parents for not fixing the world before they were born into it. They reject the notion that man cannot perfect himself thru social structure. They reject the notion that war is ever necessary. Send a few detectives to Tora Bora.

It is people like these that look at 5000 years of history in which there has always been war and in which civilizations like them fell to barbarians, and yet come away clueless and in denial. If only people would just do right, then I might could love them...

Well, they wait to love and so are not prepared to fight.

And if we are to preserve this nation we love, we will have to defeat the Left just as surely as we have to defeat the Jihadists.

God Bless America on this most special of America's days.

Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
The HinzSight Report
The Minority Report
Race 4 2008