The (Re)birth of a Patriot

Photo: Pam Roth by way of stephen.moore on Flickr

My country 'tis of thee,
Sweet land of Liberty,
To thee I sing;
Land where my Fathers died,
Land of the Pilgrims' pride.
From every mountainside -
Let Freedom Ring!

For as long as I can remember, I have passionately and wholeheartedly loved my country. From childhood memories of singing about the Constitution (thanks to some well-meaning person from church who gifted me a cassette tape and book combo about the Founding - bet they didn't realize what seeds they were planting!) to my college years spent studying and teaching the American Founding and other aspects of our nation's character as both an American Studies major and an American history TA, America has been near and dear to my heart.

But as much as I love my country, life sure can be distracting. I graduated from college and jumped straight into a career in journalism, and at 22 my focus was more on working hard and playing harder than it was on my civic duty. I loved America, sure - but for a journalist, I was abysmally out of the loop as to what was happening in the news beyond the Orange Curtain. And, I'm ashamed to admit, that wasn't new, either. I think I was more informed as a middle-schooler banished to the nearby college campus to study until 6 p.m. (during which time I read TIME, Newsweek and the like after doing my homework) than I was in high school, college or beyond.

Until now.

Last fall, leading up to the 2008 election season, I got more involved politically than I had ever been before. Where I had been happy enough before to gather news nuggets from my almost-too-informed parents and to rely on their judgment calls, it was no longer enough. I started reading. And reading. And reading. Through the election much of my energy was funneled into helping Prop. 8 pass in California, but my interest in politics and what was happening in the world around me quickly grew beyond defending the traditional family.

The fire of patriotism and of action for our country was fanned into a conflagration, and before I knew it, all I could talk about was politics! It's as if a sleeping giant had been awakened, and I couldn't stop. The scales of complacency had fallen from my eyes, and I realized that this amazing Republic about which I had read and studied and revered my entire life was suddenly dangling by a thread, on the brink of becoming altered beyond recognition.

Yes, I know that it wasn't really a sudden change - nay, the seeds of the situation before us began ages ago. Some peg it on the radicals of the 1960s; others blame FDR and all of his New Deal programs that expanded big government like never before (and actually may have prolonged the Great Depression). Yet others take it back to before immigration reforms in the 1920s which sought to stave off a new kind of immigrant, one with radical philosophical leanings based in European socialism and Russian Communism instead of in the American values of liberty, self-reliance and faith in God. Let's not forget Woodrow Wilson's progressivism, either. Heck, I recently heard someone trace the roots of where we are today all the way back to the 1880s!

Well, it's like Billy Joel said in his epic "We Didn't Start the Fire" - we didn't start the fire, sure, but that's irrelevant at this point, really. We need to collectively take a stand and start to fight it, to maintain what ground (Conservative principles, religious freedoms, capitalism, etc.) we can.

And that's why I'm starting this blog. Posting links on Facebook is no longer enough for me. Besides alienating my liberal friends aplenty on there, it doesn't give me enough of a sandbox and creative space to express my thoughts and share my learning on this journey back to the principles that make this nation great (and to exposing all of the lies and the hypocrisy out there that the mainstream - or, shall I say, mainly marginalized - media isn't going to make known). I hope that you'll enjoy joining me in this journey and helping me fight for what's truly amazing about this country, to fight for the phenomenal principles upon which we were founded so long ago which empowered America to make what Cleon Skousen calls a "5,000-year leap."

More on that later. For now, let me just say that I echo the clip before - I'm mad as... well... That Hot Place - and I'm not going to take it anymore!