{"id":2304,"date":"2012-11-21T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-11-21T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2012\/11\/remember-when-it-was-cool-to-celebrate-america.html"},"modified":"2012-11-21T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-11-21T13:00:00","slug":"remember-when-it-was-cool-to-celebrate-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2012\/11\/remember-when-it-was-cool-to-celebrate-america.html","title":{"rendered":"Remember when it was cool to celebrate America?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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I don\u2019t. \u00a0A child of the post-Boomer generation, I never knew a time when patriotism wasn\u2019t popularly portrayed as Frank Burns, Archie Bunker, or Alex Keaton. \u00a0Our\u00a0military\u00a0was a bizarre\u00a0cross-section\u00a0of Rambos and Bill Kilgores, running about musing on their love of\u00a0napalm\u00a0in the morning. \u00a0Outside of the\u00a0elementary\u00a0school classroom, it was clear that focusing on the meaner aspects of our heritage was all the rage. \u00a0By the late 70s, inside the classroom as well. \u00a0And it wasn\u2019t just in the academic ivory towers. \u00a0It was filtering into mainstream America. \u00a0When the miniseries Roots <\/i>hit the\u00a0airwaves\u00a0in 1977, America was already primed to take a long, hard look at the\u00a0heritage we once celebrated.<\/p>\n

Today, of course, it is all negative. \u00a0Almost any nod to anything in our past must include\u00a0citations\u00a0of racism, discrimination, imperialism, slavery, genocide. \u00a0We no longer have the capacity to see good\u00a0without\u00a0setting it alongside evil. \u00a0An American trend. \u00a0And not a good one. \u00a0As I\u2019ve said before, it\u2019s one thing to say \u2018bless me father, for I have sinned.\u2019 \u00a0It\u2019s quite another to conclude I\u2019m a complete loss with no redeeming\u00a0qualities. \u00a0Once that\u00a0occurs\u00a0 you can expect the drugs, sex addition, alcoholism, and suicidal tendencies to come on quickly. \u00a0As we watch America\u2019s decent into post-power status, I can\u2019t help\u00a0believe\u00a0that\u2019s where we\u2019re at. \u00a0After all, a country that\u00a0sucks\u00a0as much as ours just isn\u2019t worth caring about, much less defending.<\/p>\n

And as a Catholic, I must admit, the old Protestant stereotypes weren\u2019t always far off. \u00a0There is quite a substantial\u00a0segment\u00a0on the Catholic blogosphere that has little to no regards for the good old USA. \u00a0Ranging everywhere from philosophical condemnations, to axes to grind owing to a\u00a0lineage\u00a0that traces back to those oppressed by the American government, there are plenty who, as Catholics, have little to no love for the country in which they live. <\/p>\n

This is aided, of\u00a0course\u00a0 by the progressive movement which, like any\u00a0revolutionary\u00a0movement, can find nothing but ill in this society it seeks to change. \u00a0The secular and\u00a0liberal\u00a0movements\u00a0have accomplished much over\u00a0the\u00a0years by keeping our attention on the worst elements of America\u2019s past. \u00a0Just like in Europe, where tales of witch\u00a0burnings, inquisitions, corrupt clergy, and\u00a0oppressive\u00a0papacy have helped to erode the\u00a0Church\u2019s\u00a0influence by being told and retold ad nauseum<\/i>, so in America, the constant retelling of every terrible thing has gone a long way toward setting up the post-Christian\/post-Traditional American society that progressives crave. \u00a0It\u2019s not new, of course. \u00a0Our Founding Fathers took a dispute over taxes and turned it into a cosmic clash between good and evil. \u00a0It\u2019s what revolutions do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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Posters from the New Evangelists<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

But now the revolution is coming to a close. \u00a0As more people are warming to gay marriage, as Americans are abandoning their traditional religious identifications, and those who would try to defend the relics of a bygone era are\u00a0increasingly\u00a0mocked and derided, and as legalized drugs, legalized abortion, and the eradication of public displays of religion are becoming the norm, it\u2019s not hard to imagine that in the not-too-distant, anything that\u00a0purports\u00a0to lift up the\u00a0foundations\u00a0of That America will go the way of the Dodo bird; once retailers have trained us to move past a certain Thursday celebration that is increasingly in the way of their bottom line.<\/p>\n

But in the meantime, at the twilight of an America that once was, allow me to raise a cup of cheer and celebrate those brave\u00a0adventurers\u00a0who put it all on the line. \u00a0It\u2019s a testimony to our agenda driven scholarship that we don\u2019t see this event as an example of what could have been. \u00a0Invoking modern forms of bigotry, we look at the key participants, divide them into the Good Guys and Bad Guys, and judge accordingly. \u00a0That the pilgrims sacrificed all for a cause should make us wonder how good we are, who won\u2019t show up for an anti-war rally because of bad weather. \u00a0That the pilgrims and the Indians made a peace agreement that lasted almost 50 years should be a model of what could have been, rather than dismissed in order to\u00a0condemn\u00a0what came centuries later. \u00a0That the two groups who were complex and had many different traits and wants and desires were able to cooperate, could help us see how different people can come together for a greater good. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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A not altogether false portrayal, and one I prefer to the bilge of today<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

You\u2019d think that might be the lesson. \u00a0But history, as always, tells us more about the historian than the history being written. \u00a0For me, obviously I seek to retain something of the good that was America, no matter its sins. \u00a0I feel we can even celebrate America without the need to always trot out some associated (or not associated) sin of the past. \u00a0Others, however, who are much more influential today, do not do this with our history. \u00a0Rather they attempt to ignore it altogether, aiming to impose their values on us regarding some other belief they have, or they seek to tear down the last vestiges of the American experiment. \u00a0For them, this day will be, at best, a vague family time that signals the consumer spending frenzy that is Wall Street\u2019s favorite holiday. <\/p>\n

But for us who like keeping Christ in Christmas, it wouldn\u2019t hurt to see just what those Pilgrims did all those years ago to keep Christ in the center of their lives. \u00a0Oh sure, we can criticize and condemn, and many Catholics prefer that approach, I\u2019m sad to say. \u00a0But for me, if I\u2019m a little bothered by the growing encroachment of radical secularization, I could do far worse than take a play
\nfrom the Pilgrims\u2019 playbook, and use it to inspire me to give it all for the cause. \u00a0They did. \u00a0And as a follower of Christ, even a Catholic, I can look at them with respect and awe and see that the past many want to change might be a past worth remembering after all.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t. \u00a0A child of the post-Boomer generation, I never knew a time when patriotism wasn\u2019t popularly portrayed as Frank Burns, Archie Bunker, or Alex Keaton. \u00a0Our\u00a0military\u00a0was a bizarre\u00a0cross-section\u00a0of Rambos and Bill Kilgores, running about musing on their love of\u00a0napalm\u00a0in the morning. \u00a0Outside of the\u00a0elementary\u00a0school classroom, it was clear that focusing on the meaner aspects […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2805,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nRemember when it was cool to celebrate America?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I don't.  A child of the post-Boomer generation, I never knew a time when patriotism wasn't popularly portrayed 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