I have a hard time with one of my pet peeves. Many I can deal with fairly well, but because it's September 11th, and I just went to a football game, I feel like this one should be shared with all of you (you're welcome ;) ).
Our national anthem. Just wait, there's substance to this, I promise. I want you to read, and pay attention to the punctuation, of the first verse of The Star Spangled Banner, the United States of America's national anthem:
Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Do you see those symbols at the end of the lines? <-- like that one! They indicate interrogatives! They're question marks! Not Exclamation points! Why do I care? Well, for one, it bugs me that when we sing this, we sing it with a huge exclamation point at the end...
"O'er the laaaaannd of the freeeeeee-eeeeee-eee! And the hooooome of theeee *big breath* braaaaaaaavvvvveeeee!!!!!!"
...but also, because of the change of meaning. Imagine that you are Francis Scott Key, a revolutionary, and that flag meant everything to you. As the sun set, you saw the flag waving, but were told that it would be bombed out by morning, that the revolution would end tonight. Everything you believed in would be consumed by monsters launched from cannons in the dark of night. Then all night, bomb after bomb explodes and shows it still there. The armament runs out of ammunition a bit before dawn. If that flag is still there, the revolution is still alive, if it's gone, many of your hopes go with it. So as the sun dawns, you ask a vital question, is that flag still there?
Do you see the change in meaning there?
Now, that flag was indeed still there, but the question was left in the first verse. We picked the first verse as our anthem, not the others, which all end with periods or exclamation points. Why did we do that? Just because we liked that one better?
May I suggest an alternative?
That final question can be taken two ways. We have never fought an all-out war against a foreign enemy on our soil since the revolutionary war, so we've never again really worried about the flag still flying, so perhaps the question relates to the other noun: "does that star-spangled banner yet wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?" In other words, the flag is still there, but we are to ask ourselves, every day, is this still the land of the free and the home of the brave? We picked the first verse as a self-reflection exercise, an opportunity for self-critique.
Are we the country that our founding fathers would have wanted us to be? Do we stand for what is stated in our mottos: E Pluribus Unum and In God we Trust? Can we really say that we are, "out of many, one?" Do we still trust in God? Are we a united or a divided people? Is this still the land of freedom that was envisioned by Thomas Paine when he wrote Common Sense? Will we still stand for those truths that we once held self-evident? Have we abused the word "freedom" to the point that it is meaningless? Do we tout the word "rights" so much that we forgot what they stood for? What are those "certain unalienable rights" with which we were "endowed by [our] creator?" The right to marry whomever we want? The right to refuse to give a marriage license? The right to say that you disagree? The right to vote for whomever you want to be president? The right to hold an opinion different from another's? The right to life? The right to liberty? The right to the pursuit of happiness?
What changed about us on 9/11/2001? What didn't? Are we living up to who we are supposed to be?
I don't offer my opinions on the above, I just want you to reflect, on this day of reflection of what makes us Americans: does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
