The Star Spangled Banner-Boston Style
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 41 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Wow!
Oh, I hope that people remember to sing it so well together always. Thanks for the recording. I have avoided the takeover by pop star/entertainer ‘performances’ for years. Now, what’s the purpose of that chandelier ?
Who were the morons whistling while the anthem was being sung? I’ve heard British soccer hooligans doing this, but only to the opposing team’s anthem, never their own.
Congratulations to Rene.
He removed himself and the graces flowed.
Thanks Donald.
I don’t get it. Celebrating martial law, unconstitutional searches, military troops acing as domestic police, domestic police acting as military troops, illegal and unconstitutional restrictions on the movement and activity of American citizens, a city emptied at the order of The State, commerce and free exchange halted by government….these are causes to celebrate?
American liberty was born in Boston, and it’s death throes are now being seen in Boston a little over 200 years later, and their citizens respond with a rousing rendition of The Star Spangled Banner. Well, not this citizen. Ben Franklin told us “those who are willing to sacrifice liberty for security will have neither”.
So it is true, liberty dies not with a whimper but to the roar of the crowd, a crowd of Boston sheeple.
Utter rubbbish. Typical police measures were used to deal with a terrorist action. The Founding Fathers did far worse in the Revolution to Tories siding with the British. Ben Franklin, who you quote, applauded the imprisonment without charges of his own son, the Royal Governor of New Jersey, during the Revolution. In the time of the Founding Fathers the captured terrorist could look forward to a quick trial and a quicker execution. Where do you get your history from? The Daily Paul?
I wonder if the Bostonian Irish-Americans, who by their generous donations to Noraid funded terrorist bombings in other people’s cities, are having second thoughts now that they have experienced terrorist bombings in their own.
Perhaps Brits now regret that whole Strongbow business also John?
Strongbow was a 12th century Norman baron. In fact, we Brits are so resentful of what happened after 1066 we’re going to set off bombs in Rouen.
“Strongbow was a 12th century Norman baron. In fact, we Brits are so resentful of what happened after 1066 we’re going to set off bombs in Rouen.”
I have no doubt you would be doing so John if the French still ruled part of England, or if the French had ruled England, as England ruled Ireland, until 1921.
Whether it’s Boston, Belfast or Birmingham, this kind of atrocity cannot be justified whatever the perpetrators’ grievances, real or imagined, are. Those who support these acts are morally culpable. The people killed and maimed by devices left in pubs and shopping centres associated Strongbow only with a brand of cider.
My comment was intended ironically, and I resent the implication that I would countenance indiscriminate terrorist acts against innocent civilians.
And Strongbow would have stayed in Wales had not the King of Leinster, Dermot MacMurrough, invited him and his knights to invade.
“And Strongbow would have stayed in Wales had not the King of Leinster, Dermot MacMurrough, invited him and his knights to invade.”
And that justifies some eight centuries of tyranny over the Irish John?
“My comment was intended ironically, and I resent the implication that I would countenance indiscriminate terrorist acts against innocent civilians.”
Do you then wish to register your strong opposition to the British policy of nighttime bombing over urban areas during World War II John? I believe “dehousing” was the euphemism used.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehousing
As it happens I am opposed to the current incarnation of the IRA due to its Marxism and also because I realize that as long as there is a majority Protestant population in Ulster re-unification is impossible without a bloody civil war. However I will never allow anyone to condemn IRA bombings without a review of the Anglo-Irish history that led to such bombings.
One of the reasons PIRA split from the ‘Official’ IRA was that the latter was seen to be Marxist. And PIRA, not OIRA (although it had its own splinter group, INLA) was the ‘motor’ which drove the Troubles. The loyalist terror groups were mainly reactive, more openly sectarian, and less well organized. If you concede the point that terrorist bombing can be justified by history, then logically you can’t condemn Al-Qaeda terrorism either – in their case the history is even more recent. You or I might see the US as the ‘good guys’, but the Palestinians and the Moslem world generally are not of this opinion.
The conflict of 1968 -1997, its origins, course and ultimate resolution, has been trawled over and reviewed from all angles, mostly by investigative journalists of every political shade. I followed it closely throughout, and Ed Moloney’s ‘Secret History of the IRA’ filled in a lot of gaps, particularly with regard to the genesis of the ‘peace process’. Some aspects will probably never come to light, but there is enough out there to go on, although it requires an open mind and an ability to distinguish facts from propaganda. One thing stands out – the PIRA bombing campaign, apart from its intrinsic immorality (which was condemned by the Church) not only failed in all its objectives, but was actually counter-productive.
For the record, I believe the Allied policy of saturation bombing, particularly towards the end of the war, was indeed immoral, and even Churchill (who endorsed it) later had misgivings. This doesn’t detract from the bravery of the aircrew of Bomber Command, whose losses were horrendous, and who were never awarded a campaign medal.