4th of July for an Okie Trad

From the Lakes of Minnesota

To the Hills of Tennessee

Across the Plains of Texas

From Sea to Shining Sea

(God Bless the USA, song)

I remember patriotically singing this Southern Country song as it played from my radio driving my first car in high school.  Americans, especially here in Heartland Oklahoma, were united in winning the Persian Gulf War.  Neighborhood friends still played in the streets, and many of us wanted to enlist to serve our country.  It was cool and righteous. 

Two decades later the country is now understandably splintered into a pleurality of narcissistic, pessimistic ideologies.  We have effectively grown to disdain our own country and government.

135. Which are some of the other moral virtues?
Some of the other moral virtues are:  Filial piety and patriotism, which dispose us to honor, love, and respect our parents and our country...

(Baltimore Catechism)

Times have changed.   The new morality of Millenials reigns.  Secular humanism is now officially our value system.  Freedom has been crushed.  I myself have transitioned over the years from Republican neo-conservatism to Monarchial paleo-conservatism.  My optimism in our government has dwindled.

Yet as a traditional Catholic, I am compelled by the catechism to declare on this 4th once again my "filial piety and patriotism" for my country--for better or worse--this grand US of A!!!  I am grateful for the freedoms, economic opportunities, and justices for which my mother and aunts immigrated from post-Nazi/Communist Germany. 

So my fellow countrymen and traditional Catholic friends (emphasis mine):

And I'd gladly stand up

Next to you and defend her still today

'Cause their ain't no doubt I love this land,

God bless the USA

(God Bless the USA, song)

Happy 4th of July!