Should We "Turn Off" The National Anthem?

Following Christina Aguilera's fiasco performance of, "The Star Spangled Banner," at last Sunday's Super Bowl before a record television audience of 111 million viewers, there are those now calling for "THE Anthem" to be axed from sporting events.

This is probably more of an opportunity to advance a personal agenda than to cover for Aguilera.
And it's not a new effort. The idea of getting rid of the Anthem has been floating around for some time.

AOL, who announced earlier this week they had purchased the ultra liberal "Huffington Post," carried a story by Kevin Blackistone titled, "Time To Turn Off The National Anthem At Sporting Events." And yes, he thinks we should.

He calls it another "mindless ritual."

Other headlines this week include, "National Anthem Should Be Banned From Sports," "Fans, Not Stars, Should Sing Anthem At Sports Events," "Oh Say Can We Sing," etc., etc.

This idea has been around for a while. Michael Kinsley, whom Blackistone references, wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post back in the summer of 2009 advocating dumping the Anthem saying, "Anything would be better than those 'bombs bursting in air'."

Kinsley, half heartedly, goes through a number of alternative songs, pointing out that "This Land Is Your Land" has found mainstream acceptance even though Woody Gutherie, a communist, wrote the song out of annoyance at the popularity of "God Bless America." Clearly Gutherie had a very different view of America's future than most of us would have.

Kinsley says "even Republicans " like the song because they are unaware of its origins.

Not all Republicans are unaware, Mr. Kinsley.

What do you think? Should we dump the Anthem for another song? Is there a better song that we should be using? Is this just a mindless ritual? Or are these folks just trying to exploit an opportunity to further undermine one more public expression of patriotism?

Personally, I think we should keep the song, continue to sing or perform it at sports events and forget the celebs who probably, for the most part, agree with Gutherie and let the folks sing it.

What do you think?

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Gary Randall
President
Faith and Freedom

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