Land of Confusion: Our Era of Responsibility
Every morning on my way to work I pass one of the largest American flags I’ve ever had the distinction to see first hand. And every morning since the inauguration – and release of Umphrey’s McGee’s Mantis – as I wait patiently sitting at that stop light while staring at that flag I tend to bounce my thoughts back and forth between the president’s speech and the opening line to the title track of Mantis…
We believe there’s something here worth dying for…
Oh, how those lyrics ring true for our country’s past, present and future. People have fought and died to defend the ideals that our government originally set forth.
Obama touched on this issue, too, and spoke of an era of responsibility with these great words from his inauguration speech:
What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility – a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.
This is the price and the promise of citizenship.
READ ON for more of this week’s Land of Confusion column…
