There's been a lot of talk lately about changing the Constitution. Congressman Duncan Hunter says he'd like to see repeal of the 14th Amendment guarantee of citizenship for all children born in the United States. The Tea Party wants to get rid of the 17th Amendment, requiring popular election of United States senators. And there's a growing list of supporters for an Amendment that would give the states the power to repeal laws and regulations they don't like.
While these are all good suggestions that I hope will someday be the law of our land, there's a problem we need to get to first: the desecration of our national anthem.
I'm not just talking about a Constitutional change aimed at people who stand up in front of God knows how many thousands of fans at a baseball game and forget the words. And I'm not talking about the people who wouldn't know a dawnzerly light if it was shining in their drug-narrowed pupils. I'm talking about the deviants, the ones who veer, in major and minor ways, from the notes that so many of our forbears died or went hoarse to protect.
What do our enemies think when they hear seven big flat ones in "land of the freeeeee"? I'll tell you what they think. They think: "If these guys can't hold a tune, they sure as hell aren't gonna hold Kandahar." They think, "We should just let these guys sing and everybody's going to want to kill them."
And then there's what this says to your Socialists/Marxists. If we allow dissonance to become the norm, how long will it be before these people conclude that we approve of dissidents? Pretty soon you've got a flag with one white, one red and one blue stripe and people at ball games singing "Russia -- our sacred state, Russia -- our beloved country. A mighty will, a great glory --Your possession for all future ages."
It doesn't even rhyme.
Finally, what do we tell our kids, the little people to whom we'll pass the torch of freedom when it gets too heavy for us? How do you tell them that the only pitch Americans really care about begins fifty-nine feet from home plate? How do you say to them with a straight face that embouchure still matters, that the shape of this country may well depend upon the shape of their mouths? The answer is you can't, not with a straight face.
Can we continue to allow these kinds of dangerous signals to circle the globe and come back and hit us in the rear because we're not smart enough to know the world is round? Not this Yankee.
What I propose to deal with this great and gathering threat is simple. First, we authorize the NSA to record every singing of the national anthem occurring anywhere in the world (and don't give me that "extraterritorial" crap). Then a special, secret court composed of a choir director, a cantor, and Placido Domingo will listen to them and go thumbs up or down on whether they're in the key of D or, for that matter, any key at all. If they fail the test, we send Joe Arpaio to the house and perp walk the desecrator to the slammer, toot sweet.
I know the bleeding hearts will argue that we already have a way to deal with this problem. They say the FISA (Faithfulness In Singing Anthem) Court has all the tools needed to put the key back in Francis Scott Key. Well, that may be good enough for some people, but it doesn't cut it with this Dittohead. These people need to be put behind bars -- eight or sixteen, I don't care -- pronto. We can give them "singing" lessons, if you get my drift, after they've settled in.