Long May Our Flag Wave

Oh, say can you see? Oh, yes, I can. I can see that this country is one of the greatest places on earth. Since the wild and raucous seventies, people have been singing about this country, and not exactly in love songs, either, though they are still here and if it was that bad, they would have packed their bags and left long ago.

This is one of the greatest countries on earth because they provided a safe haven for my grandparents, aunts and uncles and great-parents as they fled the Russian pogroms and for my father and his best friend as picked up the pieces of was left and they came here after the Nazis. And we provide a safe haven for too many others, too, which has turned into a problem.

Still, it is and remains one of the greatest countries on earth, a beacon of hope for those who have weathered one storm too many. And it will remain a great country if we start setting some standards and start playing our cards right, or at least differently.

This is one of the few countries where a person can speak his mind without fear of being carted off in the middle of the night, where a woman can regain some measure of dignity after she has been sexually abused, where a person can come here with nothing and at least be given a second chance and where children don't have to go hungry because they will be fed at school.

G-d bless America and G'd bless us all. Long may our flag wave.