Thursday, November 21, 2013

Obama recites Gettysburg Address; omits "under God"

Mark Alexander writes about this week's 150th celebration of President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Barack Obama recited the Address, but he omitted the words "under God." Here is how Lincoln wrote and delivered that part of the address:

that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

So why did Obama choose to omit these essential words?

Barack Obama has a long history of omitting references to God, such as his repeated omission of “endowed by our Creator” when referencing the Declaration of Independence.

So what is Obama’s overarching objective?

Under the pretense of “religious tolerance,” Barack Obama’s administration has been quietly advancing his mandate to remove all expressions or manifestations of faith from government forums – excepting Islam. This eradication serves the Left’s strategic objective of replacing God-given Rule of Law with the rule of men – because the former is predicated on the principle of Liberty “endowed by our Creator,” while the latter asserts that Liberty is the gift of potentates and presidents.

Obama’s administrators are constantly endeavoring to drive wedges between Liberty and its inherent foundational endowment. Most notably, he has done this in those spheres where he can exercise power and influence without legislative and judicial precedents – such as our military.

As commander in chief, Obama has certainly succeeded in suppressing religious expression by uniformed Patriots in our military service branches. However, his subversion of faith expression in the military is not going without objection.

For example, last year The Patriot uncovered what appears to be a legal setup by Obama’s DoD civilian administrators and their surrogates, which has the potential to force the removal of “so help me God” from all military oaths. That strategic ploy starts with the 2011 removal of those words from officer, enlisted and cadet oaths at the Air Force Academy. Three weeks ago, we published a detailed account of that strategy. This week, in response to that column, 28 members of Congress issued an official letter of inquiry to the Superintendent of the Air Force Academy asking for “a detailed explanation as to why [they omitted] ‘so help me God’ from these oaths, despite the fact that the phrase is used in the very statutory language of the United States Code, and was part of the military oath drafted by the Founders themselves.”

(A Fox News report notes the AFA’s Public Affairs Office claimed yesterday, “It was an editorial oversight,” however, a Freedom of Information Act request will be filed tomorrow in an effort to determine if anyone outside the AFA had a hand in the alteration of oaths.)

Next week, we observe with reverence our timeless Thanksgiving holiday, which has been celebrated appropriately throughout our history. We do so as a nation, because a month before his Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln officially designated a national day of “Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens,” on the fourth Thursday of November.

In his proclamation, Lincoln referenced the “ever watchful providence of Almighty God.” He noted of our innumerable blessings, “No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God,” and recommended “offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him,” that we all may “fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace.”

Of course, the first Thanksgiving proclamation was issued by George Washington in 1789. He declared, “Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God,” that all Americans should “unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions…”

That history notwithstanding, last year, as with all his previous Thanksgiving addresses, Barack Obama refused to credit our Creator in acknowledgment of Thanksgiving, just as he has omitted God from other historic references.

No comments: