O beautiful for heroes proved In liberating strife,

If you read the Declaration of Independence, it came at a very high price for the freedoms we still have and have expanded upon after this document was delivered to the King of England. In the end there is this portion.

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

We have men and women in foreign nations risking their lives side by side with Muslims, yet they have not only been banned from entering our country, they have been told by our President, the troops are in those countries for the oil.

The president’s order, enacted with the stroke of a pen at 4:42 p.m. Friday, suspended entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days, barred Syrian refugees indefinitely, and blocked entry into the United States for 90 days for citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

 


And in The Bill of Rights there is this portion.

Article the third... Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

I wonder what they would think had they lived to see this day. 

America, The Beautiful Lyrics

by Katharine Lee Bates – 1913

O beautiful for spacious skies,

For amber waves of grain,

For purple mountain majesties

Above the fruited plain!

America! America! God shed His grace on thee,

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet,

Whose stern impassion’d stress

A thoroughfare for freedom beat

Across the wilderness!

America! America! God mend thine ev’ry flaw,

Confirm thy soul in self-control,

Thy liberty in law!

O beautiful for heroes proved In liberating strife,

Who more than self their country loved,

And mercy more than life!

America! America! May God thy gold refine

Till all success be nobleness,

And ev’ry gain divine!

O Beautiful for patriot dream

That sees beyond the years

Thine alabaster cities gleam,

Undimmed by human tears!

America! America! God shed His grace on thee,

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea!

Katharine Lee Bates Biography Poet, Scholar (1859–1929)

That same year, Bates spent part of the summer in Colorado. She was there lecturing at Colorado College. During her visit, she went on a hike to Pikes Peak. The view from this mountaintop inspired her most famous poem. "It was then and there, as I was looking out over the sea-like expanse of fertile country spreading away so far under those ample skies, that the opening lines of the hymn floated into my mind," she later said, according to the Library of Congress web page on "America the Beautiful."

I wonder what she would write if she had lived to this day.

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL by Ray Charles