From Link
By Joseph Pearce
Will the real Uncle Sam please stand up?
Hello friends!
One of my favorite country songs of recent years is "Small Town Southern Man" by Alan Jackson (listen to it here on YouTube). The only line in the lyrics of this otherwise entirely healthy song that leaves me feeling a little ambivalent is that referring to bowing his head to Jesus and standing for Uncle Sam. I have no ambivalence to bowing the head to Jesus, of course, but I can't help feeling a little uneasy about the standing for Uncle Sam. No, as one who became an American citizen several years ago, I'm not being unpatriotic. Please hear me out.
I am happy, indeed honoured, to stand for my country. I am, however, reminded of the words of Chesterton who said that to say my country right or wrong is like saying my mother drunk or sober. If Uncle Sam is really a benevolent "uncle", all well and good. But who exactly is the Uncle Sam for whom we're being asked to stand? If he's the personification of small town America, standing on its own two feet, Christian, and raising a family in the traditional way, I'm all for Uncle Sam. But is Uncle Sam a Christian? Is he a small town American man? Is he a family man?
Or is Uncle Sam synonymous with the Federal Government? Is Uncle Sam more concerned with marching through Georgia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran than supporting his kinsfolk in the small towns of America?
As an English-American, I see ominous parallels between Uncle Sam and John Bull, the latter of whom is a personification of the might of the British Empire. Years ago, I ceased being a Great Britisher who idolized the Empire and became a Little Englander who simply loved the smallness and beauty of my country. I summed up the difference between a Great Britisher and a Little Englander in a short poem entitled "Sunset":
When Britain had an Empire
The sun would never set,
But the sun set over England
And Englishmen forget
That greater than the Empire
Are the rolling Yorkshire moors,
And more glorious the Dales
Than all the Empire's wars.
If Uncle Sam represents all that is truly good and small and noble in America, I will stand for Uncle Sam as willingly as the small town southern man in Alan Jackson's song. If, however, Uncle Sam is a bullying imperialist who believes in big government and in the crushing of religious freedom and destroying the very fabric of the traditional family, Uncle Sam can go to Hell!
Will the real Uncle Sam please stand up so that we can know whether we are to stand with him or against him?
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Comments are subject to deletion if they are not germane. I have no problem with a bit of colourful language, but blasphemy or depraved profanity will not be allowed. Attacks on the Catholic Faith will not be tolerated. Comments will be deleted that are republican (Yanks! Note the lower case 'r'!), attacks on the legitimacy of Pope Francis as the Vicar of Christ (I know he's a material heretic and a Protector of Perverts, and I definitely want him gone yesterday! However, he is Pope, and I pray for him every day.), the legitimacy of the House of Windsor or of the claims of the Elder Line of the House of France, or attacks on the legitimacy of any of the currently ruling Houses of Europe.