Posted on 04/01/2012 4:17:07 PM PDT by Yaelle
I just opened my renewed passport. I decided to look at it carefully to see what has changed since last time, but I got too distracted by the quotes to do the comparison.
Inside the cover is a romantic etching of Francis Scott Key seeing that, oh say, that banner is still waving. With a stanza of his poem there, asking the question of our anthem. After seeing the whole passport, I think the question of whether it still waves is no longer just rhetoric.
Next we see the quote from Lincoln hoping the government of, by, and for the people not perish from the earth. I am still feeling patriotic, but worried about our Supreme Court, who seem to be Above the People, and seem to be deciding things for us without benefit of our actual laws...
Then my personal details, then a majestic bald eagle and the "We the People" quote from our Constitution. My heart always soars as I read those words.
The next quote is by Daniel Webster about the immovable principle of a free government. Appropriate.
"Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair" by our Founding Father George Washington is the next quote. Yes, let us. Again, I wonder if we have strayed too far when I think of the media clinging to lies and showing a great lack of wisdom.
A quote from the Declaration of Independence. Next a quote from MLK but one where he speaks of our great dream in 1776 and hopes Gd grant that it continue. Grand, yet humble and true.
The next quote is some kind of flowery speech written for John F. Kennedy about us paying any price for liberty. It doesn't quite make sense, too many modifiers, and this is the first quote that doesn't seem to belong in our passport.
Theodore Roosevelt is next, talking about how we are a new nation, with boundless possibilities. Ahem, even the possibility of tyranny? Communism? Another poor choice.
Next an Eisenhower quote saying that first we must change our hearts before we change the world. Now I am imagining hours of intern time poring over the General's speeches until they found this isolationist-sounding one.
The following page is headed by a quote from Lyndon B. Johnson. It almost makes no difference what it says, now that I've told you that. Of all our Presidents, he is on the passports? But it DOES matter which quote they chose of his to equal those from our Constitution. It DOES. "Is our world gone? We say 'Farewell'. Is a new world coming? We welcome it -- and we will bend it to the hopes of man."
Now that is scary. I assume this quote was chosen during the Obama administration.
Next could be a trick quote: "May Gd continue the unity of our country as the railroad unites the two great oceans of the world.". Inscribed on the Golden Spike at Promontory Point. Why was this quote chosen? Was the chooser actually against American unity? Is it the railroad which connects the oceans today? Was it a dissing of the Almighty?
Next is a prayer from the Mohawk tribe about the importance of gratitude to animals. I'm not saying they don't deserve it; I'm wondering why it's on our passports.
I'm taking bets on who gets quoted next. If you guessed the first black feminist, Anna Julia Cooper, why, you would win the jackpot. Something about the humanity of all of us, regardless of, you know the rest.
The last quote asks us to free our minds with each new generation to look for new worlds. It was written by Ellison S. Onizuka. I had to look him up, too. He was an astronaut with the bad luck to be aboard the Challenger when it slipped the surly bonds of earth, which was a far better quote.
If you think that it is accidental that the non founding or presidential quotes are mostly by nonwhites or that the grand theme of freedom has been taken over by a theme of "change" (and change FROM freedom is never an improvement), you haven't been paying attention.
All depends on your destination.
Does this matter to us?
What is next, money with quotes by Maya Angelou on it?
I realize this document is held in the hands of foreign government officials but the descent of the quotes is so severe in values that if we had any more pages a quote from Marx would be in there.
And if it were of Groucho I’d be ok.
Mohawks on gratitude to animals? Did you know that Mohawk means “man-eater” or “cannibal” in Algonquin?
The quote on the golden spike at Promontory Point — I don’t know if I would read too much into that, because it took place in 1869, just 4 years after the end of the War Between the States. I think they were referring to the “reunification” of the country after the end of the War.
Just be lucky it’s still in English and not habla espanol.
RFID....That’s all you need to know about the new passports. Why do words upset you?
There are quotes written inside of U.S. passports? Is this something new? Or has this always been done? I’ll have to ask a friend if I can look at her passport to check out the quotes as I don’t have one.
What bothers me is when posters emit the o in the word God.
What is wrong with saying God and spelling the whole word when speaking of Him???
No, nothing wrong with the quote on the Golden Spike. It made a lot of sense at the time. But why was it chosen among the very few quotes for our Passport?
The old one from 1999 had no quotes at all.
We just had to get out passports renewed, too.
I’m not overly worried by what’s written on it, as long as our name, etc are spelled correctly.
The worst thing is what you have to go through to renew them—and the cost to do so.
Sorry, it is the opposite of trying to offend. It’s a Jewish thing where we are forbidden to write His name on anything that is to be shortly destroyed. The ancient rabbis did not conceive of the Internet! :). Well, it’s another reminder for me of holiness as I have to make that pesky change and that remembering should do me some good. One hopes.
It sucks one has to line up at the local USPS office and it takes time for the post office union clerk to process them.
Just be lucky it’s still in English and not habla espanol.
The first pages have everything in 3 languages! English / French / Spanish. But that is just for the officials in other countries so that’s ok.
The long lists of important info and restrictions are 100% in English. So far. :)
It’s two fold:
1) It’s their agenda
2) It’s a waste of taxpayers’ dollars and trees
Well, at least it didn’t have:
“Yes, we can!”
or
“Hope and Change”
Maybe they’re saving that for his next term.
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