Ever since Ronald Reagan started this unnecessary habit of ending every speech with the trite phrase "God Bless America", every other President since then to follow him, and worse every other candidate to simply run for President (except for intellectuals Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, and Ron Paul), have also just continued to blather away "God Bless America" like sheep every single time they speak, as if it were some kind of magic receipe.
It gets a little old (unoriginal).
It also sends a dangerous message that encourages the wrong emotions, by feeding into this arrogant idea of American exceptionalism, and fomenting a nasty combination of Nationalism and Religious superiority to the point where, already an Empire, people then feel our Country is justified in creating mass violence, chaos, destruction, unlimited War, human rights atrocities, etc., because well....God is on our side, right?
I'm tired of it.
I'm tired of this ugly, reptilian Nationalism, this faux-Patriotism, and this totally phony form of spirituality. It is unhealthy; it solves nothing; nor will saying it ever make a morally (and financially) bankrupt Nation a great Nation.
I noticed Obama ended his Election-day speech once again with "God Bless America", and he also ended his Party Nomination speech that same way too.
Enough!
Can't we have a President for once, that does not play into these crass, narrow, base emotions of national superiority and the allegiance to religous order?
FDR, John Kennedy, Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter, etc. never had to do this. Abraham Lincoln never had to do this. Ironically, the only President that we ever had who actually was a real preacher (Jimmy Carter), never ended his speeches this way.
If the United States ever wants to grow up, it better realize that competent government, and spirituality both attain their highest integrity, and flourish best when they are completely separated.
I don't want to hear Obama say "God Bless America" for 8 long years, I want to hear him talk about how America can fulfill its broken ideals and live up to the objectives of U.S. Constitution again.
A little George Carlin fun!