From a speech by Ezra Taft Benson, President Eisenhower’s Secretary of Agriculture:

The Fairness Doctrine is when it all started to fall apart. It’s where we stopped talking about patriotism because it was branded a “controversial” topic. Where we stopped talking about states rights. Where we lost our national pride. Where speaking of the United States as the greatest nation on earth was ostracized and the demonization of the United States was encouraged.

Such anti-patriotic measures have resulted in jaw-dropping situations like this one in New Hampshire:

No one is sure when daily recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance fell by the wayside at Woodbury Elementary School.

But efforts to restore them have erupted into a bitter dispute in this town of about 800 residents, with school officials blocking the exercise from classrooms over concerns that it holds children who don’t participate up to scorn.

Ronald Reagan’s ending of the Fairness Doctrine saw a re-awakening of this talk and conversation. But after over 20 years of silence, we are just now beginning to rediscover our voices.

Obama’s presidency brings with it the threat of the reimposition of the Fairness Doctrine, which would silence our voices just as we began to speak.

We need to speak out. We need to re-discover that national pride and patriotism that was once a cornerstone of this great nation. The bitterness, anger, and vitriol associated with our currently divided nation is a result of the lack of national pride. That pride is the one thing that binds us together as a nation, the thing that transcends politics and political parties, the thing that binds us together as We the People who are protective of our liberties that The Government tries to regulate or take away entirely. Our national pride is the only thing that keeps our nation from descending into the muck and mire that has plagued virtually every other nation.

A nation divided against itself will not stand.

We need to rediscover our national pride. And we need to rediscover it now, before we lose it for good.