This is “An Appeal to Heaven” flag controversy. You know the flag with the pine tree on it? Also known as the Pine Tree Flag? Do you know what this flag means? What it stands for? You should if you’re a patriotic American. This flag holds historical significance in your history. It was a symbol used by colonists in the struggle for independence against monarchy. Washington’s forces were among many who flew the flag. Men died on the battlefield and at sea carrying this flag. Don’t let those sacrifices escape your thoughts on this Memorial Day weekend—or the ideals for which those sacrifices were made.
This phrase “an appeal to heaven” originates in John Locke’s writings on natural rights, which influenced many of the founding fathers of the United States. The phrase can be inferred from a passage in the Second Treatise (Chapter 3) of Locke’s Two Treatises of Government. There, Locke discusses the principles of natural rights and the consent of the governed. The passage justifies resistance to tyranny and the right of individuals to overthrow oppressive regimes. It’s pretty obvious that Thomas Jefferson cribbed Locke’s words from this passage in penning the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776:
Where-ever law ends, tyranny begins, if the law be transgressed to anothers harm; and whosoever in authority exceeds the power given him by the law, and makes use of the force he has under his command, to compass that upon the subject, which the law allows not, ceases in that to be a magistrate; and, acting without authority, may be opposed, as any other man, who by force invades the right of another. This is acknowledged in subordinate magistrates. He that hath authority to seize my person in the street, may be opposed as a thief and a robber, if he endeavours to break into my house to execute a writ, notwithstanding that I know he has such a warrant, and such a legal authority, as will empower him to arrest me abroad. And why this should not hold in the highest, as well as in the most inferior magistrate, I would fain know. Why he that hath authority to seize my person upon my own land, and carry me into prison, if I refuse to submit to the magistrate, shall not also be opposed, if he endeavors to take me when I am going about my business, without any disobedience, and shall execute no legal authority upon me; I am sure it is a very intelligible proposition to say, every man has a right to punish the offender, and be the executioner of the law of nature.
An appeal to heaven moreover reflects the idea that when all other recourse fails, individuals have the right to appeal to a higher power or natural law for justice and protection. As I recently noted in Rise of the Domestic Clerical Fascist and the Specter of Christian Nationalism (see also Manufacturing Moral Panic Over Christianity), this is not a Christian nation, but the revolutionaries who founded this nation were for the most part Christians (with a few Deists among them) and they believed in providence. References to the “Creator” and “Nature’s God” in the Declaration are not accidental. These were men moved by higher purpose. These were men who understood that our rights come not from man but must be secured by men. These were men wont to make an appeal to heaven.
Today, while the details of the flag’s history may be elusive to many (not to the corporate state’s propaganda corp), it is recognized by those who fly it to be a symbol of American resilience and the constant struggle to keep liberty alive. But leave it to the propagandists of the corporate state, that force that wishes to take us back to a New Feudalism, to make serfs of us, to make a flag extolling the virtues of individual liberty and democratic freedom out to be a symbol of reaction. The establishment media and progressives are telling you that Samuel Alito is a bad fellow because he flies a hateful flag over his Long Beach home in New Jersey. This is not a flag of hate. It’s a flag of love—love for freedom and individual autonomy.
Of course the flag is hateful in their eyes. They despise individual liberty and democratic freedom. They’re statists, the servants of corporate power. They hate MAGA because it’s MAGA that makes explicit its intent to deconstruct the unconstitutional unelected fourth branch of government—the administrative state—and return the country to its democratic republican and classical liberal foundations. You have to understand that freedom and democracy are anathema to authoritarianism and fascism. The illiberal mind reacts to liberty the way a flatworm flips when exposed to light. Rank-and-file progressives are genuinely triggered by the symbols of liberty. At this rate, I’m expecting Old Glory herself will be depicted as a reactionary symbol in the run-up to November 5.
One more thing before I hit the end-of-rant button. Have you noticed that words and symbols mean whatever progressives say they mean? A woman is not an adult female human. The word “woman” can mean anything a progressive says it means when it advances the woke agenda. It can even mean a man. A dinosaur emoticon is a trans symbol. Don’t use if it you’re not part of the tribe. The okay hand signal is a fascist signal. The upside flag, the universal sign of distress, means “Stop the Steal.” How are progressives able to do this? Because they have captured our sense-making institutions. The only way to stop the madness is to put them out of power. November 5th can’t come fast enough.
Note: I have written several essays on corporate state and progressive efforts to make ordinary Americans out to be the bad guides. See, e.g., Is the Progressive Left Flirting with Christophobia?; The Hunt Family and the Basket of Deplorables; Establishing the One-Party State; “A New Kind of American Radicalism”: The Campaign to Portray Ordinary America as Deviant and Dangerous; Suppressing the Rabble: Portraying Conservatism and Republicanism as Fringe and Dangerous; Authoritarianism, Supreme Court Hysteria, and the Corrupting Partisan Frame.
freedom and reason 