Could you identify the national flag of Botswana as, readily, as Botswanians could peg Old Glory?
June 14 is Flag Day, and a time to salute history’s most recognizable and evocative pennant – and the unprecedented sacrifices and contributions made in her honor by brave men and women who, even today, would rather die than see her fold.
Her forthright stripes and hopeful stars have been to hell and back, and even graced the surface of the moon. She remains the world’s most heralded and besmirched banner. A warrior of purity, freedom, strength and diversity, exposing totalitarians and their rotting regimes, everywhere.
On Flag Day, let this symbol of identity and perseverance be hailed and honored in every American home, school and place of business and action. She is the coronet on a nation marching to its own beat in a hackneyed, volatile, envious world, which scorns and damns the United States because of her ability to, effortlessly, conquer storms that other countries have been waging civil wars over for centuries. Her belief in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is unmatched in lands where big government masquerades as socialism, and where the law permits public executions, rape and other human abuses.
A natural−born world leader, America demonstrates a boundless capacity to co−exist with others in harmony. She ministers to adversaries. She, finances her foes. She engages with conversation and compromise before conflict, of which she is no advocate but which she can battle with might and right.
The United States prefers to prevail without domination and for that, she is the planet’s foremost yardstick and a force to be reckoned with. Flag Day is a celebration of America’s glorious resume, and should be venerated with the pride and patriotism it deserves, not relegated to the back of the national conscience, nor to the bottom of the barrel of federal observances.
A growing trend to remove all vestiges of the flag from public places is troubling, and compounded by the derision shown to the pennant by some immigrants who should know better, hailing as they do from the world’s malignant crotch.
One recent case paints a disquieting portrayal of how the Stars and Stripes are being treated in 2009: Last month, an Arlington, TX., woman was asked by her supervisor to take down the flag she had hung in her office for Memorial Day. When the woman refused, the supervisor – reportedly, a 14−year naturalized citizen from Africa – removed the flag herself.
An American flag is not the Bible, nor the Koran, nor the Torah, nor the Buddha−Dharma. Its presence in public places is innocuous and inviting, not offensive. The sight of the bold and bright insignia, ignited by a flash of stripes and a meteor shower of stars, tickles the senses.
People, who are irked by Old Glory, are unnerved by life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and do not belong in this country.
Fortunately for that Texas supervisor, the Stars and Bars embrace dissenters with good grace, even if some of them have forgotten, don’t know, or don’t care, that patriotism – a duty of every person living here, and protected under the Constitution – means to exalt the flag, not disparage it.