No Glory In “Old Glory” Any More

Monday, October 10, 2011

Posted by T.L. Davis at 3:18 PM on TL In Exile

Take down your American flag and fly instead the Gadsden Flag. The once glorious American flag flew for the representation of the Constitution and the union that resulted from its adoption. It stood as a victory of the people over government, as a statement of the changing of the old order. It was a victory against the oppression and clever device of the State. It spit in the eye of the old dictatorial monarchy it replaced. It was a symbol of pride to those who flew its colors and proudly asserted themselves as Americans. But, Americans we are not, not in the sense that caused us national pride, not in the sense that it was intended. We have become servants to a bureaucracy that has supplanted our nation with rules, regulations and Supreme Court decisions. If a nation is made up of laws, it is destroyed by the laws that violate its charter.

To be an American now, one must look beyond the flag to the very substance of what Americans became when they drafted the Constitution and recognized those rights gained as the very soul of citizenship. We are not citizens to a bureaucracy; we are not citizens to a system of plunder; we are not citizens to a printed list of demands and consequences. Laws are not made up by us, for us, they are the products of lobbying efforts, exclusions offered in return for campaign contributions. Our republic is lost.

If we take down our American flags we would vacate the space between capitals and the seats of government and then the flag would fly only over those buildings and committees who have so stridently sought our subjugation. We would know them all by their adherence to the methods of confiscated liberty. The American flag would then come to stand for what it should symbolize, the success of the state over the individual. The power and the might of the state against the people.

I look at the American flag now with the sentiment with which it originally flew, when it inspired the words of Francis Scott Key. I place my hand over my heart, or salute it for what it once meant, for what it was intended to stand for: a beacon of freedom in a world of oppression, but I know this sentiment as an illusion I afford myself on patriotic days. I can no longer regard the flag of today as that of the original.

I ask you: Are we the same; is the nation the same; do our hearts still beat with the ardent patriotism that rises tears to our eyes when we see it? Or, has it become a symbol of too many abuses, too many affronts to veterans and citizens alike? When the power of the state can and will take everything one has to satisfy its demands for tribute, are we free?

If the flag stands for freedom, are you free? They will take your money from your account on a whim and return it only when you have paid all you own to prove your innocence. They will take your life if you challenge their power and might. They will imprison you for failure to pay the taxes levied on you in your absence, without an opportunity for rebuttal. There are stories upon stories of people who have been dealt with summarily by the government. They do it with the power of YOUR consent. Yours, the veterans, the citizens, the voters, the taxpayers. Is it your will that this would be done to your neighbor? Is it your will that this would be done to you?

I ask: what can the state not do to you, if it takes an interest in doing so? Do you know? The answer is: Nothing. It has police to enforce its insider laws, judges and juries to read only the most damaging evidence, disregarding any mitigating circumstances. You are a revenue stream, nothing more. If you refuse that role on whatever legitimate grounds you can find it is irrelevant to the fact that you are not paying them their tribute. No other fact holds sway.

Nothing has given me more pride over the years than to see that flag wave against a clear blue sky. It stood as a symbol of what was and could be again, but farther and farther we go down the road toward the most oppressive and belligerent society. We find that our laws are not designed to protect the individual from the state, but the other way around. I have lost none of my regard for those founders and patriots who suffered through the winters of our birth as a nation. It is, in fact, in tribute to them and their struggles that I suggest we not endorse the perversion of their dreams, but break out ourselves and with their spirit and their bravery chart a new course away from the machinations of the all-powerful state.

Then, once we have secured glory for the United States and again set it right on the path to liberty and freedom in adherence to the power of the Constitution, we dedicate the American flag to our struggle, to our victory and hoist those colors once more. In pride. 

If you think it is just me, Brock Townsend offered this linkbelow, but I thought it appropriate to read.

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