......
.and crossing your heart for a cloth that has become the standard for government largess and totalitarianism......
This also is the cause of a lot of friction. What does the "cloth" represent to an individual?
If I felt my flag represented the current state of the government here in Canada....it wouldn't fly outside my home. To me, it represents something else...certainly not political...something I'm damn proud of...so it flies..proudly. My US flag flies by the same sentiment.
And there is the culprit. I have no problem with people standing, saluting, singing, or what have you. Where the issue lies is beyond what THEY believe it stands for, to what they believe it should stand for for someone else. Because it *gulp* offends them, someone else needs some kind of retribution, whether it be firing, or arresting, or death.
It's not really a question of what THEY believe it stands for. Flags the world over have specific meanings. A white flag means surrender, a red flag means danger, etc. National flags, per se, didn't really exist until the early 1800s when America literally invented the concept of a national flag. But the meaning of the US flag is not up for debate. It is not open to interpretation. It's meaning was forged in a horrific and shocking paradigm shift of cannon fire.
The original "stars and stripes" didn't really mean anything other than the 13 stars and the 13 stripes represented the 13 colonies, and the colors had no meaning what.so.ever (and they still don't, regardless of the sentimental wafty renderings people have tried to attach to them - colors meanings were ascribed to the Great Seal of the United States, but not to the flag itself). The "national" flags of the world were ensigns (a banner sign or symbol) flown on ships to indicate the ship's country of origin (as well as armies in battle). In 1776 at the declaration of independence, the Continental Navy hastily fashioned the British red ensign and added white stripes. That's it.
In 1777, on June 14 (what is now Flag Day), a flag resolution was made that determined the "flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars [instead of the current British union jack], white in a blue field, representing a new constellation." That resolution didn't create a national flag, but rather specified the Naval ensign, because, again, at that time the notion of a national flag did not yet exist, here or anywhere else in the world. Nationalism wasn't yet a thing.
In 1795 when Vermont and Kentucky were added to the Union, the number of stars and stripes were increased to 15 each. Then somebody realized this could really get out of control, and 15 was where it stayed even as new states entered the Union.
The banner of 15 stars and 15 stripes is the flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the poem "Defence of Fort M'Henry" in 1812, which later became knows as the "Star Spangled Banner" which was later set to the music written by British composer and organist John Stafford Smith for a London men's social club. The same music was also used for a short a short time in the mid 1800s as the national anthem of Luxembourg, until someone wrote one from scratch.
But it was with Key's poem that the first hint of a notion of a national flag bas born.
In 1818 Congress, at the suggestion of a US Naval captain, decreased the number of stripes back down to 13 to represent the original colonies, and the number of stars increased to 20 to account for the newly added states to the Union. And that any new states added would require an additional star to be added to the flag on the following July 4th after admission to the Union. (If Puerto Rico becomes a state tomorrow, we'll get the 51st star next July 4th).
That's when a "national" flag was born, in 1818, when a few other countries began referring to their ensigns as a national flag, as well as countries without an ensign at all creating one for the national flag. But it was still used in the US (and everywhere else) mainly by the military, and to mark US territory, and flown on special occasions like the 4th of July, for official state functions and at official state buildings, forts and other places. It wasn't widely flown in a show of patriotism here in the US or anywhere else.
Then, 42 years later, December 1860 happened. The first battle of the Civil War at Ft. Sumter, a fort over which the Stars and Stripes flew until at long last it was surrendered to the Confederacy. The Stars and Stripes immediately became a symbol of American nationalism, and a total rejection of secessionism and slavery. It became the nation's flag. The first one in existence anywhere on Earth with a national meaning.
In the weeks that followed the battle at Ft Sumter the flag was no longer hand stitched for official functions and military ensigns, because the demand became overwhelming, and it became mass produced. It began to be flown from houses and storefronts and churches and everywhere you could stick a flag pole. It meant something, something important.
The concept of the Union and of freedom became a physical, tangible thing - strips of cloth that millions of people would fight for, and hundreds of thousands would die for.
These protests are nothing short of a breathtaking irony and astonishing ignorance and stupidity of black folks in the NFL, taking a knee in protest during the playing of a National Anthem, which is about a flag that represents their own freedom and the white "privileged" folks who died to give it to them.
Clearly, America isn't perfect. We are forever striving for a more perfect Union and a better society. But I can guarantee you one thing, we're a helluva lot more perfect now than we were in 1860. The injustices of today don't hold a candle to that of slavery. Not even close.
Stand up and respect the flag and the anthem and the country. It is the Land of the Free, and the rest of the world knows it.
