{"id":19178,"date":"2024-02-21T11:50:07","date_gmt":"2024-02-21T16:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=19178"},"modified":"2024-02-22T20:52:15","modified_gmt":"2024-02-23T01:52:15","slug":"trampling-on-a-symbol-of-liberty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2024\/02\/21\/trampling-on-a-symbol-of-liberty\/","title":{"rendered":"Trampling on a Symbol of Liberty"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n

Trampling on a Symbol of Liberty<\/a><\/h1>\n

by James Bovard<\/p>\n<\/header>\n

Last August, 12-year-old Jaiden Rodriguez was kicked out of a public-school classroom in Colorado Springs after school officials decreed that the Gadsden flag patch on his backpack was \u201cdisruptive to the classroom environment.\u201d Those Colorado officials didn\u2019t know the meaning of \u201cdisruptive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thanks to savvy, thoughtful retorts by Jaiden\u2019s mother in a video showdown at the school, the incident spurred a fierce backlash around America. Less than a week later, the school district raised the white flag on its assault on the Gadsden flag.<\/p>\n

The flag\u2019s real history<\/b><\/h2>\n

That flag, with its yellow background and coiled rattlesnake, helped rally Americans to vanquish the British Army and Navy almost 250 years ago. As the Encyclopedia Brittanica<\/i> noted, \u201cThe rattlesnake symbol originated in the 1754 political cartoon \u201cJoin, or Die\u201d published in Benjamin Franklin\u2019s Pennsylvania Gazette<\/i>. The cartoon, which depicted the colonies divided as segments of a cut-up snake, exhorted the colonists to unite in the face of the French and Indian War (1754\u201363). The symbol was later used to represent unity during the Revolutionary War.\u201d The flag became one of the most iconic symbols of the American Revolution, venerated far and wide until recent years.<\/p>\n

Where did the Gadsden flag go wrong?<\/strong> Tea Party activists waved the \u201cDon\u2019t Tread on Me\u201d banner during anti-Obama protests. According to the liberal media, regardless of Obama\u2019s oppressive, intrusive policies, any opposition to his presidency was automatically racist. Thus, the Gadsden flag was irrevocably tainted by association.<\/p>\n

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission added fuel to this fire:<\/p>\n

On January 8, 2014, a U.S. Postal Service maintenance mechanic in Denver, Colorado filed a complaint of discrimination based on race (African American) and reprisal for prior EEO activity when: (1) beginning in the fall of 2013, a coworker repeatedly wore a cap to work with an insignia of a flag with a rattlesnake ready to strike and slogan \u201cDon\u2019t Tread on Me,\u201d (2) the coworker continued to wear the cap after management had assured Complainant that they would tell the coworker not to, and (3) on September 2, 2013, a coworker photographed him on the work room floor without Complainant\u2019s consent. According to the federal sector process, that complaint was filed with the employing agency \u2014 the U.S. Postal Service.<\/p>\n

On January 29, 2014, the U.S. Postal Service dismissed the complaint for failure to state a cognizable claim of discrimination. On June 20, 2014, the EEOC Office of Federal Operations reversed the agency\u2019s dismissal, determining that Complainant had raised a cognizable claim of harassment, and ordered the agency to investigate the claim\u2026. The U.S. Postal Service argued that the previous decision clearly erred because the Gadsden Flag and its slogan do not have any racial connotations.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But the EEOC insisted that the flag could justify a harassment complaint. The EEOC decreed that<\/p>\n

while the Gadsden Flag originated in a non-racial context, it has since been \u201cinterpreted to convey racially-tinged messages in some contexts,\u201d\u2026 Importantly, the Commission did not find that the Gadsden Flag in fact is a racist symbol. Rather, the Commission found only that the complaint met the legal standard to state a claim under Title VII, and therefore should have been investigated by the agency rather than dismissed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The EEOC has a long history of knuckle-headed decrees, including its 2012 ruling that made it a federal crime not to hire ex-convicts. (The chief of the EEOC repeatedly publicly denounced my articles in the 1990s, but I don\u2019t hold a grudge.)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The EEOC\u2019s prattle was \u201cclose enough for government work\u201d for commentators to howl that the Gadsden flag had been condemned by federal civil-rights watchdogs.<\/p>\n

The flag ain\u2019t woke\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n

The Gadsden flag was further vilified by the New York Times<\/i>\u2013spurred 1619 campaign to paint the American Revolution as a vast conspiracy to perpetuate slavery.<\/strong> This notion is popular with journalists who have never read a book that was published before 2010. Denouncing the Founders as racists absolves wokesters from having to learn anything about the \u201cslavery by Parliament\u201d that Britain sought to impose \u2014 the mass confiscation of firearms and other private property, the sweeping censorship, the total destruction of privacy, and the suppression of jury trials.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Springs school district declared that the flag was an \u201cunacceptable symbol\u201d linked to \u201cwhite-supremacy.\u201d It further claimed that the Gadsden flag had its \u201corigins with slavery\u201d because it was designed in 1775 by a South Carolinian who owned slaves. By the same standard, the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights could all be condemned since Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Mason were slaveowners. Do the wokesters want to condemn and expunge all of American history prior to the creation of the LGBT rainbow flag?<\/p>\n

The Colorado hubbub occurred because many school officials and students are even more ignorant of American history than freshmen members of Congress.<\/strong> Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O\u2019Connor groused in 2014 that fewer than 20 percent of high-school seniors \u201ccan say what the Declaration of Independence is, and it\u2019s right there in the title.\u201d Americans\u2019 ignorance of history helps explain their docility nowadays.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Massachusetts colonists rebelled after the British agents received \u201cwrits of assistance\u201d that allowed them to search any colonist\u2019s property. Modern Americans submit passively to endless government intrusions at the airport, online, and on the nation\u2019s highways and sidewalks. Virginia revolted in part because King George imposed a two-pence tax on the sale of a pound of tea; Americans today are complacent while Congress imposes billions of dollars of retroactive taxes \u2014 even on people who have already died. Connecticut rebelled in part because the British were undermining the independence of judges; nowadays, federal agencies have the power to act as prosecutor, judge, and jury in suits against private citizens. New Hampshire revolted in part because King George claimed that he automatically owned every Pine Tree in the Colonies; modern Americans are largely complacent when the federal government asserts a right to control every acre of private land that is wet for more a few weeks each year.<\/p>\n

Many astute Americans are mystified at the retroactive demonization of this cherished symbol of libert<\/strong>y. Olivia Rondeau, co-host of a Foundation for Economic Education online program, scoffed, \u201cNo one ever told my black family that the Gadsden flag was racist. I grew up seeing it around the house all the time. 2023 is something else.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Colorado ruckus was popular with pundits who know only enough history to hiss and boo on cue<\/strong>. Two months before the Colorado uproar, the Washington Post <\/i>published a piece headlined: \u201cThe disgraced Confederate history of the \u2018Don\u2019t Tread on Me\u2019 flag.\u201d Since a Confederate ship had hoisted that flag in 1861, that meant that the flag was forever damned. And anyone who showed or countenanced that flag was collectively guilty for all the crimes of American history.<\/p>\n

But the Gadsden flag became increasingly vilified even before the Tea Party protests. The real objection by officialdom is to the flag\u2019s message: \u201cDon\u2019t Tread on Me.\u201d<\/p>\n

That flag got swept up in the vilification of dissent after the 9\/11 attacks. The Department of Homeland Security warned local law-enforcement agencies in 2003 to keep an eye on anyone who \u201cexpressed dislike of attitudes and decisions of the U.S. government.\u201d DHS pushed to treat the Gadsen flag practically as a terrorist warning signal. DHS-funded Fusion Centers attached the \u201cextremist\u201d or potential terrorist tag to the individuals and groups displaying the Gadsden flag \u2014 as well as to individuals who assert a \u201cright to keep and bear arms,\u201d individuals \u201crejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority\u201d (like many Founding Fathers did), people who were \u201creverent of individual liberty,\u201d and anyone with a \u201cKnow Your Rights or Lose Them\u201d bumper sticker.<\/p>\n

Law-enforcement agencies have come a long way since targeting Deadhead stickers on Cadillacs in the 1970s. The FBI Domestic Terrorism Symbols Guide included the Gadsden flag as one of the \u201ccommonly referenced historical imagery or quotes\u201d used by violent militia extremists. Maybe the feds should formally announce that \u201cdistrust of government\u201d is now a hate crime?<\/p>\n

Jaiden, an honor roll student, watched wide-eyed as his mother lured the school official to become a nationwide laughingstock. The mother justified Jaiden\u2019s patch: \u201cThe Founding Fathers stood up for what they believed against unjust laws, and this is unjust.\u201d<\/p>\n

The school official glowered: \u201cI am here to enforce the policy that was provided by the district\u201d after repeating the vexing phrase: \u201cDon\u2019t tread on me.\u201d Did Jaiden threaten the public-school system\u2019s divine right to tread on students and scorn parents\u2019 values?<\/p>\n

A victory for free speech\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n

Connor Boyack, president of the Libertas Institute in Utah, helped publicize the case. After the school conceded, he declared on Twitter: \u201cLet this be a lesson \u2014 document your encounters w\/ government employees. Had Jaiden\u2019s mom not recorded the video, this wouldn\u2019t have got nearly the attention that it did.\u201d Jaiden was a reader of the Tuttle Twins<\/i> \u2014 the pro-freedom series written by Boyack.<\/p>\n

Permitting wokesters to turn the Gadsden flag into the moral equivalent of the Nazi swastika will only encourage more demolitions of American heritage.<\/strong> Will a Babylon Bee<\/i> headline prove prophetic?: \u201cFBI Seizes Jaiden\u2019s Backpack in Predawn Raid.\u201d Colorado\u2019s liberal governor Jared Polis sought to end the lunacy when he endorsed the Gadsden flag for providing an \u201ciconic warning to Britain or any government not to violate the liberties of Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n

The school board backed down but with a huge caveat: Jaiden could express his values only as long as no school staffer or student caterwauled. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) objected, \u201cSo long as the school district maintains that Jaiden may wear the Gadsden flag patch only if no student or staff member complains, this controversy is not over.\u201d FIRE warned the school district: \u201cThe First Amendment does not allow the \u2018heckler\u2019s veto\u2019 as envisioned by the district\u2019s assistant superintendent, where anybody can suppress a student\u2019s speech or viewpoint simply by objecting to it.\u201d The heckler\u2019s veto is especially perilous when domineering government officials are seeking any pretext to suppress whom they please.<\/p>\n

Ironically, students would face no official pushback if they came to school wearing t-shirts and backpacks decorated with the logo of the Federal Bureau of Investigation<\/strong> (despite its crimes at Ruby Ridge and Waco), the Drug Enforcement Administration (despite DEA\u2019s persecution of peaceful citizens), the National Security Agency (despite its preemptive destruction of privacy online and beyond), the Centers for Disease Control (despite their falsehoods and fear-mongering during the Covid pandemic), the Food and Drug Administration (despite the shenanigans it used to give full approval to dubious Covid vaccines), the Transportation Security Administration (despite their endless molesting of hapless travelers), the Department of Homeland Security (despite its secret censorship regimes seeking to suppress dissent), and even the Internal Revenue Service \u2014 which has wrongfully pilfered legions of Americans.<\/p>\n

The Gadsden flag will be needed as long as government officials keep trying to trample Americans\u2019 rights and liberties. None of the pundits who condemned that flag have offered any evidence that politicians nowadays are less perfidious than they were 250 years ago.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This article was originally published in the February 2024 issue of<\/em> Future of Freedom<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trampling on a Symbol of Liberty by James Bovard Last August, 12-year-old Jaiden Rodriguez was kicked out of a public-school classroom in Colorado Springs after school officials decreed that the Gadsden flag patch on his backpack was \u201cdisruptive to the classroom environment.\u201d Those Colorado officials didn\u2019t know the meaning of \u201cdisruptive.\u201d Thanks to savvy, thoughtful […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19180,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3529,3828,2527,4008,2349,1291,109,47,750,3872,49,4007,4009,159,267,3873],"class_list":["post-19178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-3529","tag-babylon-bee","tag-cdc","tag-colorado-springs","tag-covid","tag-dhs","tag-eeoc","tag-fbi","tag-founding-fathers","tag-gadsden-flag","tag-irs","tag-jaiden-rodriguez","tag-jared-polis","tag-liberty","tag-nsa","tag-wokesters"],"yoast_head":"\nTrampling on a Symbol of Liberty - 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. Bovard\u2019s writings have been publicly denounced by FBI director Louis Freeh, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jimbovard.com","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","https:\/\/x.com\/jimbovard"],"url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19178"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19192,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19178\/revisions\/19192"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}