The Stars and Stripes of Glory

We are flying our American flag today in honor of our country’s 237 years of independence from British tyranny. Our flag celebrates my husband’s 27 years of devoted service to our country and the sacrifice of millions of faceless and unknown Americans before him who gave their all to preserve liberty. Our flag honors millions of legal immigrants who had sailed to the New York harbor in unspeakable conditions and waited out the quarantine at Ellis Island to come to the new world.

Our flag honors the 4 million legal immigrants who are waiting patiently in their countries for the resolution of visas to come to America, the land of opportunity, the “shining city on the hill.” So many love America and what it stood for all these years. So many nations owe their freedom to Americans. So many hate America but secretly wish and dream they could live here. We have a flag on our wall, carefully folded and mounted in a shadow box with a dedication to me – it had been flown over Iraq and Afghanistan. It honors my husband’s service in the “overseas contingency operations” against the “workplace violence” enemy. On our multi-national street, two families with foreign nationals who are naturalized citizens fly the American flag, our family and an Ethiopian family. Only two American born families fly the American flag. The rest of the street enjoys the freedom in the privacy of their shuttered homes.

---

My local Wal-Mart was teeming yesterday with a Tower of Babel, non-English speaking shoppers, filling their carts with food bounty from America’s horn of plenty, paying with SNAP and EBT cards, compliments of the federal government, generous with other people’s money and eager to attract any illegals from anywhere as long as they vote the right way. Are illegals smart enough to realize that Americans have built this abundant nation with hard work, not through government largesse? Do they understand that the government exists because “we the people” have paid taxes and allowed it to exist through our vote? Do they know or care that voting in our country carries a grave responsibility to our future generations? Do they understand that breaking our law, crossing the border illegally, and voting for the same hellhole they’ve escaped from, fundamentally alters the fabric of our society, potentially putting an end to the abundance the illegals are so eager to obtain? My neighborhood Wal-Mart is a microcosm of what is happening to our country stealthily from within. The BMW and Mercedes driving bureaucrats who work in D.C. but live in the suburbs do not shop at Wal-Mart, they shop at Costco. They push and vote for illegal immigration amnesty and cheap labor but they hide in gated communities and attend elite cocktail parties. I drove through neighboring communities and saw on other streets flags of Mexico, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, and Columbia, flown proudly on modest rental homes. The occupants were having barbeques; their children were playing in the yard, or taking a dip in above-ground pools, celebrating. Were they celebrating America? Do they know its history? Do they care and are they here to assimilate, learn English, and make the country better? Or are they here just for the welfare benefits, off-the-books jobs, and the abundant lifestyle? The Roman Empire was envied by many invading hordes who just wanted the Roman lifestyle and property in the Roman Empire. They were not interested in becoming Roman citizens, assimilating, or speaking Latin. The Romans allowed them in, did not require them to speak Latin, but denied them property. The hordes eventually succeeded in taking over the empire. No need for salvos to bring a successful empire/nation to its knees, just infiltration and erosion from within. One home was flying the Gadsden flag. Colonel Christopher Gadsden submitted a design for a yellow flag with a green coiled snake to the Provincial Congress in South Carolina with the words, “Don’t tread on me.” (c. 1775) Our Star-Spangled Banner, our Old Glory, is not just a symbol of freedom to us; it is who we are in our hearts and souls, law-abiding citizens of a nation blessed by God, “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” Joseph Rodman Drake (1795-1820) metaphorically described our Old Glory in his 1819 poem, The American Flag: “When Freedom from her mountain height, Unfurled her standard to the air, She tore the azure robe of night. And set the stars of glory there.”