The American Standard Bearer

About 800 miles of Interstate 80 seperates Salt Lake City from San Francisco, but otherwisw, they’re worlds apart.

The USS Iowa, with the American flag flying from her mast, will not be docked at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco after all. Democrat Senator Diane Feinstein who is also a former San Francisco Mayor has been instrmental in securing the funding to transport the World War II battleship from Rhose Island to California.

But the San Francisco city supervisors voted 8-3 to refuse the Iowa a berth at the dock based primarily on their oposition to the war in Iraq. "If I was going to commit any kind of money in recognition of war, then it should be toward peace, given what our war is in Iraq right now," Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi said.

Instead, the Iowa will be towed 80 miles inland to Stckton on the San Joaquin River where it will fulfill it’s role as a museum. Meanwhile, Feinstein is not taking the decision well,  "This isn’t the San Francisco that I’ve known and loved and grew up in and was born in."

And down the road in Salt Lake City, quite a different controversy is stirring. The local ABC television affiliate, KTVX, has refused to air a "commercial" featuring the renowned Cindy Sheehan pleading for President Bush to meet with her, presumably so that she can unload some of the more colorful language she’s so fond of using. The decision not to run the ad seems to be based on the fact that approximately 70% of Utah voters in the last election voted for President Bush. The other major networks all ran the ad which means that only the ABC station is smart enough to pay attention to their demographics.

In the famous book, The Art of War, Sun Tzu advises "know your enemy."

Lee Vollick, the 19 year-old college student who, in a blinding episode of idiocy, lit up an American flag in the middle of a crowd on the Fourth of July, is not the enemy. He’s just a kid who needs to figure out how to channel that creativity and energy to more noble pursuits. And if that fails, a chat with a mental health professional might just be the ticket. But all kidding aside, he’s one of us – he’s an American and he’s not the enemy.

Earlier this year, a group know as the Islamic Thinkers Society staged a demonstration on the street in New York City. They videotaped the event for distribution to Islamic brothers here in America and around the world. The videotape depicts Islamic Thinkers stomping on American flags while chanting their hatred of the United States. A sign that was placed on top of one of the American flags read,  "Oh Muslims! Do you know your enemy? Isn’t it obvious?"

The Islamic Thinkers Society is an arm of the Islamic Society in Brooklyn, New York that happens to be the same cauldron of hate for America that some of the 9/11 hijackers, including Mohammed Atta, slithered out of. The Council on American-Islamic Relations is also closely associated with the Brooklyn group, although you can be sure that the polished spokesmen for CAIR would never be caught on camera stomping American flags.

Nevertheless, all these groups are working towards the same ultimate goal; to convert the United States of America into an Islamic state by whatever means neccessary. The suave fellows of CAIR correctly believe that the goal of domination cannot be achieved through acts of violence or overt hatred such as the desecration of the American flag on the streets of New York. When hit, Americans will hit back harder. So they are employing other means to achieve their ends. Here are some quotes from two of CAIR’s honchos:

Omar Ahmad – Co-founder of CAIR -

"Those who stay in America should be open to society without melting, keeping Mosques open so anyone can come and learn about Islam. If you choose to live here, you have a responsibility to deliver the message of Islam … Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faiths, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.

Ibrahim Hooper – CAIR Spokesperson -

"I wouldn’t want to create the impression that I wouldn’t like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future…But I’m not going to do anything violent to promote that. I’m going to do it through education."

CAIR has teamed up with the American Civil Liberties Union to try and force North Carolina to offer the Koran to witnesses swearing-in in court rooms. The ACLU has long been known for their efforts to eliminate any mention of religion from the public forum, but their true agenda is to eliminate Christianity from the public forum. That’s why they are willing, in this case, to promote the use of a religious text in a court room. That text happens to be non-Christian.

When the allied forces of CAIR/ACLU win this case, and they will because the eggheads in the media refuse to recognize the enemy, they will be one step closer to their goal of an Islamic America.

I’m really disapointed. All those war protesters down in Texas and nary a crazy burning an American flag among them. There are plenty of American flags sporting peace signs in lieu of stars, but that’s not the kind of desecration that matters to me. I’m more concerned with the threat of violence that burning American flags implies. But that’s a subject for another day.

There must be many Americans who oppose the war in Iraq who are also relieved that Cindy Sheehan has been forced to leave the spotlight. We are blessed in this country to have the right to speak our opinions about our leaders and our government. And Cindy Sheehan, whether you believe she’s right of wrong, has every right as a citizen to do what she’s doing.

But the people who are backing her appear to be so blinded by the absolute righteousness of their cause that they can’t see that they hitched their wagon to the wrong star.

A greiving mother can make a powerful statement. Any parent can empathize with her loss. But Cindy Sheehan went way beyond her role as the icon of the greiving mother of a fallen soldier, and in so doing, has ended up persuading no one to change their views.

The following comments by Cindy Sheehan appeared in the Drudge Report yesterday:

"We are not waging a war on terror in this country. We’re waging a war of terror. The biggest terrorist in the world is George W. Bush!"

"We are waging a nuclear war in Iraq right now. That country is contaminated. It will be contaminated for practically eternity now."

"They’re a bunch of fucking hypocrites! And we need to, we just need to rise up…"

"The whole world is damaged. Our humanity is damaged. If he thinks that it’s so important for Iraq to have a U.S.-imposed sense of freedom and democracy, then he needs to sign up his two little party-animal girls. They need to go to this war."

"We want our country back and, if we have to impeach everybody from George Bush down to the person who picks up dog shit in Washington, we will impeach all those people."

These are not the statements of a greiving mother who just wants to plead her case face-to-face with the President. They are the statements of a person who is totally out of control and has focused her bitterness and hatred on the person of George Bush. But George Bush is not her problem. More than half the Americans who came out to vote last November voted for Bush because his version of how we should respond to the growing threat of terrorism (3000 dead in New York in one hour thanks to terrorists supported by regimes like Iraq’s) was viewed by those voters as the better choice.

If the anti-war crowd really wants to make a difference, they shouldn’t feign respect for the American flag while lining up to support  someone who spouts venomous and ridiculous statements like a Cindy Sheehan.

Remember the Edsel? I was just a babe in diapers when Ford was peddling that bomb, so I don’t remember the car when you could buy one off the showroom floor. But for years afterward, just about everybody you knew was well aware of Ford’s disastrous Edsel.

So today, I came across a new CD by the band "Dope", with an American flag in tatters on the cover. The thing that caught my eye is that the band’s front man has the stage name of Edsel Dope. At least I hope it’s a stage name.

I naturally figure that a CD cover of a shredded American flag indicates that the band must be promoting a political message that’s anti-America, anti-Bush, anti-war or anti-American flags or maybe all of the above. And if your a parent of teenage kids, like I am, you don’t like to see the parental advisory notice on the cover.

But rock and roll bands have a long history of mixing the American flag with other images, so having a flag on the cover of your album is not a big deal. However, I read the following quote by Edsel Dope and it took me by surprise. Read on:

"I guess more so than anything is the lack of decent parents anymore," he said. "The lack of responsibility and our society being one that’s very impatient and thinks that they should just be able to be whatever they wanna be just because they want it and nobody really wants to work for it. I had a really strong work ethic instilled in me at a really young age. One parent told me to dream for the stars and I could be anything I wanted, while the other one told me to work 60 hours a week and work harder than the next guy and I think those two things combined make sense."

I don’t know what his music’s like, but he’s right on the money with that one.

With the aid of an assortment of anti-war and political activist groups, Cindy Sheehan is getting quite a bit more than her fifteen minutes of fame. As the showdown in Texas escalates, I’ve been on the lookout to see if protesters are burning American flags yet. And I’m happy to say that so far, at least as far as I can tell, there hasn’t been a single American flag burned.

There has, however, been quite a bit of American flag desecration going on including this example adorning Mrs. Sheehan. But that, I think, is to be expected in such a politically charged atmosphere. Anyhow, I am really not interested in discussing the merits or lack thereof of the three-ring circus this protest is becoming, but I do want to mention one particular incident that just happened there.

A local motorist by the name of Larry Northern staged a little protest of his own Monday night when he drove his pick-up truck over some small wooden crosses that Mrs. Sheehan had planted in the ground near her campsite. Now, that wasn’t a very nice thing to do, and there was some potential danger involved to be sure. But it seems reasonable to classify Mr. Northern’s actions as politically motivated. And in that spirit, the act of driving over those crosses could be characterized as political expression.

So how in substance does the political expression of driving over crosses differ from the political expression of burning American flags? I mean, they are both destructive and potentially hazardous to other human beings in the vicinity.

Mr. Northern was arrested, jailed and charged with criminal mischief, and there’s no sign of the ACLU clamoring to defend his free speech rights. If freedom of speech/expression was really the issue for the people who defend flag burning, they would be all over this.

Very little amazes me anymore but I’m sorry, I just can’t help being amazed that so many Americans think they are defending freedom when they’re not. I’m refering to the very widespread notion that the First Amendment guarantees a "freedom of expression, " even though it doesn’t say that and the utter inability of many to discern the difference between "speech" and "expression."

There are many ways to point out that difference, but here’s a few:

Speech: "I like your car and I want it."
Expression: I take your car away from you.

Speech: (A group of protestors) "Death to America!"
Expression: Flying a jet liner into the World Trade Center.

Maybe you get my point, and then again, maybe you don’t, so let me say it differently. Words have very specific meanings. The Supreme Court ruled to allow people to burn American flags by expanding the word "speech" to encompass "expression." Many Americans embrace that idea because the consequences of burning American flags seem small and it "feels" correct to have as much freedom as possible. I’m not going to explore that argument today. I only want to say that when the Court is willing to add words or distort the meaning of words in the Constitution for small issues like flag burning, they will do it it when the stakes are much higher as well.

The Supreme Court again played fast and loose with the words of the Constitution recently when they shuffled the "Takings Clause" of the Fifth Amendment from "public use" to "public benefit." In the words of dissenting Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the Court has “effectively delete[d] the words ‘for public use’ from the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.”

As with the issue of burning the American flag, many people fail to grasp the potentially disasterous consequences of the Court’s rulings. For example, the town of Weare, New Hampshire just turned down a bid by a California businessman to take the property of Supreme Court Justice Davis Souter and turn it into a hotel. Writing in the Concord Monitor, Weare Selectwoman Heleen Kurk said, "The idea of punishing a judge by seizing his house is offensive. Fortunately, the citizens of Weare respect private property rights too much to consider it."

So by reading that, you might think the Selectwoman gets it. But then she goes on to defend Justice Souter with this explanation, "Justice David Souter, who lives in Weare, was part of the 5-4 majority in Kelo vs. New London. Kelo upheld the constitutionality of a Connecticut law allowing a city to take property by eminent domain from one private person (a homeowner) and sell it to another private person (a nonprofit redevelopment corporation, for example) as long as there is a reasonable economic benefit to the city (such as an improved tax base or additional jobs)."

Justice Souter’s house is currently assesed for a little more than $100,000. It’s troubling that Selectwoman Kurk thinks that it is "offensive" to seize Souter’s property that generates very little in the way of tax revenue in order to build a hotel that would generate buckets of tax revenue and supply many jobs as well, but justified to seize Mrs. Kelo’s property in Connecticut.

In July, I wrote several posts about a controversial art exhibit of a
few dozen paintings done by California lawyers. The exhibit, which was
sponsored by the California State Attorney General himself, resides in
the cafeteria of the State Department of Justice and serves as a
challenge to patrons to resist nausea.

At the center of the brief media storm that ensued was a painting done
by Berkeley lawyer Stephen Pearcy (or his pet monkey – it’s hard to
tell) that depicts the American flag in the shape of the United States
being flushed down the toilet. A large caption runs down the side of
the thing saying, "T’anks to Mr. Bush."

In a recent interview graciously granted to Dr. Bruce L. Thiessen,
Pearcy reveals something of his twisted character. Readers should take
note; Pearcy’s work was not so much the issue as the catalyst for the
debate. At issue here was not offense at the specter of American flags
being flushed but rather, should the State of California by way of the
State Attorney General be endorsing a single highly charged political
viewpoint in a state building?

I’m not going to reprint the interview here because it is very long,
and I try to avoid reprinting long articles. If you would like to read
it, you can view it at TheRealityCheck.org.

The thing that caught my attention are the references Pearcy makes to
"human rights." I’ve noticed that when someone, particularly a lawyer,
begins talking about "human rights," you can be sure that some humans
should have more rights than others. While talking about his previous
home near Sacramento, Pearcy said, "While we lived there, we often
placed political messages in front of our home. We started doing that
soon after 9-11 because we grew very concerned about Americans’
tolerance with the Bush administration’s increasing disregard for
constitutional and human rights."

What human right was President Bush specifically disregarding? Aha! Here it is, a little farther down the page:

"Before I returned to college to earn my bachelor’s degree,
I was a full-time Sacramento County Sheriff’s deputy. I worked on
patrol and in the jail, and I saw a lot of civil rights deprivations.
In law school, and afterward, I read many, many cases involving
outrageous conduct by police and other governmental officials. My
experiences have taught me that there is a compelling need for
improvement in the entire criminal justice system. There is a lack of
accountability, and there are far too many hurdles to bring legal
actions against government officials who commit rights deprivations
while acting under color of authority."

While we watch day after day as repeat sex offenders are released from
jail so they can hunt down more innocent victims, we can rest assured
that vigilant Americans like Stephen Pearcy are working hard to make
sure that the repeat sex offender is not deprived of his rights at the
hands of "government officials…acting under the color of authority."

I’m sure that Mr. Pearcy has a soft spot in his heart as well for
Islamic terrorists just like the ones who viciously murdered 3000
innocent people in New York on 9/11. Today, the colleagues of Mohammed
Atta are stomping on American flags in Brooklyn. They are allowed to do
so because champions of human rights such as Pearcy are protecting them.
Will these same champions of human rights step up to defend the human
rights of innocent Americans when the next attack occurs?

As a happy Jeep owner, I think this is very cool. At Camp Jeep in Pennsylvania’s Pocono mountains, 140 Jeep owners lined up their Jeeps in formation to create a large (191′ x 73′) and very heavy American Flag. The stars were held aloft by carefully positioned Jeep owners completing the largest American flag of it’s kind.

This was all done to promote the National Anthem Project sponsored by the National Association for Music Education. It really doesn’t matter to me that Daimler-Chrysler, a German owned company, is a major sponsor of the project because this really isn’t about Jeeps or even giant vehicular American flags. It’s about recapturing a critical part of our national heritage that has been dying a slow death by attrition.

A recent Harris Poll of adults over the age of eighteen found that 61% admitted they did not know the words to the National Anthem. Of those who claimed to know all the words, only 39% really did. I would venture a guess that if you polled, say, ten to seventeen year olds, these figures would be considerably more dismal. It’s shocking but true that more and more public school teachers are either apathetic or openly hostile to the American flag and our national heritage.

At my son’s high school here in Park City, Utah, many if not most teachers refuse to participate when the National Anthem is broadcast over the P.A. system. No wonder our heritage is being lost when teachers don’t respect it and won’t teach it.

The good news is that programs like the National Anthem Project, with the help of many supporters, are working hard to reverse the trend. Besides Daimler-Chrysler, some of the supporters include The History Channel, The Smithsonian Museum of American History, the Walt Disney Co., and the American Legion. If you want to help or just want to find out more, you can check them out here: The National Anthem Project

Sometimes I feel like a frog in a pot of rapidly heating water. You know the old saying. Throw a frog in a pot of boiling water and he’ll leap right out. But throw a frog in a pot of cold water, gradually turn up the heat, and he’ll sit there and get boiled.

It’s amazing to me how much of what we consider to be normal today was unthinkable a scant 40 years ago. Take the Pledge of Allegiance for example. When I was a school kid back in the sixties, we would stand, face the American flag at the front of the room, place our right palm over our heart, and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

I’m sure there were parents even then who didn’t want there children pledging allegience to an American flag, but they were in the minority. Things were simpler in those days – the majority made the rules. Nowadays, the notion that the majority should make the rules is under assault, and some who are leading that charge are the same ones who recite the mantra of tolerance.

Yesterday, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Virginia law that requires the Pledge of Allegiance be recited in public school classrooms. The plaintiff, Edward Myers, complained that the phrase, "one nation, under God" is in violation of the First Amendment. The Court disagreed, saying that the pledge is not promoting religion, but rather, is a patriotic exercise.

Who’s guilty of intolerance here? Mr. Myers, who is an Anabaptist Mennonite, says, "The combination of God and country approaches a civic religion that is in competition with my religion." Well, if you send your children to a public school, and you are in opposition to the majority of parents over the word God in the Pledge of Allegiance, should the majority do without the pledge in it’s entirety in order to be tolerant of you? Or should you bear in mind that it’s all about pledging allegiance to the American flag, and find it in your heart to be tolerant of the wishes of the rest of your community.