The American Standard Bearer

What do Cindy Sheehan, the Crawford Peace House, Wendy Oshima (of Chico, California), Berkeley lawyer Stephen Pearcy and British member of Parlaiment George Galloway all have in common? They all are united by their affinity for the Palestinian flag.

Cindy Sheehan at Camp Casey and elsewhere (remember her bus tour?) carried the Palestinian flag and was fond of denouncing Israel every chance she could.

The Crawford Peace House is run by a former Iraqi who, under the guise of "peace," wishes the Palestinians to overrun Israel and wipe them off the map.

Wendy Oshima, you may remember, had her bottled water service involuntarily cancelled for flying a desecrated American flag in her yard. She also flies a Palestinian flag along with a Cuban flag and an Iraqi flag from the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Stephen Pearcy, when he’s not discharging his lawyerly duties, loves to create works of art designed to denigrate and insult America. At one of his homes – he lives in another home for fear of attack – he has placed a U.S. Soldier hanging in effigy on the front wall with a Palestinian flag in the window below.

And let’s not forget George Galloway who was a featured speaker at Sheehan’s March On Washington. Galloway wore his Yassar Arafat Halloween costume on stage while he praised Palestine and denounced Israel. Oh, and by the way, he is also suspected of accepting bribes from Saddam Hussein in the Oil-For-Food scandal.

This is the face of the American anti-war movement. You may wonder as I do what is motivating these people to do and say the things they do and say. But don’t make the mistake of believing, as these folks would like you to, that they are fighting to help the Palestinians to take back their ancestral home.

Until around 1948, the Jews living in that area where known as the Palestinians. The area had long ago been part of the Ottoman Empire, then the British Empire. In 1948, the British ceded all of Palestine to become the Jewish National Home. On it’s first day of existence, the state of Israel was attacked by six or so Arab armies including the army of the Kingdom of Trasjordan.

The fledgling Israeli army was able to repel the attack, but not without losing some territory to the invaders, a chunk of land that is now known as the "West Bank." The Israeli army reclaimed the West Bank in the Six Day War in 1967.

The notion – one which is promoted heavily by the above mentioned people – that the Palestinians were robbed of their homeland by an invading Israeli army, is simply propaganda. The reality of the situation is that the opposite is true. The original Palestinians, the Jews who populated the area, were not a problem in the eyes of their Arab neighbors until they established the state of Israel.

My question is this: Are the Cindy Sheehans, Stephen Pearcys and Wendy Oshimas of the world simply ignorant of this easily researched snippet of history or are they anti-semitic? In my mind, it has to be one or the other.

Here’s one that flew in under the radar. While Michael Newdow has been working tirelessly alongside U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Karlton to insure that public school children everywhere will never again be confronted by the sight of the American flag in the classroom, the State of Ohio is about to insure that kids throughout the state will get to see the American flag featured prominently on their license plates.

Not only that but the flag will be accompanied by the words "In God We Trust." How could Newdow, Karlton, and the rest of the Flag Police have let this one slip by? The answer is that they probaly didn’t.

According to the  Columbus Dispatch:

"The Ohio House has approved a new license plate that will feature the Pledge of Allegiance phrase ‘One Nation Under God’ and a picture of the American flag.

"The bill which passed the Senate in April now goes to Gov. Bob Taft, who is expected to sign it."

The thing I find remarkable is that there was reportedly very little dissension among the politicos.The sponsor of the bill, Rep. Thomas Patton, R-Strongsville, said that the purpose of the bill is to foster support for the pledge of allegiance among the people of Ohio.

If that were really the case, why not use a less inflamatory slogan, say, "The Pledge of Allegiance?" My guess is that the good people of Ohio, through their elected representatives, are standing up to the meddling cranks like Michael Newdow and fighting back.

But they had better be ready for that fight because the odds are that Newdow and the network of American aristocracy also known as Federal Judges, already have their collective eye on this.

"With friends like this, who needs enemies?" – Anonymous

The Jewish Anti Defamation League has signaled that it will take a tougher stance against Christians by taking a more active role in shaping public policy on a variety of issues such as the effort to have "under God" removed from the Pledge of Allegiance.

This news brings the assault on Christians in this country to new heights of irrationality, even dragging the American flag into the fray. Alarmed by what he sees as an increase in political influence by Evangelical Christians, ADL Executive Director Abraham Foxman is calling for "a tougher and more unified Jewish response" says James D Besser of The Jewish Week.

Besser goes on to write that Foxman "signaled a sharp shift in ADL policy by directly attacking several prominent religious right groups and challenging their motives, which he said include nothing less than ‘Christianizing America.’"

But reporting on an ADL poll of Evangelicals, Besser writes  that "According to the survey, 70 percent of weekly churchgoers and 76 percent of self-described Evangelicals agreed that ‘Christianity is under attack’ in this country — a conclusion that is hard to square with their growing influence in Congress, the White House and the courts…"

So let’s try to sort that out – Foxman has been "directly attacking" Christian organizations, but the notion that "Christianity is under attack" is one that is "hard to square" with their blaa, blaa, blaa…

What a shame. The ADL was at one time a respected organization. Now, it’s just a ultra left-wing political action group that has very little in common with the majority of Jews in America. And considering that polls have consistently pegged the percentage of the American population that claims to be Christian at anywhere from 80 to 90%, is it rational to fear that the largest segment of the American population may be taking a more active role in the political process? Only if you hold political views at odds with the majority.

So let’s inject a little honesty into the debate. The Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag has contained the words "under God" for a long, long time and the same goes for "In God We Trust" on the currency. Those battles have nothing to do with the "growing influence" of Evangelicals and everything to do with the growing influence of leftist politics in America.

Has the "God" in either of these cases suddenly become the exclusive God of Christians? Whose God was it twenty years ago? The religious aspect that groups like the ADL wail over is really just a smoke-screen to disguise their own radical  political agendas.

"And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?" —Thomas Jefferson

With one new Supreme Court Justice just recently seated and another about to find himself in the hot-seat, there’s a growing anticipation about how the Court will handle cases going forward once the dust has settled. Will the New Supreme Court move towards deciding cases based on a strict interpretation of the Constitution? You shouldn’t hold your breath.

Nominee Samuel Alito has already stated that precedent must be followed in deciding any case, a view that is pretty much universally held in the law biz, and therin lies the problem.

Right now, Athiest Michael Newdow, is working hard to insure that little Johnny and Suzy will not be permitted to even see an American flag in the classroom, let alone pledge allegiance to it. And the reason Newdow has an even chance at success is that past decisions by past courts have more weight than the words of the Constitution itself.

Hence, just about every layman out there believes that burning American flags is a valid form of protest because, after all, the Constitution guarantees our right of free expression. Yet the Constitution itself says nothing about "free expression." Instead, it guarantees our right of free speech. It is the decisions of past Courts, otherwise known as precedent, that has created this right of free expression where one does not exist in the Constitution itself.

Now Michael Newdow is gearing up for a run at our currency. "I am about to file to get ‘In God We Trust’ off the front of our currency," he said over the weekend while attending an ACLU event in Oklahoma. And being a crafty lawyer who doesn’t mind using the law to ram his views down the throats of his fellow countymen, Newdow will rely heavily on precedent to make his case in court.

Newdow hinted at this in his comments to a TV reporter, "The key principle is that we’re supposed to treat everybody equally especially in terms of religious belief. Clearly it’s not treating atheists equal with people who believe in God when you say ‘In God We Trust’ or we are a ‘nation under God.’"

There is no "key principle" in the Constitution that provides that all Americans be treated equally when it comes to religious belief. Rather, the First Amendment simply says that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," meaning that the government can’t create an official religion or prevent anyone from participating in the religion of their choosing.

Newdow will have to rely on precedent to prove that the words, "In God We Trust" constitute "establishment of religion."

Finally, the cat’s out of the bag. Just before addressing an audience of ACLU’ers in Oklahoma City Saturday night, professional attorney and part-time crank, Michael Newdow, let it slip to a local reporter that Atheism is, in fact, a religion.

Those of you who like to stay up to date on the various attacks on the American flag that are under way at any given moment, will no doubt recognize Newdow as the perpetrator of the most recent attempts to alter or completely abolish the Pledge of Allegiance. For the record, Newdow wants the statement “under God” removed from the Pledge.

Newdow’s first attempt found success with the decidedly liberal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals but the Supreme Court refused to hear the case. They said that Newdow didn’t have legal standing to represent his daughter, since he had no custody rights.

On the second go-round, Newdow went to court on behalf of two families and convinced a Federal Judge in Sacramento to rule that reciting the Pledge in public school is unconstitutional.

So according to U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton, not only is it unconstitutional to require that students pledge allegiance to the flag, but if a student wants to pledge his or her allegiance to the American flag, too bad – it’s no longer constitutional. Karlton claimed that the problem with “under God” is that school children should be "free from a coercive requirement to affirm God."

Judge Karlton aims to make sure that there is no affirmation of God going on in the public schools and Michael Newdow couldn’t be happier. He’s so charged up about his crusade that he’s now planning to file to have “In God We Trust” taken off our currency.

Newdow told a reporter from KWTV, "The key principle is that we’re supposed to treat everybody equally especially in terms of religious belief. Clearly it’s not treating atheists equal with people who believe in God when you say ‘In God We Trust’ or we are a ‘nation under God.”

Could it be that a few unrelated events yesterday signal the beginning of a shift in the American public’s  attitude to the war in Iraq?

Early yesterday morning, I caught a TV commercial that literally brough tears to my eyes. It was  sponsored by a Kurdish group, the name of which escapes me. It started off stating the Saddam Hussein’s goal was to wipe out every last Kurd living in Iraq, which was then followed by Kurd after Kurd saying, "Thank-you America." There were young and old, men and women, some waving the new Iraqi flag and others waving American flags, But all conveyed absolute gratitiude.

For me, it was very powerful to see actual people who have spent most or all of their lives living in fear, who are suddenly facing a future shining with hope. And it also reminded me how utterly despicable the arrogant and self-centered fat-cats like Michael Moore (yes, he does invest heavily in the stock market!) are to claim that the Iraqi people would have been better off with the tyranny of Saddam.

Later on in the day, I read about President Bush’s Veterans Day speech before mostly military personnel at the Tobyhanna Army Depot in Pennsylvania in which he finally went on the offensive in answering his critics. He correctly pointed out that many Democrat politicians are trying to distance themselves from the decision to go to war by rewriting history and named John Kerry as an example.

At the time of the senate resolution to support the war, Kerry said, "When I vote to give the president of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein, it is because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat, and a grave threat, to our security."

The effect of the speech will be small but it signals a shift in the way the White House will handle it’s critics, particularly those who do it for political gain.

Then late last night, I saw a short interview on TV with PFC Kenny Adams and his wife, Katie. Adams was blinded in both eyes by friendly fire in Afghanistan, and yet, is filled with love for his country. At a Memorial Day ceremony in Sugar Land, Texas, Adams and others placed American flags on the graves of fallen soldiers, and then Adams was asked to speak. He told those in attendance that the day wasn’t about him but to remember those who gave their lives for their country. He said, "If I had both eyes again, I’d go back. If I had one eye, I’d go back. It was all worth it for my country."

Three things I noticed yesterday that are totally unrelated and no doubt coincidental, and it’s only a beginning, but it’s definitely the other side of the coin we’re seeing.

Here’s something interesting. The evil British officer, Col. William Tavington, in Mel Gibson’s movie, The Patriot, was actually based (loosely) on a real British officer, Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton. In the movie, Tavington is an arrogant and vicious thug who murders most of Gibson’s family. In the American Revolution, Tarleton was referred to by Continental soldiers as "Bloody Ban" and "The Butcher" for the massacre of Continental soldiers attempting to surrender at the Battle of Waxsaws.

At that battle, a regiment of Virginian volunteers was all but wiped out, even after raising the flag of surrender. An eye witness wrote that Tarleton and his troops created "indiscriminate carnage never surpassed by the ruthless atrocities of the most barbarous savages." Tarleton took three of the Virginia regiment’s battle flags as souvenirs and later brought them back to England along with a Connecticut flag that may have actually been stolen.

After 225 years of adorning the walls of Tarleton’s ancestors, Captain Tarleton Fagan, the current living ancestor, has shipped the flags back to New York to be auctioned at Sotheby’s. As for the reason for the sudden appearance of the flags, Fagan said  "… when there comes a time when their value becomes so disproportionate that you can no longer insure them and give them care, well, a decision must be made. It was a decision not taken lightly." In other words, he could use the money.

And if Sotheby’s vice chairman, David N. Redden, is correct, then it’s money he will get. He expects the flags to fetch between $4 million and $10 million. Redden describes them as  "sacred and vivid relics of the birth our nation," and adds, "Flags of such rarity and history have never come up for sale."

Let’s hope that this time, these flags stay in the United States.

Just a reminder: tomorrow is Veterans Day, so if you’ve been keeping that American flag in storage since the 4th of July, now’s the time to shake the dust off and hang it up! Flying the American flag is a great way, in my humble opinion, to honor those who have willingly risked life and limb for the noble cause of freedom.

And just in time for Veterans Day, I received the following in an email today from a very good friend and thought it worth showing in it’s entirety. You may notice that it’s dated January, 2004, so many of you may have seen this before, but this message is so right on the money, that it bears repeating over and over again, until it sinks in.

WHAT SENATOR JOHN GLENN SAID
(ON THE SENATE FLOOR)
Mon, 26 Jan 2004 11:13

There were 39 combat related killings in Iraq in January. In the fair city of Detroit there were 35 murders in the month of January.That’s just one American city, about as deadly as the entire war-torn country of Iraq.

When some claim that President Bush shouldn’t have started this war, state the following:

a. FDR led us into World War II.
b. Germany never attacked us; Japan did.
>From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost … an average of 112,500 per year.
c. Truman finished that war and started one in Korea. North Korea never attacked us.
>From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost … an average of 18,334 per year.
d John F. Kennedy started the Vietnam conflict in 1962. Vietnam never attacked us.
e. Johnson turned Vietnam into a quagmire
>From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost .. an average of 5,800 per year.
f. Clinton went  to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent. Bosnia never attacked us. He was offered Osama bin Laden’s head on a platter three times by Sudan and did nothing. Osama has attacked us on multiple occasions.
g. In the years since terrorists attacked us , President Bush has liberated two countries, crushed the Taliban, crippled al-Qaida, put nuclear inspectors in Libya, Iran, and North
Korea without firing a shot, and captured a terrorist who slaughtered 300,000 of his own people.

The Democrats are complaining about how long the war is taking. But:
It took less time to take Iraq than it took Janet Reno to take the Branch Davidian compound. That was a 51-day operation.

We’ve been looking for evidence for chemical weapons in Iraq for less time than it took Hillary Clinton to find the Rose Law Firm billing records.

It took less time for the 3rd Infantry Division and the Marines to destroy the Medina Republican Guard than it took Ted Kennedy to call the police after his Oldsmobile sank at Chappaquiddick

It took less time to take Iraq than it took to count the votes in Florida!!!! Our Commander-In-Chief is doing a GREAT JOB! The Military morale is high!

The biased media hopes we are too ignorant to realize the facts.

But wait, there’s more!

Some people still don’t understand why military personnel do what they do for a living. This exchange between Senators John Glenn and Senator Howard Metzenbaum is worth reading. Not only is it a pretty impressive impromptu speech, but it’s also a good example of one man’s explanation of why men and women in the armed services do what they do for a living.

This IS a typical, though sad, example of what some who have never served think of the military.

Senator Metzenbaum (speaking to Senator Glenn):
"How can you run for Senate when you’ve never held a real job?"

Senator Glenn (D-Ohio):
"I served 23 years in the United States Marine Corps. I served through two wars. I flew 149 missions. My plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire on 12  different occasions. I was in the space program. It wasn’t my checkbook, Howard; it was my life on the line. It was
not a nine-to-five job, where I took time off to take the daily cash receipts to the bank."

"I ask you to go with me … as I went the other day… to a veteran’s hospital and look those men …. with their mangled bodies in the eye, and tell THEM they didn’t hold a job!

You go with me to the Space Program at NASA and go, as I have gone, to the widows and Orphans of Ed White, Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee… and you look those kids in the eye and tell them that their DADS didn’t hold a job.

You go with me on Memorial Day and you stand in Arlington National Cemetery, where I have more friends buried than I’d like to remember, and you watch those waving flags.

You stand there, and you think about this nation, and you tell ME that those people didn’t have a job?

What about you?"

For those who don’t remember, during W.W.II, Howard Metzenbaum was an attorney
representing the Communist Party in the USA.

Now he’s a Senator!

Whether you fly an American flag for Veterans Day or not, take some time and reflect on the things the flag stands for. It’s more critical than ever that we grasp the nature of events unfolding around the world, because more than ever, the battle is over ideas and radically different ways of viewing human existence.

I just read an amazing statistic. According to a recent survey commissioned by the Flag Manufacturers Association of America, 62% of U.S. households have at least one American flag. And of those households, 45% say they fly the flag daily, which means that roughly 28% of all homes display the American flag on a daily basis.

It’s well known among those that are involved in the survey business that people do not always tell the truth when answering survey questions. They often say what they think the person taking the survey wants to hear or they say what they perceive to be the acceptable or popular thing. So if the 28% figure seems a little high, it may very well be.

The amazing thing to me (maybe I’m just easily amazed) is that among most of the world’s most prosperous nations, the people of the United States seem unique in that we will quite easily express patriotism publicly. Many of our contemporaries in Europe, for example, are almost frantic to shed their national identities.

The disturbing news is that the open expression of patriotism revealed in this survey may be just a veneer. Of all those that have purchased an American flag, 40% gave patriotism as the number one reason, but a paltry 6%  listed love of country as the number one reason. I’m in no way an expert on analyzing survey results, so maybe I’m reading too much into this, but here’s the definition of patriotism, straight out of the dictionary: "Love of and devotion to one’s country."

So how does one come to the conclusion that he/she is patriotic, but isn’t quite so sure about the love of country thing. Could it be that "being patriotic" is considered by a large chunk of our population to be acceptable, and who knows, maybe even cool, but expressing love of country is a little too over-the-top, maybe borderline fanatical? I hope not.

Here’s the way I look at it. I love my country. In an imperfect world, where violence, tyranny, hatred and misery have been the norm since the first recorded history, the United States has become a shining example of human freedom. To be sure, we’ve had some very bleak moments along the way and we will have some more in the future because evil exists everywhere and you can’t eradicate it, you can only fight it.

However, with all the criticism leveled at us from all parts of the world, the fact that so many want to come here that we can barely handle the influx, speaks volumes about the reality.

Once again, the ACLU is conspicuously absent. Where are those guys when we need ‘em?

James A. Bronson Jr. was arrested in South Canaan Twp., Pennsylvania, last Thursday on suspicion of flag swapping. Bronson, who is a senior at Western Wayne High School, was suspected of removing the American flag from the high school’s flagpole some time during the wee morning hours of October 27th, and replacing it with the Confederate flag.

Bronson, who later admitted to swapping the flags, was initially the prime suspect because he had been suspended the day before for a verbal altercation in the school cafeteria. He allegedly had made derogatory racial comments to a number of black students in the cafeteria and then left shouting "white power."

Among the charges, interestingly enough, was the misdemeanor of "insulting" the American flag. Which leads me to wonder why the ACLU First Amendment Squad hasn’t decended upon this little eastern Pennsylvania town.

The school had every right to suspend Bronson, and in my opinion, they should have expelled him outright. Furthermore, he readily admitted to taking the American flag and has refused to return it, so the trespassing and theft charges are a slam dunk. But insulting the American flag?

I have no doubt whatsoever that if Bronson had removed a Christian flag from in front of a local church and replaced it with the Palestinian flag, the ACLU would be all over that town like a cheap suit.