The American Standard Bearer

The folks at Jam e Masjid Islamic Center in Boonton, New Jersey, have been driven to fits of exageration and accusation because last week, someone nailed, under the cover of darkness, an American flag above the front door of the mosque. So serious a crime is this that the local police have been urged to investigate this as a "Bias Crime." Education Director Hamida Amanat declared, "It was very discomforting to see something blocking the door."

Never mind that Boonton is a scant 15 miles from the former Twin Towers and that on the afternoon of 9/11/01, area muslims were celebrating in the streets while other area residents mourned dead friends, neighbors and family. That sort of behavior should be met with understanding, but nailing an American flag to a building is beyond the pale. Give me a break.

Nihad Awad of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) thinks the problem with the non-Muslim population of New Jersey is a lack of education. "I believe ignorance plays a major factor in this problem, which automatically leads to prejudice. It could be an attempt at saying, ‘You’re not Americans, but we are.’ It may be an attempt to de-Americanize the Muslim community." Awad was evidently not in New Jersey on 9/11.

It’s interesting to note, while we’re on the subject, how crucial a role education plays in the goals of CAIR. The chairman of the board Omar Ahmad publicly said, “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth.”

And then there’s the silver-tongued CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper, who often appears on TV with his message of hope, “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.” And how would he propose to achieve that goal? Why, through "education" of course.

Oh, and did I mention that Awad, who so skillfully condemns the vicious American flag attack by imploring peace and education, is one of the world’s most vocal cheerleaders for the terror group Hamas?

Robert Annable climbed an estimated 80 feet up a tower behind the Miami Herald building on Biscayne Bay this morning, tied a POW-MIA flag, then an American flag upside down, lashed himself to the tower and waited for some media attention. The upside down American flag is a common distress signal.

It seems that Annable’s brother and two friends disappeared while on a lobster-catching expedition to the Bahamas in 1962. The boat was recovered but the men were never found. Annable believes that his brother disappeared as a result of a secret war the U.S. was alledgedly waging against Cuba.

Annable climbed the tower in order to demand that the Government come clean about the disappearance, despite the fact that there’s no evidence of what happened to the three men.

In case you’re ready to jump on board with Annable’s conspiracy theory, consider this: Annable threatened that unless the Feds came forward with the information by 5:00 PM, he would burn the American flag. Talk about delusional!

Annable communicated his demands via cell phone to police who apparently told him, after they stopped laughing long enough to talk, that burning American flags is constitutionally protected "speech" and is even considered a cool thing to do in some circles. Annable came down at 11:30 AM, five-and-a-half hours ahead of schedule, leaving the American flag intact.

On second thought, maybe the gang that spray painted the American flag (previous piece) isn’t trying to Americanize at all. Perhaps they realize that desecrating an American flag might render them immune to prosecution for the entire incident.

Case in point: Andrew Elisha Staley of Marysville, Tennessee, stole a neighbors American flag on the Fourth of July, took it to another yard and torched it. Police found him staring at the flames laughing. He later admitted to being drunk that night.

Blount County General Sessions Judge Hugh E. DeLozier, Jr. has postponed Staley’s hearing because he’s interested in considering the defense attorney’s motion to dismiss the case and he wants to make sure they have plenty of time to discuss it. Defense attorney Tiffany Deaderick is asking for all five charges against Staley be dropped saying, "It’s unconstitutional as applied to my client.”

Staley was charged with drinking in public, theft, evading arrest, littering, and desecration of the American flag, but the Judge seems to be more interested in determining if Staley’s First Amendment rights have been violated. One reason for the delay is to allow the Judge to have time to review case law on the subject of flag burning. The question the court will examine is can Staley’s behavior be viewed as "expressive conduct?"

You heard it here first folks – it’s only a matter of time before the motley collection of vandals and petty criminals that plague our neighborhoods will be burning American flags at every opportunity so they can claim "expressive conduct."

In the debate over immigration reform, one complaint heard over and over again is that so many immigrants retreat into enclaves and refuse to assimilate into the larger society.

Well, one California gang is bucking the trend and is leading the way for other immigrants to become more Americanized. While performing the usual graffiti ritual on the walls of a VFW Post in San Marcos, gang members stepped up to the plate in solidarity with the American far-left and desecrated the Post’s American flag.

The 10′ x 15′ American flag that once saw service aboard a Navy ship was lowered to the ground and spray painted, then left for members of the Post to find. This marks a shift from the everyday vandalism performed by gangs to vandalism with a political component. No doubt the ACLU is encouraged by this turn of events.

Planned Parenthood is selling "Condom Key Chains" that have created a very rancorous debate in some quarters.  The key chain at the center of the controversy depicts a section of Michelangelo‘s painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in which the hand of God is stretched towards the hand of Adam. The Planned Parenthood version depicts God handing off a condom to Adam.

Other key chains fueling the controversy include one picturing the American flag with the words "Wear With Pride" in place of the star field and another American flag themed picture with the words "I Want You!" along with a cartoon picture of a smiley-face condom. Rounding out the all-American line-up is one with a picture of the Statue of Liberty holding a condom high over New York Harbor, presumably to welcome immigrants to the land of Safe Sex.

Planned Parenthoods primary reason for being is and has always been to promote and provide abortions and/or contraceptives. But there’s a lot more going on here than preventing babies.

An awful lot of people in America and all around the world regard the works of Michelangelo as sacred. And many more people regard the symbolism – God and His relationship with man – as sacred.

Then there’s the American flag. Desecration of the flag takes many forms and the U.S. flag code addresses quite a few of them including the use of the American flag as advertising, which this clearly is.

The folks at Planned Parenthood evidently think that their sophmoric key chain designs are humorous and lighthearted and I have no doubt that they don’t get what all the fuss is about. The Planned Parenthood crowd does not take the Judeo/Christian notion of God seriously nor do they take the notion of a sovereign United States seriously, preferring instead to identify with the Europeans. And they certainly don’t take the people who harbor these notions seriously, believing them to be uneducated and unworldly.

If you want to understand what the culture wars are all about, Planned Parenthood and their key chains get right to the heart of it.

If I ran my own film awards event – maybe the Flagstuff.com Critics Choice Awards – I confess that I would be heavily biased towards those film companies that purchased flags from us. So it’s interesting to deduce the biases that influence the choices for real film award events.

This years Golden Globe Award nominations provide an extraordinarily clear picture of the cultural biases that fuel the engine of Hollywood in 2006. Brokeback Mountain, which is the odds on favorite, is the story of two married cowboys who are cheating on their wives – with each other. The critics are falling all over themselves in praise of this film that is expected to run away with the Golden Globes and quite possibly the Oscars. It’s hard to turn on the TV or visit a news site on the web without hearing about this movie.

By contrast, Narnia, which is one of a series of stories written by English author C.S. Lewis, and an excellent movie to boot, has garnered exactly zero Golden Globe nominations. And to find mention of it anywhere, you need to search for it.

Why the dis by the Hollywood chosen? It’s simple. In the eyes of the Hollywood elite, Narnia is just not worthy of consideration. Forget the fact that the special effects are seamless, the production values top drawer, the acting suberb and the story by one of the twentieth century’s most celebrated thinkers. The fact remains that C.S. Lewis was a Christian and Narnia is overtly Christian. Case closed.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy faired much better, even though JRR Tolkien was a fellow Christian and friend to Lewis, because the Christian theme was there but not quite so overt. The Hollywood folks evidently didn’t recognize it but Christians easily did (think the resurrection of Gandalf).

A quick examination of the numbers brings the whole thing into sharper focus. Both Brokeback Mountain and Narnia opened on the same day – December 9th. This past weekend, Brokeback grossed $7 million and Narnia grossed $12.2 million. Total box office receipts have Brokeback at $32 million and Narnia at $263 million. That puts Narnia at 8 times the total gross of Brokeback.

And as far as the Flagstuff.com Critics Choice Awards is concerned, well, I didn’t see Brokeback Mountain, but it would be hard to beat the truly beautiful flags featured in Narnia.

Mike Stephan, writing in the University of Southern California’s "Daily Trojan Online," provides more evidence that our institutions of higher learning are in serious trouble.

In a piece entitled Ban on flag burning robs American rights, Stephan combines sloppy thinking with ridiculous logic to make his point that a proposed amendment to the Constitution to protect the American flag will, well, rob American rights.

I could really pick this one apart, since it is filled to the brim with all manner of falsehood, hyperbole, and leftist dogma, but instead, I’ll focus on just one passage to make the point.

In this one passage, Stephan says, "This proposed amendment is a reflection of …a misunderstanding of the First Amendment by lawmakers…" He then goes on, in a preachy sort of way, to show his own serious deficiency of knowledge as he describes what he thinks it is that the First Amendment says, "The physical act of burning a flag is what we call symbolic speech. It, like vocal speech, is protected under the Bill of Rights as it is a means of expression."

The Bill of Rights, however says nothing about "symbolic speech" or the equally abiguous term "expression." It merely says "speech." Since both the word "symbolic" and the word "expression" were regular parts of the English language at the time the First Amendment was written, I have to believe that the authors would have had the forsight to use them if that is what they intended. Stephan may wish the First Amendment to say those things but it doesn’t.

Not one to be derailed by the facts, Stephan attempts to explain how the word "speech" actually means more than just speech. He begins with the premise "…what is ’speech,’ but the faculty to convey thoughts?"

He then describes how the act of burning the American flag to properly dispose of it differs from the act of burning the flag as protest, not so much in the physical process as in "the thoughts associated" with the act, and concludes, "…it is apparent that H.J. Res. 10 seeks to outlaw not the act of flag burning, but the thoughts associated with it. This is a very slippery slope. No government has the right to outlaw thoughts."

This is a really twisted piece of logic (or lack therof) if ever there was one! Our society holds together only because there are laws that limit behavior. According to Stephan, any sort of behavior should be protected by the First Amendment because there are "thoughts associated" with it.

I recently (see 12/20) wrote about the controversy that has arisen as a result of a neighborhood project in the Atlanta suburb of Duluth, Georgia. This past Fourth of July weekend, several families that live on a cul-de-sac in a quiet neighborhood got together and decided to paint a large American flag on the pavement in the center of the cul-de-sac.

The controversy got some national attention earlier this week when 9-year-old Rachel Renbarger was brought to tears at a City Council meeting. Little Rachel bravely stood up and took responsibilty for the project, though she was just one of many who took part in the painting of the flag. She fought back tears as she told the Council, "I am so sorry. We will do whatever it takes to remove it — me and my sister. I am so sorry."

World War II veteran and former POW Don Ogden was on hand to testify on behalf of those who want to see the flag removed. Conspicuously absent was Glen Coryell who originally lodged the complaint months after the painting was made, which leads me to my take on this whole thing.

There were basically three groups involved in this controversy, not two like you might assume. The first group are the folks who painted the American flag and their supporters, and they have many supporters. Rachel and her neighbors are part of this group which includes a good many veterans. They maintain that the flag painting was an exercise in patriotism, even if a technical violation of the Flag Code. One member of this group even made the excellent point that as Americans, we are free to treat the flag in any manner we see fit.

The second group is represented by Mr. Ogden. This group includes, but is not limited to military veterans who believe that a painting of an American flag on the street is disrespectful and in violation of U.S Code, even if the intention was honorable. And they are on solid ground when they make this assertion. The Flag Code specifically says that paintings of the American flag are the same thing as the flag itself, and are deserving of the same respect as a cloth flag.

And finally the third group, which consists of people like Glen Coryell, who originally stated that his opposition to the American flag painting was that it represents the war in Iraq. These are the folks who don’t see the American flag as the symbol of our great nation, but instead see it as a symbol of the "evil and repression" that Americans have exported to every corner of the globe. In this case at least, they seem to have quite cowardly felt it would be wiser to let those like Don Ogden do their bidding for them.