Gadsden Flag Declared Racist
This is not a parody. It is now against the law to fly the flag, one of the historical flags of the Revolution.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission agreed with a complainant who claimed that his coworker wearing the Gadsden flag (more popularly known as the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag) was a form of racial harassment.
The complainant, who is black, objected to his coworker wearing a cap with the flag, a patriotic and anti-tyranny icon dating back to the Revolutionary War. The man stated that he “found the cap to be racially offensive to African Americans because the flag was designed by Christopher Gadsden, a ‘slave trader & owner of slaves.’” He also argues the flag is a “historical indicator of white resentment against blacks stemming largely from the Tea Party.”
The EEOC agreed. “Whatever the historic origins and meaning of the symbol, it also has since been sometimes interpreted to convey racially-tinged messages in some contexts,” they argue. “For example, in June 2014, assailants with connections to white supremacist groups draped the bodies of two murdered police officers with the Gadsden flag during their Las Vegas, Nevada shooting spree.”
One should assume the news is lying, and that the lies are also based on further lies, but in this case, if the EEOC’s reasoning was anything even close to what the news reports, the laws must be revoked, and commission disbanded and the officers punished.
By this law, any expression of any kind whatsoever can be interpreted to have whatever meaning a hostile authority wishes to impose on it, so that the Tea Party, a political party calling for a balanced budget and limits on public debt, can be interpreted to be racists on the grounds that they honor fallen police officers.
The insanity of this logic cannot be overstated or parodied. It is an arbitrary use of power meant to be seen as arbitrary. The Left is secure in the knowledge that at no point will any Christian or Conservative oppose them in any way.
It was done to gloat. In this particular case, it was done to tread on the serpent, and show the boast of Conservatives to be hollow, the First Amendment to be dead, and to prove the Left are free to spit on the dead.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
