Day: June 14, 2010

Happy Flag Day! Do you know what Flag Day / Week represents?

From whitehouse.gov:

When the Second Continental Congress adopted the American flag on June 14, 1777, the thirteen stripes alternating red and white, and thirteen white stars in a blue field, represented “a new constellation.” On Flag Day, and throughout National Flag Week, we celebrate its lasting luminosity, and the enduring American story that it represents.

Although the configuration of stars and stripes has changed over the years it has been flown, its significance and symbolism have not wavered. The flag that once helped unite a new Nation to confront tyranny and oppression still flies today as an unequivocal emblem of freedom and liberty. The same flag that has been raised on beaches and battlefields still adorns the uniforms of our heroic sons and daughters serving in America’s Armed Forces, including our troops serving in harm’s way in Iraq and Afghanistan.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim June 14, 2010, as Flag Day and the week beginning June 13, 2010, as National Flag Week. I direct the appropriate officials to display the flag on all Federal Government buildings during that week, and I urge all Americans to observe Flag Day and National Flag Week by displaying the flag. I also call upon the people of the United States to observe with pride and all due ceremony those days from Flag Day through Independence Day, also set aside by the Congress (89 Stat. 211), as a time to honor America, to celebrate our heritage in public gatherings and activities, and to publicly recite the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America.

Are you proudly displaying YOUR American Flag?

WE ARE!

Aren’t you PROUD to be an American?!

WE ARE!

Doesn’t it make you crazy whenever you hear about people who diss the flag and/or get offended whenever someone wears a flag t-shirt or displays the flag at a gathering/office/school?

YES IT DOES!

I saw a tweet on Twitter this morning and it’s been eating at me ever since.

Now I ask you who, in their right mind, would be offended by his/her own country’s flag at any given moment?

I truly don’t understand where people are coming from here.

Care to enlighten me?

I mean, if people truly hate this country SO MUCH, then why don’t they move to another country? If flying our nation’s flag, the flag that represents the struggles and the lives of so many men and women who died to defend her, truly offends people, then why in God’s name are they still on American soil? WHY do we kowtow to these insensitive, unpatriotic boobs?

I, for one, will not tolerate anyone bad mouthing or decimating our flag, or our heritage. And people, if we don’t stop these “offended” nutjobs all in the name of being “politically correct,” then what the hell kind of message is that sending to our military men and women?

To our children?

Have we really become a nation with our tail between our legs?

What kind of message is that sending to the rest of the world? Exactly how is that honoring the men and women who have DIED for this country these nearly 234 years??

I say, let’s grow a freaking backbone here!

Here are some examples of people getting offended by the flag just these past months:

Earlier this week, Debbie McLucas, a supervisor at Kindred Hospital in Mansfield, Texas, was told she would have to take down a 3×5 American flag that she had hung near her desk in an office she shares with three other supervisors. Her boss told her a fellow supervisor, who had immigrated to the United States from Africa 14 years earlier, found it “offensive.” The hospital says it received other complaints from visitors. These must be the type of hospital visitors who stumble upon staff offices as well as close their eyes walking into the building, since the stars and stripes waves proudly outside.

source:

Here’s another gem:

By now you may have heard the story of five students at a California High School who were punished and forced to turn t-shirts inside out because they depicted the American flag. Principal Nick Boden and Assistant Principal Miguel Rodriguez of Live Oaks High School in Santa Clara County admonished the boys for their displays of patriotism because it was May 5, or Cinco de Mayo in Mexico. The students were sent home, and their parents are now justly fighting the district over the school’s ill-concieved actions.

Isn’t the great thing about America that we can celebrate more than one culture at a time, regardless of the day? Will wearing an American flag on St. Patrick’s Day offend the Irish, or during Oktoberfest offend Germans? And isn’t it a bit condescending to assume that Mexican-Americans don’t also revere the flag of their adopted nation?

source:

And the kicker?

Remarkably, Cinco de Mayo, which commemorates the Mexican army’s victory over French forces at the Battle of Peubla is hardly celebrated in Mexico itself. It is voluntarily observed in America as a celebration of Mexican-American heritage.

It absolutely boggles my mind that any person, lucky enough to live in our great nation, would dare to complain or criticize the symbol of our country. And it disheartens me that more people are not willing to take a stand against these radicals and say ENOUGH ALREADY. This is our country and we are proud of her. We will NOT tolerate your disrespect or cater to your attempts to belittle, or excuse, what we’ve fought to obtain.

The ideals of America’s founding are timeless. And yet the cause of Freedom is never complete, but requires eternal vigilance. Not only the cloth and colors of the flag must endure, but the liberty it represents must not perish from the earth. In the words of the National Anthem:

O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On this symbolic day, not only Americans, but free people everywhere should pause to ponder the meaning of this red, white, and blue flag.

source:

GOD BLESS AMERICA!

You got a problem with our constitution? You don’t agree with our foundations? You think the Bill of Rights is negotiable?

Then I have one word for you: LEAVE.

If we want to maintain our precious freedoms, then we must FIGHT for them. Stand UP for your country, folks.

Proudly display our flag and to hell with anyone who doesn’t like it.

(Sorry for the IN-YOUR-FACE post, but dog gone it, I’m sick of people not standing up and saying something about the crap that we’re being forced to endure right now. NO MORE KOWTOWING!).