When I first saw this story, I thought I’d have to push back yet again against another symptom of a sick society: a strange hatred of the American flag. But, in this case, the people of this town fought off this leftist infection.
If you don’t feel love or veneration for our nation’s symbol of freedom…well, it’s a free country. You’re free to dislike it within the confines of your thoughts and speech. But you don’t get to tell others how they should express their love of country. If you view the American flag as a symbol of hate…well, that’s sick. Trying to keep others from enjoying their police cars displaying pride in their country…well, that’s gravely ill.
No, really…if you hate the flag because you believe it represents evil, despite the historical evidence to the contrary, that is sick. You have to work hard to ignore how evident it is that America has done much more good in the world than bad. If you can’t see that, there’s something wrong with your wiring, or you want something other than a republic comprising limited government and individual liberty. Instead, you want the illusion of equality that striving to change America into a socialist state offers its acolytes.
The story to which I referred above comes from California. The Laguna Beach Police Department adopted for their black and white patrol cars the word POLICE integrated into an American flag motif emblazoned on the sides of the vehicles.
The American flag design on an American police car in an American city driven by an American cop should offend no one. Should it offend the French if the gendarmerie incorporated the Tricolour into its law enforcement vehicle insignias or if the Brits blended the Union Jack into police decals on their police cars? Or if the South Africans, Mexicans, or Japanese police so decorated their patrol cars? Silly, right?
The neo-leftists arguing the Stars & Stripes may “offend” some people is a ridiculous notion. So what? The American flag is our national symbol, literally, whether or not you like it. It represents our nation. For a police department to take pride in this symbol is a positive, uniting gesture. It’s only divisive to unpatriotic malcontents who make it so with their warped view of our nation and its history.
To show you how aggressive this sociocultural illness is, according to the Los Angeles Times, “Longtime Laguna Beach resident Patrick Cannon said that when he sees the new logo on police cars, he sees ‘Immigration and Customs Enforcement’ because the red and white of the flag runs through the capital letters ‘ice’ in ‘police.’” What kind of mind thinks like that?
The kind of mind that also says, “We’re rainbow-sandal-wearing, avocado-eating…surfers and artists, and inclusion is a part of our town. We do not include our Hispanic community by putting ‘ICE’ on our police cars.” Now, I try to refrain from publicly calling people derisive names such as moron, idiot, or imbecile. Instead, I’ll offer you three choices so you can describe, if not this guy, then his thought process. A: moronic; B: idiotic; C: imbecilic. Now, it’s on you. So, enough with this moron, idiot, imbecile—oops!
According to reports, some 200 people, many adorned in various expressions of red, white, and blue, attended the Laguna Beach City Council meeting where members would vote to keep or discard the new logo. People singing the national anthem and reciting patriotic poems punctuated the meeting. Those people were obviously thrilled when the City Council voted to keep the police department’s American flag motif.
It’s important to understand what those folks did and what more of us should do. Not unlike our 18th century forebears attending their town meetings, it was those ordinary Americans from Laguna Beach who got off the “couch” and went to that community meeting in Laguna Beach. Those people decided they would not allow a loud minority of intolerant America haters to bully them. That’s what no doubt prevented a bunch of inclusive, rainbow-sandal-wearing, avocado-eating, anti-American flag, surfers and artists from bullying the City Council into acquiescing to their foolish demands.
In 1787, when the doctor answered a question from a woman about whether we had a Republic or a Monarchy, Ben Franklin told her, “A Republic, if you can keep it.” And Ronald Reagan provided this ominous reminder: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”
The rare traditional American political activism of those good Laguna Beach residents is inspiring. By attending that meeting they are working to keep our republic vibrant and our freedom at least another generation away from extinction. In this time of such anti-American sickness, this is good medicine for all Americans.
