Old Glory Represents America's Values

On the Fourth of July we celebrate our birthday, a colorful and exciting event, but the true beauty of our Declaration of Independence that marks the day is that it led to our Constitution. In between these two events, George Washington helped adopt our flag, the symbol for a new nation, our trademark, and the glue that united 13 very diverse and independent colonies. It was this triumvirate that gave mankind true freedom, the very source of our dignity as humans.

All military people, those who pay the price for our freedom, take an oath to protect and defend our Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And every day millions of civilians take that same oath when they pledge allegiance to the flag. Although we take the oath and the pledge in the presence of Old Glory, it is the Constitution that is in our hearts.

We have all seen our share of foreign enemies to our Constitution - communists, Nazis, and fascist dictators who are now pretty much vanquished to the slime pit of history. There will always be foreign enemies to our Constitution, but those we can handle. The real threat to our Constitution today, however, is domestic.

Today's enemies to our Constitution are not armed with guns and tanks. They don't wear camouflaged fatigues and bunker in the jungle. They wear black robes and expensive suits. Their bunkers are courtrooms, classroom, cloakrooms and newsrooms. Their missiles are law suits, legal dictates and media misinformation. Their casualties are parents, children, teachers and apathetic Americans struggling to do what is right and busy earning a living.

We see our Constitution assaulted almost daily by those who were trained on the playing fields of the elite, most of whom have never seen a battlefield. Their battle cry is that toleration for offensive and evil conduct is essential to freedom, that pornography is protected speech but prayer is not. They are masters of psychological warfare. They know if they can change the language, they can change our minds. They rant and rave about civil liberties and never mention civil responsibilities. Their armor is a distorted First Amendment. Their target is the Constitution. They are determined to mold it to their valueless ideals, never mind the ideals of the founding fathers who created it.

The enemy these elite fear most is an informed, alert, active populace. A victory for an amendment, which would return to the people the right to protect their flag, would be a devastating defeat for the elite. It would change the battlefield from courtrooms to living rooms and start a slippery slope that could return the Constitution to the people.

Justice Hugo Black said:' "Our Constitution was not written in the sands to be washed away by each successive wave of new judges blown in by each successive political wind". He also said: "It passes my belief that any thing in the Federal Constitution bars& making the deliberate burning of the American flag an offense". The author of the First amendment, James Madison, denounced flag burning as a crime and so did Thomas Jefferson whose great document we celebrate on the fourth.

The flags we pledge to will wear out and be replenished, but our Constitution is ageless and must never be replaced. The great patriots we honor on the Fourth participated in the defeat of all the foreign enemies of our Constitution in this century. It is comforting to know that such warriors are joined in the battle to recapture Old Glory. They know it is not a battle over a colored cloth, it is an affirmation of their oath as soldiers, and pledge as civilians, to protect and defend the Constitution from all its enemies foreign and, tragically, domestic.