Appeal to Heaven

In case you haven’t heard of the latest media-driven controversy, leftist pundits and politicians are outraged that Justice Samuel Alito flew a Pine Tree Flag over his house at one time. To hear the media tell the story, this is proof that Alito and anyone who supports him are racist white supremacist extremists.

I have owned a Pine Tree Flag for many years, and had been flying it in my yard for several months prior to the newest tempest in a teapot. (I typically alternate with the Gadsen Flag, which has also been determined to be problematic.) I posted a picture on Twitter the other day, along with the John Locke quote that inspired the flag:

And where the Body of the People, or any single Man, is deprived of their Right, or is under the Exercise of a power without right, and have no Appeal on Earth, there they have a liberty to appeal to Heaven, whenever they judge the Cause of sufficient moment.

John Locke, Two Treatises of Government

Most engagement was positive, but a handful of the usual suspects called me racist. C’est la vie. It was a reminder that most of the haters on social media know nothing besides what CNN told them that day, and even that varies from day to day. They haven’t read Locke, they have no idea what our nation’s founders wrote or believed, and know nothing about the history of this country. All they can do is point and screech, like the pod people from Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

The truth is that the United States of America is a nation with a heritage, not simply a blank slate for modern progressives to paint their utopian visions. Our Founders were influenced by Christianity and the political philosophy of western Europe, and they were extremely thoughtful in the way they created this country. Rebelling against the British Crown was not a flight of fancy, but a deliberate action taken after many years of dialogue and attempts at reconciliation.

The Bible says that God raises up leaders to enact godly justice, and from that, medieval theologians deduced the divine right of kings. If God truly places kings on their thrones, who are you to disagree? It was never that simple, however. The English people established as far back as Magna Carta in 1215 that the king’s authority had limits, that he had a responsibility to uphold the laws unique to his kingdom.

In 1649, the British people under Oliver Cromwell defeated King Charles I in a civil war and subsequently executed their own monarch for treason. Charles argued that as king it was impossible for him to commit treason against himself, while the parliamentarians maintained that there existed an authority higher than the king, that being the people themselves.

The monarchy was restored after Cromwell’s death, but a fundamental shift of political philosophy had occurred. When James II’s wife gave birth to a son, threatening a Catholic dynasty, the British people expelled him in a bloodless revolt and gave the crown instead to his Protestant son-in-law, William of Orange. It was now clear that the monarch served the people, not the other way around.

It was during this time that Locke wrote Two Treatises of Government, making the case that since God put kings on their thrones, then it was up to God to judge them. If a people chafed under the unlawful judgment of a human king, then they had the right to appeal to God for redress of their grievances. The fact that James fled, and was subsequently defeated in Ireland when he tried to reclaim his throne, could be seen as proof that God had ruled against him, and in favor of the new constitutional monarchy.

When our Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, renouncing their allegiance to King George III, they were not engaging in something new and radical, but following in the tradition of half a millennium of English patriots. They appealed to God for an answer to their cries of oppression, and their unlikely victory over the greatest empire on earth at the time was proof that God favored their cause.

That is our heritage, the foundation of our nation. America was born in rebellion to authority, and to try and claim that the words and symbols of our founding era are racist, white supremacist, or extremist is an attempt to erase our heritage in favor of a Marxist construction. Patriots still fly the Pine Tree Flag, the Gadsden Flag, and the Betsy Ross Flag because we still believe in the principles our fathers fought and died for. We are not rootless cosmopolitans, random individuals without past or future, rather we are links in a chain stretching back into antiquity and looking ahead to a future for our posterity.

We are witnessing a complete replacement of our nation’s heritage before our very eyes. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are out; Angela Davis and George Floyd are in. The Pine Tree Flag, Gadsden Flag, and Betsy Ross Flag are racist; the pride flag must be flown from every government building. Holding on to the faith of our fathers is blasphemy against the new civic religion being imposed on us without our consent.

Thomas Jefferson was inspired by John Locke when he wrote the Declaration of Independence. His words — whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it —are a reminder that the people are ultimately sovereign. This strikes abject fear into the hearts of tyrants and totalitarians alike who would rule over us for our own good. Perhaps this is why they are so afraid of a little flag bearing a pine tree.

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