The flag of 1777, not 1861. The Stars and Stripes, not the Stars and Bars. The flag of Betsy Ross, not Nicola Marschall. The flag of the United States, not the Confederate States. The flag of Union blue, not rebel gray. The flag we salute, not the one a critic condemns.
A critic who kneels in silence and shouts from the sidelines, who pledges allegiance to a corporation, who endorses a logo—not the Logos of a divine and self-evident truth, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Colin Kaepernick is that critic.
His criticism is an assault against history.
His ignorance is an insult to history: a whitewashing—forgive me—of American history, because Kaepernick desecrates the flag not of scoundrels but of patriots; black patriots who fought and died for America; African Americans who survived the perilous fight, at home and abroad, in defense of right; veterans who earned the right to receive exclusive rights from an agency whose seal includes the flag Kaepernick disdains.
A golden cord binds the flag of independence with the flag of freedom.
The mystic chords of memory stretch from every battlefield, all over this broad land.
If Colin Kaepernick wants to burn that flag with a rhetorical accelerant instead of an actual fuse, if he wants to be true to the words of a company instead of a country, let us say: Just Do It.
He will not ruin the Fourth of July.
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