"Don’t Tread On Me" - Intelligent People Assume Nothing

There is an old flag most of you have seen.

It is yellow. It has a coiled rattlesnake in the middle. Under the snake are four words. Don’t Tread On Me.

That flag was made in 1775 by a man named Christopher Gadsden from South Carolina. The colonies were about to go to war with the strongest empire on earth. Gadsden wanted a banner that said something simple to the King. Leave us be. Respect our rights. Or find out what happens.

It flew on the first ships of the American navy. It went to sea with men who were about to risk everything. Those men were not rich. Most of them were not famous. They were ordinary people who had decided they would no longer be pushed around by power that answered to nobody.

They picked a rattlesnake. A rattlesnake does not go looking for trouble. It does not chase you down. It lies still and minds its own business. But step on it, and it warns you first. Keep coming, and it strikes. The early Americans liked that. They saw themselves the same way. Peaceful until pressed. Fair warning given. Then no backing down.

That is what the flag meant. It was a warning from the people to the powerful. Not the other way around.

Now look at who has been waving it these last fifteen years.

You have seen it at rallies. You have seen it on trucks and on porches. You saw it on January 6, flying over a crowd that broke into the Capitol to stop the count of an election. A flag made to protect the people’s voice was carried by a mob trying to throw out the people’s vote.

Sit with that . Because it tells you everything about how that flag got taken.

The men who lead the Trump line did not earn that flag. They borrowed it. They learned the words and spit them back without ever caring what they meant. They used our battle cries to sell something the founders would have fought against. A man who wants to rule without limits. A party that answers to him and not to you.

That is not patriotism. That is costume.

And here is the proof. Last week the American people stepped on no one. They did not riot. They did not storm anything. They went to the polls, and they voted. Quietly, in huge numbers, in places nobody expected. That was the rattle. That was the warning.

And what did the powerful do with that warning? They ignored it. The outgoing Speaker of the House said the voters made the wrong choice. The White House handed the keys to its hardest fighter. House Republicans picked their most combative member to lead them. They protected a Defense Secretary that voters wanted gone.

That is a boot coming down. It is coming down on the very people the flag was made to defend.

That flag was never theirs. It belongs to anyone who has ever stood up to power that would not listen. It belongs to the farmer, the nurse, the welder, the teacher, the man on a fixed income who just wants the government to keep its word. It belongs to the voter who did her duty last Tuesday and was told she got it wrong.

It belongs to us. And it is time we take it back.

Taking it back does not mean shouting. It does not mean threats. The snake does not strike first. It warns. We warned them at the ballot box. The next move is theirs.

But if they keep stepping, the answer has to be ready. That means leaders in Washington who do not flinch. That means hearings that get to the truth. Subpoenas that hold up in court. Laws that put limits back where limits belong. That is how a free people strikes back. Not with a mob. With the Constitution in one hand and the vote in the other.

There is one more thing I want to say to those of you who have flown that flag for years and meant it. I know some of you did mean it. You believed it was about freedom. You believed it was about keeping government off your back.

Then ask yourself who is treading on you now. Ask who is calling your vote a mistake. Ask who sent your sons and daughters into a war that Congress never approved. Ask who answers to you, and who only answers to one man.

If the flag meant something to you, it should mean the same thing today. It does not change sides because the man in charge wears your team’s colors. A boot is a boot.

The founders did not fight a king so we could crown a new one. They fought so no one would ever stand above the people again.

So fly the flag. Fly it proud. But fly it for what it truly stands for.

Fair warning given. The people have spoken.

Don’t tread on me.

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This post was drafted with AI governed assistance and reviewed and directed by Michael S. Faust Sr. before publication.

” Attic Thoughts”-library – Intelligent People Assume Nothing