I bought a new American flag.\u00a0\u00a0The old one was torn, tattered, and discolored on the edges from the metal pole.\u00a0\u00a0My Boy Scout training kicked in:\u00a0\u00a0old flags should be replaced, then \u201cretired\u201d with dignity.\u00a0\u00a0There\u2019s a box at City Hall where you can drop them off for the local Scout troop.\u00a0\u00a0They\u2019ll perform the appropriate ritual to lay this Old Glory to rest.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recently, I got out of the habit of flying the American flag.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s been a struggle to support an America whose government seems so hell bent on destroying everything I think it should stand for.\u00a0\u00a0But the flag is out there right now –\u00a0\u00a0new, clean and proud; baking in the summer sun this day before the Fourth of July.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What changed?\u00a0\u00a0Well first of all it\u2019s my abject stubbornness.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I refuse to allow this symbol of all that I think is good in America to be plagiarized by those who wish to change it for the bad.\u00a0\u00a0So let folks drive by our house and wonder \u2013 was there some political conversion of Biblical proportion on Linda Avenue in Pataskala?\u00a0\u00a0Did Dahlman move?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s not flying from the bed of the pickup truck (yes, we have one of those too, part of the whole Lost Dog story). And it is funny, as I write this essay, the flag itself is a topic on the morning news.\u00a0\u00a0Wes Moore, the Governor of Maryland, a Democrat and an African American, is refusing to \u201cconcede patriotism\u201d to the current President.\u00a0\u00a0I guess I\u2019m not the only one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s my America too.\u00a0\u00a0And I can continue to hope that we are the same nation that those conflicted patriots of 1776 called for:\u00a0\u00a0one of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.\u00a0\u00a0The Founding Fathers knew full well their own contradictions:\u00a0\u00a0the \u201call men are created equal\u201d of Jefferson\u2019s pen were really twenty-one years or older white men who owned property.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0James Madison summed it up best a decade later in the Preamble to the Constitution.\u00a0\u00a0It was his use of the grammatically awkward \u201cmore perfect union\u201d,\u00a0\u00a0that created the grist for high school debates for the next 240 years.\u00a0\u00a0What is \u201cmore perfect\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our current government demonstrates that we aren\u2019t anywhere near perfect yet.\u00a0\u00a0And I can see why many are giving up on the \u201cAmerican Dream\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Some are simply withdrawing from public life, climbing into a turtle shell of protection.\u00a0\u00a0They live safely in their \u201cbubbles\u201d of political silence, never reaching out, never standing up.\u00a0\u00a0They huddle beneath the storm, just as we are huddling in the air conditioning, waiting for this first summer blast of\u00a0\u00a0our \u201cclimate changed\u201d environment to pass. (It doesn\u2019t help that it\u2019s going to be 95 degrees Fahrenheit today.\u00a0\u00a0We now have a new measurement, the \u201cfeels like\u201d scale, a heat index which will reach 105.\u00a0\u00a0Knowing that information doesn\u2019t make it \u201cfeel\u201d any better!<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n But there are still those with hope.\u00a0\u00a0I listened to Jack Smith being interviewed for the first time last night.\u00a0\u00a0Jack Smith \u2013 the last Special Prosecutor before the second Trump era.\u00a0\u00a0The man who had the audacity to think that even a former President should adhere to the law.\u00a0\u00a0The attorney who has the most reason to be \u201cin a shell\u201d; he indicted Donald Trump for national security violations, and for conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.\u00a0\u00a0He is a \u201cprime target\u201d for Trump\u2019s pledge to get \u201cretribution\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And yet he\u2019s out there, talking.\u00a0\u00a0He\u2019s not a politician, nor is he auditioning for a show on MS-NOW.\u00a0\u00a0He\u2019s trying to defend the institution he knows best, the Department of Justice.\u00a0\u00a0Not the current, Todd Blanche-led institution of revenge.\u00a0\u00a0Not the one indicting an American Olympic rowing champion for picking up a piece of lining from the Reflecting Pool.\u00a0\u00a0And, not the Justice Department obfuscating and lying to Federal Judges about the location and actions of detained undocumented people.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jack Smith is defending those who remain in Justice, doing \u201cthe good work\u201d of protecting Americans from crime and terrorism.\u00a0\u00a0He stands up for all of those thousands of lawyers who are, in many cases, the last barricade against real danger and damage.\u00a0\u00a0And he\u2019s doing it at risk to himself, raising his own visibility as a target for Mr. Blanche.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jack Smith is a patriot in the clearest sense.\u00a0\u00a0He is risking everything for the Nation that he believes America should be.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n How can we shrink in the face of his courage?\u00a0\u00a0Jack Smith risks the entire might of the American justice system falling on his back.\u00a0\u00a0The least we can do is defend our own right to fly the flag, to see and work for the America we believe in.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\nDefending Justice<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Fourth<\/h2>\n\n\n\n