Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina recently lectured Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito about allowing people to fly an upside-down American flag in their homes along with another flag with historical significance dating back to the early days of the American Revolutionary War. Following fierce attacks from the liberal media and Democrats, two Republican senators came to Justice Alito’s defense.
Last week, Obama hagiographer Jodi Kantor article The New York Times reported on the controversy in mid-January 2021 over an American flag that was flown upside down outside Alito’s New Jersey vacation home.
Alito said his wife, Martha Ann Alito, put the flag in their yard “in response to a neighbor using offensive and personally derogatory language on her yard sign.”
Arito explanation The neighbor allegedly had a “F*** Trump” sign hanging within 50 feet of where children wait for the school bus. The neighbor also allegedly blamed Mrs. Alito for the January 6 riots and “used vulgar language, including the ‘C-word.'”
The conservative Supreme Court justice noted that the flag had only been flown for a “brief period.”
The New York Times then article He highlighted that an “Appeal to Heaven” flag was hung outside Alito’s vacation home in July and September 2023.
The Times sought to portray the flag as having negative connotations because some protesters carried it during the Jan. 6 demonstrations and riots.
The “Appeal to Heaven” flag, also known as the “Pine Tree Flag,” has historical origins in the American War of Independence.
The flag was commissioned by George Washington and has been around since 1775. The flag was first used by the Massachusetts Navy during the American Revolutionary War. It was one of the first flags to symbolize the American colonies’ pursuit of independence from Great Britain.
The flag features a green pine tree and the phrase “Appeal to Heaven.”
The “Appeal to Heaven” is a phrase by the British political philosopher John Locke, who is often considered the founder of modern liberal thought.
This quote comes from Locke’sSecond PaperWritten in 1689.
On the subject of privileges, the ancient question may be asked: But who is the judge when this power is rightly exercised? I answer: Between the executive power, which has such privileges, and the legislature, which submits to the will of the executive power, there is no judge on earth; and between the legislature and the people, there is no judge if the executive power or the legislature should take power into their hands and attempt or carry out the enslavement or destruction of the people. The people have no remedy, as in all other cases where there is no judge on earth, except an appeal to heaven.
Locke adds:
Thus, although the people cannot be judges, and therefore cannot by the constitution of their society have any superior power to decide cases and give valid sentences, they nevertheless reserve to themselves the final power which belongs to all mankind, to judge, by a law which precedes and is supreme over all human enactments, whether there is a just cause for appeal to heaven, which cannot be appealed to on earth. And this judgment they cannot abandon; for it is not in the power of man to yield to another, and give him the liberty to destroy him. God and nature will never permit a man to abandon himself, and to neglect his own preservation; and as a man cannot take his own life, he cannot give another the power to take it. And let no man think that this lays a permanent foundation for anarchy; for it cannot work until the inconvenience becomes so great that the majority of the people feel it, are weary of it, and find it necessary to correct it. But executive powers and wise princes need never enter into such dangers; and this is the one which they most need to avoid, as it is the most dangerous of all others.
The United States Postal Service issued the “Appeal to Heaven” flag as a stamp in 1968.
Graham criticized Alito for holding the flag.
“There seems to be a lot of emotion running in the area,” Graham said. Said “But it would not be a wise decision to do so. He said his wife felt insulted and was upset. I think that’s true, but he’s still a Supreme Court justice and people need to understand that,” he told reporters on Monday. [at] Such a moment for reflection.”
“Martha Ann Alito has the right to fly any flag she wants.”
Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) sharply criticized Graham’s criticism of Justice Alito.
respond post Lee, who posted Graham’s response to the flag controversy on the X social media platform, fired back, saying, “Martha Ann Alito has the right to fly any flag she wants, in any way she wants. She is a free citizen and a freedom-loving American patriot.”
He continued: “Her husband is not speaking up for her, and she is not speaking up for her husband. Why can’t the left accept that?”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) also defended Justice Alito.
Johnson declared that the Pine Tree flag had “nothing to do” with the “Stop the Steal” protests.
He said CNN “This is George Washington’s flag. It goes back to the time of the Founding Fathers. I’ve always flown that flag,” he said Wednesday.
Johnson now has a “Appeal to Heaven” flag hanging outside his office.
Rolling Stone Hit Articles Democratic lawmakers, who will lead Johnson from November 2023, sought to stoke public outrage because Johnson had been flying a pine tree flag outside his office at the Cannon House Office Building.
The article, titled “The Key to Mike Johnson’s Christian Extremism Hangs Outside His Office,” claimed of Johnson that “he is also a staunch Christian conservative, and outside his office hangs a flag that leads into a world of right-wing religious extremism that is as unknown to most Americans as Johnson was before he became speaker.”
Far-left media outlets claimed the pine tree flag was a “Christian war symbol.”
“To understand the contemporary meaning of ‘The Banner to the Heavens,’ one must enter the world of Christian extremism, animated by modern apostles, prophets and the apocalyptic visions of Christian triumph that were at the heart of the chaos and violence of January 6th,” the article reads.
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