Last week the mainstream media criticized Hollywood star and outdoor enthusiast Chris Pratt for wearing a T-shirt with a modified version of the "Don't Tread On Me" Gadsden flag.
The media portrayed the image as racist, but do you know the real history behind the iconic symbol? National Review’s Robert Verbruggen wrote about it back in 2010:
In America, it was immigrants from this region and their children who introduced versions of the rattlesnake/“Don’t Tread on Me” flag in 1775, the year the Revolutionary War began. It appeared simultaneously among militia units from Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Virginia. One famous early appearance of this imagery occurred when the Second Continental Congress sent a group of Marines to help the Navy intercept and capture some British supply ships. The Marines carried drums that were painted yellow, with the words “Don’t Tread on Me” and the rattlesnake image.
The same year, Christopher Gadsden — who represented South Carolina in the Continental Congress — chose Esek Hopkins to be commander-in-chief of the Continental Navy. Gadsden presented Hopkins with a personal standard: a yellow rattlesnake flag, with the words “Don’t Tread on Me.” He also presented the flag to his home state’s legislature in Charleston. Today, the rattlesnake flag’s yellow iteration (other colors were also used) is commonly known as the Gadsden flag.
The design soon became a universal symbol of the Revolution; everyone from Minuteman militias to the New Continental Fleet used it. However, Betsy Ross’s Stars and Stripes was adopted as the official American flag in 1777.
The mainstream media (and their counterparts in Congress and federal agencies) don't want Americans to understand American history because they want to maintain the status quo in D.C.
When Americans understand their history, they understand that they've never been a people who live willingly under a tyrannical, overreaching national government. The Gadsden flag is a powerful symbol of that self-governing attitude, and the D.C. "elite" will do everything it can to keep that symbol from gaining national popularity.
But their efforts might be in vain. The spirit of self-governance is spreading from sea to shining sea, and nowhere is that mindset more evident than in the Convention of States Project.
The Article V Convention of States movement is the ultimate fight for self-governance because it's goals are the same as the Founding generation: allow people living in their states and local communities to make decisions for themselves. We the People don't need a faraway bureaucrat in D.C. to tell us how to live our lives. We need the power to govern ourselves, and that's exactly what a Convention of States can provide.
An Article V Convention of States is called and controlled by the states and has the power to propose constitutional amendments. These amendments can restore the balance of power between the federal government and the states by limiting D.C.'s power and jurisdiction, mandating fiscal restraints on Congress, and limiting the terms of office for federal officials.
Only with these amendments in place can we finally restore our right to self-governance and once again tell a tyrannical centralized government, "Don't tread on me."
Sign the Petition below to show your support!
