(WND) – In a new question-and-answer posting at Reason.com, Editor in Chief Matt Welch has an answer for the question “What is the Gadsden ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ flag?”
(BarackObama.com)
It’s not, as it was in 1775, a “banner designed by Continental Col. Christopher Gadsden, using colonial rattlesnake imagery popularized by Benjamin Franklin, that accompanied the first-ever mission of the nascent U.S. Navy.”Nor is it, as it was in 1991, the “song and album cover from Metallica.”
Nor, as law enforcement officials said in 1999, is it the “most common symbol displayed by militia members and organizations,” possibly suggesting “terrorist or criminal operations.”
Now, according to Christine Pelosi, a Democratic strategist and the daughter of the House minority leader, it is “a symbol to be re-appropriated in the service of defending the heavy-treading Affordable Care Act.”
“As ever, the richest symbolism is often in the eye of the beholder,” Welch observed.
He provided a link to Christine Pelosi’s Twitter feed, which was drawing starkly harsh condemnation of the federal move to control the health insurance market.
Pelosi tweeted: “Don’t Tread on me … or my healthcare” with an image adapted from the Gadsden flag. The flag bore the words: “Don’t Tread on My Obamacare,” with a looped image of a stethoscope in place of the snake.
The actual Gadsden flag However, the responses were not sympathetic to her cause.
Don't tread on me … or my healthcare. pic.twitter.com/7gjk21U7ro
— sfpelosi (@sfpelosi) March 20, 2014
Said S.M.: “Yes this is clearly what Gadsden had in mind when … defending an overbearing mandated government program against the people.”
Al Masino said: “Tell that to the 6 million who lost insurance.”
Timothy O’Donnell commented that “your healthcare can’t be tread on if you have none after your policy was canceled due to obamacare.”
Said Josh Jordan: “Millions said this as Obamacare got their plans canceled.”
Matt Verduci asked “what if your healthcare treads on … literally everyone else?”
Derek Hunter said: “I love being told how to live by children of privilege.”
Welch, at Reason, had pointed out that the “Don’t Tread” message was common at anti-Iraq War protests 10 years ago and among anti-tea party commentators five years ago, who said it was a historical indicator of “white resentment.”
Just last year in New Rochelle, N.Y., he noted, the mayor and city council decided it was so “offensive” that it must be removed from the local armory.
The tweet from Pelosi was among the latest moves to bolster the popularity of the struggling Democrat plan called the Affordable Care Act.
In a report in the Atlanta Blackstar, Nick Childs noted that today Democrats are “trying to run away from it and Republicans still blasting away at it.”
Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus wrote: “For months, the news has not been kind. A broken promise, a broken website. Lost plans, lost doctors. Rising prices, rising frustration. Shrinking paychecks, a shrinking workforce. Unsecure date, insecure Democrats.”…….
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