I've often lamented the Great Britain that once was. This was a nation that had an empire on which the sun never set; they had a Royal Navy that ensured freedom of navigation over all the world's oceans. Great Britain was, overall, a force for good in the world, back when they were America, Original Recipe. The Brits once had great pride in their nation, and great determination; I've always loved, as an example of the grit of the British people, that 1940 comic that appeared in the London papers after the fall of France: A British soldier, all alone, standing on a rock with waves crashing around him. He holds his Enfield rifle in one hand and is shaking his fist at a sky full of German airplanes; the caption was simply, "Very well. Alone."
And, of course, the great symbols of the pride of the British people were in their grand old flag, the Union Jack, and the Cross of St. George.
Now, in another sign of Britain's decline, a British top cop is deriding those grand national symbols as "tools of division." She wants those flags taken down. Yes, really.
The display of national flags on Britain's streets has become a 'tool of division' and 'intimidation', a policing leader said yesterday.
Emily Spurrell, chairwoman of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) told a national conference that the surge in St George's and Union Jack flags being hung on lamp posts, motorway bridges and street signs across the country was 'sowing fear' and 'fuelling division'.
Ms Spurrell also hit out at the Home Secretary's asylum plans, suggesting she was 'demonising communities', adding that reforms 'must not come at the cost of compassion'.
As my old British friend would say, what a load of codswallop.
In a major speech to a summit of police chiefs and crime commissioners, Ms Spurrell claimed the display of flags were part of a 'disturbing' trend in rising hate-fuelled rhetoric and deliberate misinformation about immigration and asylum seekers.
'Flags are an expression of our identity and proudly fly outside our police buildings. But when they are used to provoke fear or assert dominance, they become tools of division', she said. 'That is not free expression – that is intimidation.
'These actions are sowing fear, fuelling division and leaving – our neighbours, our colleagues and our friends – feeling unsafe in their homes and afraid to walk down the street.
Nothing is disturbing about the British people being proud of their country. And if these "neighbours, colleagues and friends" don't like it, let them leave.
Read More: Old Glory - From Battlefield Utility to Symbol of Sacrifice
Now, as Britain is, the American left would have the United States become. This is the great caution we must take from episodes like this. As the British take pride in their flag, so we do with ours, the Stars and Stripes. Both flags represent two great nations, nations that changed the world, nations that have been a force for good in the world.
And make no mistake: The left would love to squash both symbols. Here in the United States, there are already fuzzy-headed leftists who deride the American flag as a symbol of oppression: The symbol of a country that, as recently as 80 years ago, fought a brutal war that redeemed half the planet from living under the iron fist of tyranny. The symbol of a country that confronted and brought down the Soviet Union, one of the most brutally repressive regimes in human history. The United Kingdom and the United States stood together in those great contests.
That Britain, that once-Great Britain, seems to be fading away now. The Royal Navy is a pale shadow of what it was; the protection of the sea lanes is now the purview of Britain's muscular offspring, the United States of America. The British government has welcomed millions of "asylum-seekers" from around the globe, given them housing, put them on the dole, and ignored their crimes.
The American left would do the same here.
In the once-Great Britain, the national flag, that symbol of pride, is being insulted by the left as a symbol of oppression, based in the acts of people long-dead, in most cases, people gone on or two centuries past, with no mention of those who carried that flag since; no mention of the British men at Flanders, at Ypres, in Burma, North Africa, France; no mention of the British men who fought their way into Germany to put an end to the Third Reich, who fought in the Pacific to stop the expansionist plans of the Empire of Japan.
The American left would do the same here.
In the once-Great Britain, there is no mention of that country's role in ending the slave trade. It wasn't the nations of sub-Saharan Africa that put an end to the trans-Atlantic slave trade. It wasn't the Arab traders who controlled most of the market of slaves. It was Britain and the Royal Navy that put this horrendous traffic to an end, just as over 600,000 Americans died to end that injustice here, in the United States. Those efforts, those fallen, are ignored, the men who fought, forgotten. The "woke" left in Britain ignores these facts.
The American left would do the same here.
Rudyard Kipling, in his poem "The English Flag," wrote:
“The dead dumb fog hath wrapped it—the frozen dews have kissed—
The naked stars have seen it, a fellow-star in the mist.
What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my breath to dare,
Ye have but my waves to conquer. Go forth, for it is there!”
Kipling was a man of his time. But the British left would undo all this; if they get their way, were Kipling to return somehow, he would see that the Flag of England is no longer there.
The American left would do the same here.
If you're here, at RedState, reading these words, you are very likely to be one of those people who, like me, stand up and uncover your head in a swelling of pride as the flag goes by. We recognize, not the historical missteps, but all that the flag represents: An experiment in liberty that has become the greatest nation on the planet. Britain was once a great nation, too, but the British left is determined to tear it all down, right down to the flag.
Watch these efforts, because the American left would do the same here.
