Gadsden Flag: Too Racist for Government Buildings, But Just Right for Obamacare Propaganda!

Q: What is the Gadsden “Don’t Tread on
Me” flag?

A. (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.

A. (1991): A
song and
album cover from Metallica.

A. (2004): A common
sight at anti-Iraq War protests.

A. (2009): According to law
enforcement officials, “the most common symbol displayed by
militia members and organizations,” possibly indicative of
“terrorist or criminal operations.”

A. (2009): According to anti-Tea Party
commentators, a historical indicator of white
resentment against blacks.

A. (2013): According to the mayor and
the city council of New
Rochelle, New York, a symbol so “offensive,” so drenched with
“right-wing connotations,” that it must immediately be taken down
from the
New Rochelle Armory.

A. (February 2014): According to David Tinney,
vice president of the International Association of Black
Professional Firefighters, the equivalent of the Confederate flag,
and therefore reason to (successfully) agitate to
remove it from a New Haven fire department’s flagpole.

A. (March 2014): According to Democratic
strategist and daughter-of-the-House-minority-leader Christine
Pelosi, 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.