The iconic Revolutionary War-era flag with 13 stars forming a circle has always been a symbol of the nascent United States. It’s revered because of the patriots who risked their lives to fly it. It’s a symbol of the courage that our Founding Fathers and all those who risked their blood and treasure showed in pursuit of American independence.

Recently, those with an agenda to destroy our love for this symbol and the country it stands for have tried to alter its meaning to something it isn’t. Before they can build up their society based on cultural Marxism and the supremacy of the state over the individual, they need to tear down those pillars of American greatness and the belief in American exceptionalism.  They need us to renounce our faith in our country and its institutions. One way they do that is to denigrate and marginalize the symbols of our country. They need us to focus only on the bad so that we will forget about the immense good our nation has done for its citizens and the world.

The brand new country the Betsy Ross flag first flew over was not a perfect country, (no such flag has ever flown), but it was especially for that era, already an exceptional nation. The United States represented a giant leap forward in the idea of nationhood and the rights of men. The facts that a few white supremacists from a group you’ve probably never heard of flew it at a rally somewhere doesn’t change that. It is, and may it always be, remembered for the men and women who first flew it in defiance of tyranny.  May it always inspire us to have that same courage to stand up for liberty that they did.