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A Flag That's Still Worth Dying For
Townhall.com ^ | July 3, 2021 | Michael Reagan

Posted on 07/03/2021 6:27:55 AM PDT by Kaslin

When hammer-thrower Gwen Berry turned her back on the American flag at the Olympic Trials last weekend, it made me think of Sergeant William Carney.

Berry probably doesn’t know who Carney was.

Neither, I bet, do the Black Lives Matter activists who spent last summer blindly tearing down statues of historical figures to protest the racist origins of America and the systemic racism they claim exists today.

Thanks to the lousy way history is taught in our schools, most Americans – of every color – have never heard of William Carney.

But who he was, what brave things he did on a Civil War battlefield, and what he thought about America and its flag should have become common knowledge many July 4ths ago.

Carney was born a slave in Virginia in 1840, but his father escaped to the North on the Underground Railroad and made enough money in Massachusetts to purchase the freedom of the rest of his family.

In 1863 Carney, at age 23, joined a local militia and became part of the all-Black Company C of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment.

As shown in the Oscar-winning 1989 movie “Glory,” the historic 54th and 55th regiments were founded to prove that Black men could be good, brave soldiers – and they quickly proved it.

During the bloody battle of Fort Wagner in Charleston, S.C., in 1863 Carney saw that the soldier carrying the 54th regimental colors had been wounded.

He left his position and ran into the thick of the fighting to save the American flag from being captured or hitting the ground – which was something they cared about deeply in those days.

Despite being hit four times by bullets, Carney was able to bring the U.S. flag safely to Union lines, where he collapsed.

It took 40 years for Carney’s battlefield heroics to be rewarded, but in 1900 he was awarded the Medal of Honor in Boston.

The first Black person to receive the award, he explained his heroics by simply saying, “I only did my duty.”

Can you imagine how Carney – a former slave – and the other patriotic Black men who enlisted in the 54th and 55th would react today to the protests of Gwen Berry or the constant complaints of the BLM crowd and Critical Race Theorists?

America’s not perfect now, and it never was.

But BLM and the others are fixated on the past – on the shameful stuff that our white ancestors did to blacks that we regret and are ashamed of but can’t do anything about today.

That shameful stuff includes the horrors of slavery, 70 years of legalized racism in the Jim Crow South, the de facto discrimination and segregation in the North and white race riots like the Tulsa Massacre of 1921.

Activists need to acknowledge all the good that has been done to make America a better, fairer, freer country that lives up to its founding ideals.

Blacks in America live far better and freer lives than Carney’s generation could ever dream of living.

Yet they constantly disrespect the flag and the country it represents, which they claim was founded on racism and is still systematically racist.

Gwen Berry said this week she doesn’t hate America.

She said she turned her back to the flag because she doesn’t like the third (and basically unknown) stanza of the National Anthem, which she claims “disrespects” Blacks with its brief reference to slaves.

Berry says she knows her history, but she really doesn’t. She and the BLM crowd and its allies have no appreciation of what life was like for Black people like Carney and his generation.

They take a knee to the National Anthem or turn their backs on the same flag that Sergeant Willian Carney, a former slave, loved and risked his life to keep from touching the ground.

What would Carney say to Gwen Berry, Colin Kaepernick and the members of BLM today?

He’d probably want to turn his back to them. Download the movie “Glory” if you want to see why.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: america; gwenberry; racism
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1 posted on 07/03/2021 6:27:55 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Nothing in this world or America will change until the politicians or government stay out of it and quit stirring the pot. Trump created jobs for everyone and stayed out of it. Unless asked he didn’t comment on race. Government should make everything even across the board and stay out of it. People will find away and get along.


2 posted on 07/03/2021 6:33:43 AM PDT by glimmerman70
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To: Kaslin

Did I miss the part where we have free and fair elections?


3 posted on 07/03/2021 6:36:02 AM PDT by Uncle Miltie (Critical Race Theory: black behavior is so bad it must be whitey's fault.)
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To: Kaslin

Gwen Berry never left the plantation , now run by Democrat Socialist slave masters. Poor Gwen enslaves herself by repeating all the lefty Marxist talking points.

Maybe she ‘ll get a live and finally leave the plantation for good.


4 posted on 07/03/2021 6:37:43 AM PDT by Candor7 ((Obama Fascism:http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/barack_obama_the_quintessentia_1.html) )
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To: Kaslin

30 years ago as a young cadet and then an officer, I would agree with this 100%. Today, all I am willing to defend is my family. This country is not what it once was.


5 posted on 07/03/2021 6:44:26 AM PDT by usafa92 (Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America! )
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To: glimmerman70

The USA government has been making everything even across the board for many, many years.

A free education thru the 12th grade is involved.

I want to see ONE one Conservative candidate go on a stage with 2 stacks of desk /textbooks /notebooks /pens /pencils /rulers /protractors /and all the other supplies needed in an American school.

There is ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE in those items.

The black & brown & Asian kids get the same textbooks & the necessary supplies to learn from.

The rooms are the same temperature & the lighting is the same. The teacher is speaking to each & every one in the same tone of voice.

The problem is in the behavior of the kids who have had NO STRUCTURE in their “”UPBRINGING””.

I am tired of blaming all of this on the Whites and government in general.


6 posted on 07/03/2021 6:45:20 AM PDT by ridesthemiles ( )
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To: ridesthemiles

ALSO:

I want that same candidate to offer $100,000 CASH to any audience member who can tell which stack of desk & supplies is for a black kid & which is for a white kid.

CANNOT DO IT


7 posted on 07/03/2021 6:47:16 AM PDT by ridesthemiles ( )
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To: Kaslin
She is a disgrace and should be eliminated from the American team immediately. Instead we have the White House defending her:

President Biden ‘Respects’ Olympic Hammer Thrower’s Right To Protest Anthem, Psaki Says

Usually our family looks forward to watching the summer olympics. Not this year. Men competing as women, American athletes disrespecting the U.S. and the White House defending this. I suspect the sprinter who failed the drug test to be fully reinstated.

The Olympics will be as honest as the 2020 election.

8 posted on 07/03/2021 6:47:36 AM PDT by Bon of Babble (Rigged Elections have Consequences)
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Comment #9 Removed by Moderator

To: Kaslin

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I have no reverence for the 50-star US flag. It doesn’t represent freedom, or liberty, and is certainly not worth dying for. The flag represents communism, oppression of normals, faggotry, and overall Roman degeneracy.

The flag represents the government, not We The People. It used to have more meaning to it, but I have no emotional attachment to that abomination of a flag. Leftists want to stomp it and burn it? Go ahead.


10 posted on 07/03/2021 6:57:57 AM PDT by KobraKai
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To: ridesthemiles

I agree with the education. It’s taught to everyone. But the government is the one that keeps throwing around the racist crap. They say they are fighting for the black people and screaming that all white conservatives are racist. THEY ARE MOSTLY GHOST WHITE THEMSELVES. They think that because they are dems it makes a difference. I personally think they started the blm themselves. They push this crap and the media reports it. All I am saying is they need to quit. They just use blacks for votes and try to turn them against us. Freaking biden saying if your not voting for me your not black or something like that. Could you imagine if Trump said that.

Soon whites will be hunted down. And it wont matter if your a dem or Republican. The government is playing a dangerous game with OUR lives. They get private security. And sit on there stacks of money. Our money.


11 posted on 07/03/2021 6:58:46 AM PDT by glimmerman70
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To: ridesthemiles

And oh yeah. The upbringing was spot on. It’s how your brought up.


12 posted on 07/03/2021 7:00:34 AM PDT by glimmerman70
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To: usafa92

“30 years ago as a young cadet and then an officer, I would agree with this 100%. Today, all I am willing to defend is my family. This country is not what it once was.”

And you say you are a military academy grad?

I doubt that.


13 posted on 07/03/2021 7:00:37 AM PDT by stanne
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To: stanne

You can go eff yourself while you’re at it.


14 posted on 07/03/2021 7:02:26 AM PDT by usafa92 (Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America! )
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To: Kaslin

Maybe they should play Hoyt Azton’s “I’m a good ole Rebel” for her. “I hate the glorious Union, just drippin with our blood, I hate that stripe-ed banner, I fit it all I could”

She’s probably just a neo-Confederate longing for President Davis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5EHpok66SU


15 posted on 07/03/2021 7:05:57 AM PDT by PAR35
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To: Kaslin
Is Joe Biden worth dying for? Is Alexandria Ocasio Courtesan worth dying for? Is Nancy Pelousi and Adam Bug-eyes Sh@t worth dying for?

These are the goons in charge of any call to war right now. F@ them all.

I’m all for America and the flag, but especially wary of the false ones.

The enemy is within.

/rant off

16 posted on 07/03/2021 7:10:39 AM PDT by Caipirabob (Communists...Socialists...Fascists & AntiFa...Democrats...Traitors... Who can tell the difference?)
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To: usafa92

Hmm. Officer and gentleman?


17 posted on 07/03/2021 7:17:51 AM PDT by stanne
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To: Uncle Miltie
“Did I miss the part where we have free and fair elections?”

With all this country is dealing with, that is what I’m struggling with the most.

The election was clearly stolen, with an illegitimate government installed against the will of the American people.

The American flag, flown for years off my front porch, came down in December, and I can’t bring myself to put it back up.

18 posted on 07/03/2021 7:45:25 AM PDT by daler
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To: stanne; usafa92
Unlike YOU stanne, usafa92 and myself served..... What did YOU do?
19 posted on 07/03/2021 8:34:12 AM PDT by 2CAVTrooper (One Nation, Under Fraud Completely Visible, With Spying and Lying Too All.)
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To: 2CAVTrooper

This daughter of a Naval Academy grad I swore an oath to the constitution. Went into combat. Married a West Point grad.


20 posted on 07/03/2021 8:36:04 AM PDT by stanne
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