Icarus and the Appeal to Heaven Flag
By Marly Hornik | August 10, 2024
The fable of Icarus explores unbridled ambition beyond all reason, combined with the arrogance to pursue it, leading to the annihilation of son before father. The moral about our own arrogance leading to our ultimate destruction has attained new relevance in the urgency of this historical moment. The recent attempt to discredit a United States Supreme Court Justice based on the appearance of an Appeal to Heaven flag flying at his home is an important example.
Bearing the simple image of an evergreen tree and the motto “Appeal to Heaven,” the “Pine Tree Flag” has a fascinating origin. The flag was commissioned for six armed ships General Washington ordered to monitor and intercept British vessels entering Boston Harbor in 1775. But, why the pine tree?
In 1691 an updated charter was issued by William and Mary for the Province of Massachusetts Bay, in which title was claimed by the Crown to every pine tree of shipbuilding value in that territory:
“And lastly for the better providing and furnishing of Masts for Our Royall Navy Wee doe hereby reserve to Us Our Heires and Successors all Trees of the Diameter of Twenty Four Inches and upwards of Twelve Inches from the ground growing upon any soyle or Tract of Land within Our said Province or Territory not heretofore granted to any private persons And Wee doe restrains and forbid all persons whatsoever from felling cutting or destroying any such Trees without the Royall Lycence of Us Our Heires and Successors first had and obteyned upon penalty of Forfeiting One Hundred Poinds sterling unto Ous Our Heires and Successors for every such Tree soe felled cut or destroyed without such Lycence had and obteyned in that behalfe any thing in.”
According to lay-historian Suzanne Ellison, “This last section of the charter was known as the Mast Preservation Clause. Surveyors of Pines and Timber were tasked with finding and marking all suitable trees “within ten miles of any navigable waterway.” Trees were marked with three hatchet marks that formed the “King’s Broad Arrow.” Woe to any colonist found with a marked tree, or a tree that was unmarked but met the size requirements for a mast.”
Selecting the pine tree for the Appeal to Heaven flag was symbolic, just as was the choice to dump tea in Boston harbor. The fact that the colonists perceived their treatment by the King as unjust was memorialized in the train of abuses enumerated in the Declaration of Independence less than a year later. This cry for dignified freedom in the face of tyranny led to our American government, which was designed to solve the problem of despotism permanently. In 1775 no one knew such a victory would ever be achieved. Facing an uncertain path to Sovereignty laden with significant military and economic disadvantages, not to mention divided loyalties and outright traitors, an appeal to Divine Providence for grace was natural. British philosopher John Locke, a primary influence on those colonial leaders who are now known as the founders of America, offered the exact phrase emblazoned on the flag in his “Second Treatise on Government,” chapter 14:
“And where the body of the people, or any single man, is deprived of their right, or is under the exercise of a power without right, and have no appeal on earth, then they have a liberty to appeal to heaven, whenever they judge the cause of sufficient moment.”
The appearance of the Appeal to Heaven flag flying at Justice Alito’s home in New Jersey could represent his dedication to continuing the path laid by the founders. It might represent his private concern, expressed on his private property, about current challenges to liberty by the government itself afflicting many Americans—a perspective well within the protected legal rights of all US citizens. At a bare minimum, it is a flag his wife admires, according to public statements by Justice Alito.
Yet the flag aroused the ire of media and political propagandists who attack civil liberties unequally, targeting only political conservatives and constitutional originalists, without shame or irony, in exchange for an excuse to flout the existence of any limit on their actions. Attorneys John Eastman and Jeffrey Clark continue to be harassed by struggle sessions that would have made Mao proud. For what? Rendering legal advice over options for addressing the grievous concerns, expressed by over half of the country, that something was seriously wrong with the 2020 election. These are but two more examples of personal attacks couched in duplicitous assertions of protecting “Our DemocracyTM.” The strategy is to defame and destroy, first by labelling the opposition as crazy extremists, but if that does not work, they will criminalize free thought and speech. U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin issued the following inflammatory statement perfectly exemplifying that strategy on May 22, 2024, “This incident is yet another example of apparent ethical misconduct by a sitting justice, and it adds to the Court’s ongoing ethical crisis. For the good of our country and the Court, Justice Alito must recuse himself immediately from cases related to the 2020 election and the January 6th insurrection. And the Chief Justice must see how this is damaging the Court and immediately enact an enforceable code of conduct.”
Most critical to the play for permanent power are these endless ad hominem attacks on individuals labeled as election deniers. Straight from the new domestic terrorist playbook, hundreds of media outlets nationwide declared that flying an Appeal to Heaven flag represents a call to violent revolution by white supremacist extremists that must be quashed, because some guy had one at a Stop the Steal rally—which has apparently forever altered its true historic meaning. Redefining words and history are exactly the kind of attack on sovereignty these deceivers use to confuse and steal control. Meanwhile a fist raised toward Heaven appears again and again on the websites of anti-American NGOs claiming to fight for liberty—the false liberty of an ungoverned world. These descendants of Daedalus rage at the restrictions life presents, rather than bravely facing challenges on the path to fulfillment. Unlike Icarus, who was moved by curiosity and loyalty, liberty to destroy is the drumbeat they command others march to. Yet there is a clear conflict between this sort of “freedom” and the interests of other Americans, equally significant in the eyes of our Creator and our law, who seek to thrive personally and nationally.
Whether we are Americans by birth, by choice, or by necessity, we are bound to honor and protect the individual sovereignty of all citizens. We are not allowed to stand by while liberty and the miracle of our very lives are turned upon us like the ravages of an auto-immune disorder. Enforcing “freedom” by returning human society to a feral state of nature, or the individual battle for survival in the absence of law, is a devious promise that dishonors life and deprives others of domestic tranquility. By our own philosophy, it is illegal to implement such a plan, and should immediately be dealt with as such. Officials who excuse or condone this violence as a protected right, or worse, legitimate policy, are acting “under color of law” to deny our collective civil rights.
Is Alito the target of such a campaign for being an originalist? Or was this an attempt to taint him with actions “under color of election denial” in advance of the 2024 election? It was Alito who ordered the mail-in ballots received after election day 2020 in Pennsylvania to be set aside, in a ruling meant to protect the civil right of suffrage for all Americans, protecting valid votes from dilution by potentially illegal votes. The ballots needed to be examined and verified before counting. In a shocking unequal attack on civil rights, Commonwealth election officials ignored that order from a US Supreme Court Justice, and counted potentially fraudulent ballots the same as those that arrived in a timely fashion under the law. When this happens in a federal election, we are right to suspect that a private interest has gained improper influence directly inside our government, threatening our way of life. Justice Alito sought to protect the nation.
We agreed in America to temper our ambition in the face of a world ultimately governed by Nature’s God—whom our founders humbly flew a pine tree flag to curry favor with, when liberty felt tenuous. Eight years of ceaseless media, lawfare, and political attacks on the US Constitution and the principle of government by consent enshrined in its third sentence, “The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States,” have not changed the legal meaning of election validity one whit. In 2024, Justice Alito will not be alone in insisting upon a legally valid process. By auditing official records in 20 states, the nonprofit watchdog United Sovereign Americans has extracted 29 million facially invalid registration violations, resulting in 10 million apparent voting violations from the 2022 midterm, and has begun filing civil rights lawsuits in federal court, represented by Bruce L. Castor, Jr.. the former acting Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the winning counsel in President Trump’s second impeachment trial. Maryland, Pennsylvania and Ohio are filed to date. Perhaps this recent attack on Justice Alito, along with a cherished piece of our national history, indicates that someone or somebodies are worried that their wax wings are up for a good melting this November.
Through ingenuity, collaboration, strategy, and sheer grit Americans must once again lead the way to an ordered and humble world that, like the Appeal to Heaven flag, acknowledges both the superiority of our Creator, and protects the opportunity to our future posterity to exercise the natural rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness with which we ourselves have been so blessed.
Marly Hornik is the co-founder and volunteer CEO of United Sovereign Americans, and the founder and volunteer Executive Director of New York Citizens Audit.
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