Betsy Ross — a shoe in for heroine? What say, Kaepernick?

Symbols of  American freedom matter.  Don’t sell shoes  with a Betsy Ross flag?   Why? Because African-American  Kaepernick   finds  the Ross  flag symbol offensive and associated with slavery.  Get real.

Does Kaepernick know anything about Betsy Ross?  Anything about  early American history?

Betsy Ross is a woman  to admire not  spurn.

Let’s  compare  2019 ex- football player Colin  Kaepernick  with  1776 seamstress Betsy Ross:

Personal commitments to family?  Kaepernick has a girl friend [Nessa Diag] since 2015. He’s not married and no children.  Betsy Ross was soon widowed  after marrying at age 21  outside her Quaker faith which caused her to be  ‘read out of the  Quaker church’ for doing so.    She  later married  again and had children.

  • Professional skills?   Colin  Kaepernick  was a second string quarter back who turned down a  contract with the San Francico  49ers.  He is a rich,  civil rights agitator.
  • Betsy Ross  was child number 8 of 17 children. Betsy   attended a Quaker school 8 hours a day to learn sewing, reading and writing. She became a skilled seamstress.  Fairly soon after marriage to John Ross at age 21,  Betsy’s husband  died  while he was guarding  ammunition.
  • A few months  after her husband’s death, Betsy met with the Committee of Three which included George Washington. This meeting  lead to  Betsy Ross’  sewing of  the first American flag.

Slavery? Betsy Ross was an abolitionist.    

written by Cameron Jackson   jaj48@aol.com

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Ginsburg: It’s time to try shutting up? [Kaepernick]

Ginsburg — It’s time to try shutting up?

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Friday called her criticism of National Football League player Colin Kaepernick “inappropriately dismissive and harsh” and said she should not have commented on his protest against racism and police brutality in the United States.

Ginsburg, a liberal justice, told Yahoo News on Monday that Kaepernick was “dumb and disrespectful” for refusing to stand during the national anthem before games.

SEE EARLIER: Ruth Bader Ginsburg just threw shade at Colin Kaepernick

“Barely aware of the incident or its purpose, my comments were inappropriately dismissive and harsh. I should have declined to respond,” Ginsburg said in her statement on Friday.

In the Yahoo News interview, Ginsburg equated Kaepernick’s actions to burning the American flag. “I think it’s a terrible thing to do, but I wouldn’t lock a person up for doing it,” she said.
Ginsburg on the constitution:

Conservatives are often ridiculed for criticizing activist judges who fail to respect the Constitution. We are told that it is not conservative originalists (labeled ignorant and extremist) but rather enlightened liberal judges—with their nuanced understanding of constitutional penumbras—who truly respect the spirit of the Constitution.

Conservatives, however, have good reason to be skeptical of the left’s “respect’’ for the Constitution. Just last week, for example, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told an Egyptian TV station that she would not recommend the U.S. Constitution as model for Egypt’s new government.

The problem, you see, is that the U.S. Constitution is “a rather old constitution.” Ginsburg suggested that Egyptians should look instead to the Constitution of South Africa or perhaps the European Convention on Human Rights. All these are “much more recent than the U.S. Constitution.”

Ginsburg’s comments echo those by Washington University professor David Law, who published a study with Mila Versteeg on the U.S. Constitution’s declining influence worldwide. In an interview, Law unfavorably compared the Constitution to “Windows 3.1”—outdated and unattractive in a world of sleek and sexy modern constitutions. Such obsession with the age of the Constitution is both absurd and irrelevant.

For one, the Constitution is still among the shortest and most elegantly written constitutions in the world. By contrast, South Africa’s constitution is well over 100 pages long, filled with tables, schedules, and such stirring passages as detailed provisions for a Financial and Fiscal Commission: “A. National legislation referred to in subsection (1) must provide for the participation of – a. the Premiers in the compilation of a list envisaged in subsection (1) (b); and b. organized local government in the compilation of a list envisaged in subsection (1) (c).” And you thought the U.S. Constitution was hard to read.

Equally ridiculous is the claim that the Constitution is too antiquated to apply to the modern world. The principles of the Constitution, although first articulated centuries ago, are not tied to the material conditions of a bygone age. They rest on that most solid and enduring of all foundations: human nature. The Constitution itself contains no policy prescriptions. Rather, it is a short, elegantly written document that create a framework for a free people to confront the political questions of their times.

Of course, the real reason progressives swoon over South Africa’s constitution is that it goes far beyond merely establishing a framework for government and guarantees progressive policies—for example, by requiring legislation that prevents pollution and ecological degradation. In other words, the left’s real discontent with the U.S. Constitution is that it does not require Americans to adopt a progressive government and expansive welfare state that provides for every “right” social scientists can justify.

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Firenze Sage:    Not as bad as one  of Ginsburg’s  previous comments favoring the South African constitution to our own —  which she ignores frequently.

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