Gadsden Flag Terror

"This is a revolution!"

Cried right-wingers Jerad and Amanda Miller last Sunday as they threw the Gadsden Flag across the bodies of the two slain police officer they had just killed.  Their crime was politically motivated. 

News reporting documents that they were obsessed with the antigovernment gun-rights ideology of the right.  They were part of the recent standoff at the Cliven Bundy ranch.  Their allegiance to the Gadsden Flag was no accident.

Remember Mr. William Kostric?  He is the right-wing zealot who in August 2009 stood visibly armed with a pistol on private property near Portsmouth High School when President Barack Obama visited to promote health care reform before the passage of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.  Kostric held a sign that read, "It is time to water the Tree of Liberty," a reference to a Thomas Jefferson quote: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."  Kostric was calling for political violence.  The watering he promoted would be done with blood.  The visibility of the gun underscored the intentions behind his words.

What else was on his sign?  An image of a coiled rattlesnake - the very same icon emblazoned on the Gadsden Flag.

What is the Gadsden Flag?  It's a battle flag from the American Revolution designed in 1775 by Brigadier General Christopher Gadsden.  It was meant as an American display of defiance against the forces of the English Crown.  It was meant to signify danger to them as the former colonies asserted their claim of independence against England.

The Gadsden Flag is a threat.  Just look at it.  A rattlesnake is feared as a deadly venomous snake.  In the Gadsden Flag's representation of the creature, the snake is coiled and poised spring-ready to lash out and strike with fangs bared.  The symbolism is the threat of political violence, and that threat is the core of its appeal to the American right.