Justice Alito and That 'Appeal to Heaven' Flag - The Truth the Left Doesn't Want You to Know
In His infinite wisdom, God created mathematics as much for the moral realm as for the physical universe.
For instance, when the establishment media loses its collective mind, as it did last week, one may conclude with mathematical certainty that truth and righteousness reside in whomever or whatever happened to cause the unhinging.
On May 22, three New York Times reporters devoted more than two-dozen paragraphs to the breathless revelation that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito had flown the Revolutionary War-Era “Appeal to Heaven” flag outside his New Jersey vacation home between July and September 2023.
The Times called this “another provocative symbol.” In 2021, an upside-down American flag flew outside Alito’s Virginia home.
Both flags — not to mention other Revolutionary War symbols — play the role of hobgoblins in the modern liberal catechism. That is because both were “carried by rioters” during the Capitol incursion of Jan. 6, 2021. Supporters of former President Donald Trump, who objected to the 2020 presidential election’s unprecedented irregularities, adopted these flags. And the “Appeal to Heaven” flag, in particular, allegedly symbolizes a “religious strand of the ‘Stop the Steal’ campaign,” as well as “a push to remake American government in Christian terms.”
The appearance of the flags prompted calls from Democrats for Alito to recuse himself from Jan. 6 cases before SCOTUS. But he has refused.
In a letter on Wednesday, addressed jointly to Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, also a member of that committee, Alito explained the grounds for his refusal.
“As the Court has pointed out, ‘[i]ndividual Justices, rather than the Court, decide recusal issues,'” Alito wrote. In other words, neither Senate Democrats nor Alito’s fellow justices have any say in the matter.
Furthermore, Alito noted that his wife made the decision to fly those flags, as she has a right to do. Though the justice asked her to remove the upside-down American flag, he could not compel her to do so.
As for the “Appeal to Heaven” flag, Alito saw no cause for recusal based on present-day political interpretations.
“I was not aware of any connection between this historic flag and the ‘Stop the Steal Movement,’ and neither was my wife. She did not fly it to associate herself with that or any other group, and the use of an old historic flag by a new group does not necessarily drain that flag of all other meanings,” he wrote.
Chief Justice John Roberts apparently failed to see a problem. In a reply letter to Sens. Durbin and Whitehouse’s request for a meeting regarding judicial ethics related to the matter, he “respectfully” declined to meet.
“Separation of powers concerns and the importance of preserving judicial independence counsel against such appearances,” the chief justice further responded. “Moreover, the format proposed — a meeting with leaders of only one party who have expressed an interest in matters currently pending before the Court — simply underscores that participating in such a meeting would be inadvisable.”
As an artifact of the American Revolution, the “Appeal to Heaven” flag reflects a beautiful combination of simplicity and humility. It features a lone green pine tree set against a white background. Depending on the particular flag, the phrase “An Appeal to Heaven” appears in green either above or below the tree.
Thousands of customers — perhaps in support of Alito — have purchased the flag on Amazon in the last month alone. It also made a brief appearance at the 1:37 mark of the stirring intro to the 2008 “John Adams” miniseries.
South Carolina-based author and pastor Dutch Sheets, who has predicted that America “will experience a Third Great Awakening and turn back to her God-given destiny,” made that flag the focus of his 2015 book, “An Appeal to Heaven: What Would Happen If We Did It Again.”
In November 2020, Sheets led a large crowd in northwestern Pennsylvania in prayer on behalf of Trump’s election integrity efforts.
“Let’s make sure it was a righteous vote. Let’s make sure that it wasn’t a sinful vote, that it wasn’t dishonest,” Sheets said according to CBN.
In other words, Sheets’ Christian worldview and support for Trump have made him anathema to the powers that be. Thus, the establishment media has deployed predictable hyperbole against Sheets, Alito and anyone connected to the “Appeal to Heaven” flag.
For instance, Sarah Posner of MSNBC blamed Sheets for popularizing the flag. And she described its presence at Alito’s home as “chilling.”
The Associated Press, which ironically decries “bias” in news, called the flag a “banner of the far right.”
CNN and Forbes, exercising comparative restraint, contented themselves with labeling the flag “controversial.”
In design and message, the “Appeal to Heaven” flag has roots in colonial Americans’ struggle against British tyranny.
For instance, the tree itself constituted a potent symbol on several levels.
According to the New England Historical Society, the British Royal Navy coveted northern New England’s tall white pine trees. In fact, a 1722 law prohibited colonists from cutting white pines larger than 12 inches in diameter. In 1766 — the year after the infamous Stamp Act — Crown officials began rigorously enforcing the law. Then, in the Pine Tree Riot of April 14, 1772, the angry townspeople of Weare, New Hampshire, attacked and violently beat a sheriff and his deputy.
Today, the Northeastern Lumber Manufacturers Association still celebrates the Eastern White Pine as perhaps “a bigger factor in the start of the Revolutionary War than tea and taxes.”
Furthermore, Boston had its own Liberty Tree — a large elm tree near Boston Common, planted in 1646, which served as a focal point for several Revolutionary Era demonstrations
Though British troops and Boston Loyalists destroyed the Liberty Tree in 1775, imagery associated with that tree survived the war.
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1787.
Then there was the message: “An Appeal to Heaven.”
That phrase came from English philosopher John Locke’s “Second Treatise on Government,” originally published in 1690.
“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,” Locke wrote.
Much like Locke’s book and the Liberty Tree, the “Appeal to Heaven” flag itself predates the United States of America.
According to the U.S. Navy’s Naval History and Heritage Command, Colonel Joseph Reed, an aide-de-camp to Gen. George Washington, designed the flag for colonial vessels.
“Please to fix upon some particular Colour for a Flag — & a Signal, by which our vessels may know one another — What do you think of a Flag with a White Ground, a Tree in the Middle — the Motto (Appeal to Heaven) — This is the Flag of our floating Batteries,” Reed wrote to a pair of Continental Army associates on Oct. 20, 1775. Less than a year later, Massachusetts adopted it as the flag of its state navy.
Furthermore, an earlier version of the flag flew at the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775. The all-red New England Continental Flag featured a white square in the top corner with a green pine tree in the middle of the square. In fact, the flag appears prominently in the celebrated artist John Trumbull’s dramatized 1786 painting of the battle.
In short, one could scarcely imagine anything more American than a flag with connections to George Washington and Bunker Hill.
That is why modern-day patriots have adopted it — and why the establishment media must destroy it.
Speaking of which, this seems like a good time for a reminder of the establishment media’s commitment to authoritarianism. Here is a horrifying video of establishment media figures and other political operatives demonizing the unvaccinated:
Covid Retrospective Series, Vol. 1
Media: The Unvaccinated Are Scum pic.twitter.com/hPvLfEtW3O
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) May 12, 2023
In sum, the establishment media’s hyperbolic outrage over Alito’s “Appeal to Heaven” flag revealed two things.
First, it illustrated their maniacal devotion to the establishment’s false Jan. 6 “insurrection” narrative. Having spent nearly four years pursuing policies designed to harm American citizens and having allowed the world to descend into chaos as it approaches the brink of World War III, the sinister establishment and its tools in the catastrophic administration of President Joe Biden have nothing to offer Americans but fear, so they bombard voters with absurd warnings about the end of democracy.
Second — and even more fundamental — establishment scribes hyperventilated over Alito’s “chilling” flag because they despise its message.
As Locke wrote, when the people confront “power without right” and have nowhere to turn, they may “appeal to heaven.” In fact, that is the line that separates the establishment and its minions from those whom they wish to subjugate.
Liberty-loving Americans believe Jefferson’s “self-evident” truth that their rights come from God. After all, if governments grant rights, then governments may take away those rights. And that is not liberty but mere indulgence.
On MSNBC in February, however, Politico journalist Heidi Pryzbyla dismissed this foundational understanding of rights as mere “Christian nationalism.”
Thus, we have a clear, mathematical formula for identifying good and evil. So there can be no compromise with the establishment, its media jackals and their relentless assault on freedom.
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