The Ballad of the Gadsden Kid

Brandon Morse at RedState:

Earlier Tuesday I reported about a kid named Jaiden from Colorado Springs who had his school's staff at The Vanguard School up in arms over a patch on his backpack displaying the Gadsden flag.

What's wrong with the Gadsden flag, you ask? According to school staff, it has its roots in slavery and the slave trade, a claim Jaiden was obviously highly amused by and whose facial expression is becoming an internet meme at the time of this writing.

Despite the school's weak attempt to justify its position and get him to remove his bag and the offending patch in order to let him back into class, Jaiden's mother stood behind her son and even corrected the school's claims about what the flag represents. This was captured on a video that has now gone viral and sparked waves all over the internet.

Jaiden has upheld the Spirit of Gadsden and told the school: Don't tread on me.

Various people on Twitter criticized the alleged "libertarian" governor of Colorado (where this takes place) for not speaking up about the students' rights -- or yet another example of alleged "educators" who have no education themselves -- but eventually, this Democrat con artist was shamed into saying something.

The Redheaded libertarian @TRHLofficial

Has the self proclaimed "most libertarian governor in America" @GovofCO defended this child and disciplined the school for abusing their authority, not knowing their history, and humiliating his state? Didn't think so.

Connor Boyack
@cboyack

Would love to see @jaredpolis respond.

Jared Polis
@jaredpolis

Obviously the Gadsden flag is a proud symbol of the American revolution and a iconic warning to Britain or any government not to violate the liberties of Americans. It appears on popular American medallions and challenge coins through today and Ben Franklin also adopted it to symbolize the union of the 13 colonies. It's a great teaching moment for a history lesson!

The school has suddenly canceled its Back to School Night:

I imagine the staff is busy attempting to gang-edit the Wikipedia page on the Gadsden flag to insert a false claim that the flag is indeed "rooted in slavery."

JB in CO @jrb528

Maybe, and hear me out, teachers need to spend more time teaching history and less time teaching pronouns and changing genders.

I... I cannot take these "educators" who have the education of a back-row pothead seventh-grader. And, despite their profound intellectual shortcomings, have the gall to pontificate and discriminate and censor without even having the humility to do a ten second google search.

They just have "ways of knowing" that the rest of us, who have to resort to reading to get our history, just don't have access to.

As Inspector Harry Francis Callahan observed: "A man's got to know his limitations."

We'll see how Jaiden's student council election goes.

Kyle Shideler @ShidelerK

I think the part of this story that is most amusing to me is that the authorities are basically doing a Crossfire Hurricane for a student council election.

posted by Ace at 05:11 PM

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