Madison County is a paradise of green and grit between Syracuse and Utica, up where most places are named after Founding Fathers or generals of the Revolution or the sacred places of the Iroquois confederacy.
It’s America the way it used to be.
Lots of small town, lots of love your neighbor, lots of blue collar.
And a respect for the law and the people who enforce it.
That’s how this country used to be. There used to be the republican understanding that God is the source of our freedom and the law is the protector of our freedom. Way back to Lincoln, when he said obedience to law should be our national religion, taught to toddlers at their mother’s knee. We The People elect representatives to make the law on our behalf, and We The People, as citizens of the Republic, have a duty to obey the laws which our representative voices have crafted.
And for those who don’t fulfill that duty, there has always been enforcement. Protectors of the innocent and helpers of victims, officers of the law to do the will and interest of the people in the face of bad actors. Partners in a system of criminal justice built upon juries and courts and presumptions of innocence.
In Madison County, they still believe in those things.
That’s why the sheriff put up the flag.
Todd Hood. A big, tall, former college football player who spent most of his 30 years in law enforcement on the streets of Syracuse as a city cop and murder investigator. A son of Madison County, with two boys who are cops themselves, he became sheriff three years ago and he wears a uniform to work.
He’s the one who put up the flag.
The Thin Blue Line flag. In front of the road-patrol building, and in front of the jail. Right under the American flag.
The Thin Blue Line. The title of a poem about American soldiers, a pop culture reference to American cops, the target of progressive hate.
Which is how the flag in Wampsville got on everybody’s radar.
A couple of Democrat groups got bent out of shape, woke folks, quick to divine and condemn what they say is in other people’s minds. They wrote letters to the editor and sicced the online antifa on local officials, shouting racism and white supremacy and other nonsense.
They demanded it be taken down, they got the progressive state senator to back them, and they came on a cancel crusade to condemn men and women whose lone offense is taking up a calling of service which puts them at risk every day they show up to work.
And so the battle rages.
And today’s clash is in Madison County.
But this is a larger fight, a war between right and wrong, good and evil, peace and chaos. There are those who fight for light, and those who fight for dark. Those who want what’s best for America, and those who want an end to America.
And the Thin Blue Line flag is merely today’s lightning rod in the Goebbelsesque war against symbols and structures of good in American society. In the grand progressive putsch against American values and culture, the cops are in the crosshairs and the flag, as a symbol of public support for the police, can’t be tolerated.
So it is lied about.
It is declared a symbol of white supremacy and racism, an emblem of bigotry, instead of nobility.
And that’s a bunch of crap.
And that’s what the sheriff is saying.
The Thin Blue Line flag is a public show of gratitude to the men and women who keep our families and our society safe. It is a reminder that without enforcement, there is no law, and without law, there is no liberty. America’s police officers are just as much defenders of America’s freedoms as are the men and women who wear uniforms in national defense on foreign shores.
Each stands as a bulwark against evil, each is a protector of American peace.
And attacks on either are really attacks on America, on you and me, and on the future of our children and nation.
Sheriff Todd Hood put up the Thin Blue Line flag because he wanted his deputies, and all the men and women of law enforcement, to know they are appreciated and supported. The people of Madison County are going to have to decide if share that appreciation and support.
And so, before long, are the people of the United States.