While the sight of its broad stripes and bright stars never fails to cause him to catch his breath; the Colonel's love, and deep respect, for our national flag goes far beyond its bold colors and striking symmetry.
The Colonel loves "for which it stands."
A Republic of free people, and for free people.
The American Republic, for all its blemishes and faults, has advanced the cause of freedom -- best expressed as "personal liberty" -- farther, wider, and deeper than any nation in the history of nations.
And, as much as the Colonel loves the flag of the United States of America, he fervently believes it is time to change it -- again.
It's time to add another 50 stars.
The Colonel isn't taking about the balkanization of the existing republic. (You Californians are so self-absorbed!)
The Colonel believes the only way our republic -- of and for the people -- can survive another 200 years, is to do what made it great in its first two centuries.
Expand.
There is, the Colonel believes, a very good reason the founders of our republic did not call the new nation the United States of North America.
Today, our nation is gripped in paroxysms of popular expression -- even manifesting itself in acts of outrage -- not seen since the "Nativist" movement in response to the last great wave of immigration over a century ago.
Compassion and Security have become competing watchwords in the current kerfuffle over the tide of humanity sweeping across our southern border.
They need not be.
There are those who say that our southern border must be "secured." And by that, they mean that we must build and occupy defensive positions to prevent any unauthorized passage northward.
While the Colonel could do just that; give him a respectable fraction of the manpower and resources of our military and he will reduce the illegal immigration, drug and people trafficking, and flood of cheap labor to a barely perceptible trickle; occupying defensive positions is destructive to personal, organizational, and national morale. No nation, of any impact in world history (Switzerland being perhaps the lone exception to the rule), has ever maintained its sovereignty, let alone relevancy, by remaining on the defensive.
There are those who say our southern border should be compassionately wide open to anyone seeking a better, more secure, life.
The Colonel actually agrees with that last sentiment. Our nation should, and can, welcome anyone who wishes to become a loyal, productive, law-abiding citizen of our republic.
It's the significantly large percentage of border-crossers harboring other than productive, law-abiding motives that the Colonel has a problem with.
Pay attention -- attempting to solve the humanitarian and national security crisis at our southern border via compassionate and defensive measures, at our southern border, is LUNACY!
Instead of building a Maginot Line on the Rio Grande, we should expand our republic to Tierra del Fuego.
The Colonel will pause to let the Bama Bandwagon Boors and LSU graduates a chance to catch up -- you see, after WWI, the French built the Maginot Line, an incredible series of seemingly impregnable fortifications along their border with Germany, to keep the German Army from invading..., again. (See Spring of 1940, for a case study of the strategic effectiveness of that idea).
Now, bear with the Colonel. He's not necessarily advocating a full-scale military invasion of the rest of the Western Hemisphere -- as fun as that would be. The United States should, instead, encourage the people of countries to our south, whose governments cannot and will not provide security and prospect for prosperity, to rise up and petition for admission to the American Republic as States.
The long-term security and prosperity of every inhabitant of the AMERICAN HEMISPHERE depends on unity under the greatest form of government ever devised by man -- the Constitution of the United States of America.
"But, what about Canada, Colonel?"
The more the merrier!
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