Earlier this week Nike Inc. withdrew a design for an athletic shoe that bore the original Stars and Stripes, with its circlet of 13 stars representing the rebellious American colonies, on the heel. (Using corporate welfare for political bullying is not an exclusively American tradition, but a more or less universal one.) The explicitly changing editorial nature of the American flag is a unique (and, if you think about it, pretty weird) feature. This reflects the continuity of U.S. history; the current American flag is an update of the flag that Betsy Ross sewed, and not a replacement for it, as our maple leaf flag is for the old Red Ensign. Of course, Canada is not the easy way out psychically for Americans who want to escape their past.

Source: National Post July 03, 2019 18:56 UTC