This apparent sloppy error by the RNC made the news yesterday. For example as explained in a HUFFPOST article:
RNC Accidentally Celebrates Wrong Flag In Awkward Fourth Of July Message.
The Republican National Committee’s initial attempt to celebrate Independence Day bombed on Twitter when critics noticed that the party used the wrong flag.
Several other places ― including the San Francisco district attorney and the Austin Police Department ― used the same set of incorrect flags in their Independence Day messages.
Oh ye of little faith, maybe this wasn't a mistake at all. Perhaps it was a shout-out on the day we celebrate our independence to the Black former slaves from the United States and Caribbean who founded Liberia.
Dare I say that many American couldn't locate Liberia on a map of Africa and there's a good chunk of MAGA's who don't even know it's an African country.
It's even less likely very many Americans, but especially those in states where students aren't taught about the history of slavery here (part of the anti-woke bogeyman of letting students learn about critical race theory or CRT), even know the following (from Wikipedia):
Liberia began in the early 19th century as a project of the American Colonization Society (ACS), which believed black people would face better chances for freedom and prosperity in Africa than in the United States.[7] Between 1822 and the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, more than 15,000 freed and free-born African Americans, along with 3,198 Afro-Caribbeans, relocated to Liberia.[8] Gradually developing an Americo-Liberian identity,[9][10] the settlers carried their culture and tradition with them. Liberia declared independence on July 26, 1847, which the U.S. did not recognize until February 5, 1862.
Liberia was the first African republic to proclaim its independence and is Africa's first and oldest modern republic. Along with Ethiopia, it was one of the two African countries to maintain its sovereignty during the Scramble for Africa. During World War II, Liberia supported the United States war effort against Germany, and in turn received considerable American investment in infrastructure, which aided the country's wealth and development. President William Tubman encouraged economic and political changes that heightened the country's prosperity and international profile; Liberia was a founding member of the League of Nations, United Nations, and the Organisation of African Unity.
How many non-Liberian Americans will be aware of, let alone pause to remember, the Liberian Independence Day on July 26th? There's a version of their national anthem on this website:
Too many Americans refuse to recognize that there are citizens of other countries who observe with reverence the formation of their country.It turns out that a reminder about Liberia being founded by American and Caribbean slaves and their offspring would be quite appropriate for all Americans to be made aware of on their celebration of their own quest for independence and a new life.
While our country has much to be proud of, part of our history includes both the enslavement of a major group of human beings and the attempt, with Native Americans, to eradicate another, not even to mention the treatment both by government policy and popular practice to treat large segments of our population as second class citizens or worse.
It is not merely possible, but worthy of praise, for citizens of any country to not just be proud of its history where pride is justified, but just as proud that they aren't afraid to admit to their ethical and moral failings.
Related, yesterday's blog:
Is common sense on its deathbed in the United States?
Addendum: Comment from Ben Kalom:
Highly intelligent people?
Assuming a couple of things here...
Standardizing testing, like Sanford Binet, Myers-Briggs or any other IQ or EQ assessment tool. The instrument needs to be subtle yet clear, sensitive yet not overly so.
What's intelligence, really?
What is it, I'm curious.
I really am.
Is intelligence a blend of necessity, opportunity, conditions, environment, available resources, survival skills, observation, trial-and-error, learning from mistakes, risk-taking, material success, and perhaps, longevity?
Or, is intelligence as we currently define it...
He or she who has the biggest pot o gold is smart?
Money makes people incredibly stupid. It is another addictive commodity, another compulsion, another thing that takes people who might be otherwise more situationally aware and responsive to changes about them, and makes them incapable of seeing anything else, pursuing only one thing, creating a perfect mouse trap if you will in which chasing the cheese assures you get caught at the end of the maze.
Elon Musk is fully capable of thinking and feeling and responding to the shifting tides. He's no genius any more. Maybe once, but not any more. Intelligence is transient. We only keep it for so long. We must set it aside, adapt, move on, change our own way of thinking, learn what is required of us, become aware of our own physical and psychological limitations.
Perhaps, intelligence is the ability to keep one's big mouth shut, rather than opening it and removing all doubt.
Scott Kirby of United Airlines is regarded as "highly intelligent."
But he got sucked in by a reporter, who quoted him stating that the impending pilot contract "will add 8 billion dollars in costs"
Again, not terribly intelligent, because he opened his mouth, removed all doubt, and got the spotlight shining on him. So much so that when he needed to use private transportation to get to a critical meeting, it was noted that he wasn't traveling on his own airline. He had to write a long-winded apology to his employees. Not intelligent at all.
Intelligence is volatile. Sometimes, it exists in a person or a group for only an instant. Once that instant passes, so does the overall brilliance.
Intelligence is fickle. No one knows why natural law chose a not very good student, a clerk by employment, to bring us the moment of general and specific relativity (E=mc2). Einstein was no "Einstein." He was doggedly persistent, and he was able to see situations around him changing and deteriorating. He was also pretty good at math, and also pretty capable of socialization.
We cannot standardize intelligence.
We can only expose ourselves to it, draw from its well of souls, pore over its relics from the past, research through literature for proof of success, or record of failure.
Intelligence -
How smart was it to keep sending a DSV to a level that repeatedly overstressed materials, welds, fabrication, the very shape of the thing, the onboard electrical systems that powered it, and only now, in retrospect, we conduct an accident investigation that shows the designers suggested alternatives but were met with "intelligence" that killed an audience, so careless with their wealth that they went on a tour of an ocean gravesite?
So again, as an end to my comment, I'll ask in Diogenes of Sinope's mode, as I carry a lantern through the streets of America, "Where is an intelligent man?"
I suggest, in the right time, in the right place, at the right moment, one appears, but vanishes, just as the shadows vanish with the approach of illumination.
We all have moments of brilliance.
Then, we need to recede into the shadows of ordinariness, and stop drawing attention to ourselves.
You won't find brilliance when you keep shining a light into the places where it might be found. At best, all you get is reflection of your own self-powered brightness.
Best to sit in the dark - -and watch for those distant glints that inspire you, and realize, maybe, just maybe, those are nothing but fireflies.
And like all things that move about of their own free will, those moments of brightness cannot be bottled up, sold off, and profited from.
All that does, is make you into either an addict, or a pusher.
Peace, all...
