Progressive patriots

People who believe in an American dream for everyone.
People who refuse to let ignorance, self-serving nationalism, anti-intellectualism, and hate define our historical and patriotic identity.
People who want to be proud to be an American, even if some of us don't think we can be right now.

People who recognize the progress of the human race — toward a more equal, free, peaceful, and Enlightened way of living — as the goal of the American experiment.
People who will fight for that goal, who see the bright future we could have:
a future of humanitarianism, philanthropy, fraternity — of leading the world to a brighter day.

Historically aware patriots, who can look at the actions and beliefs of our predecessors with admiration when appropriate, and still see their shortcomings.
Patriots who work to continue the work of the Enlightenment, and to right their wrongs — just as we hope posterity will right ours — for the love of humanity and the dream of creating an asylum for all mankind.

Who this is for

Symbolism

The white symbolizes peace. The use of Old Glory Blue signifies a connection to the United States. The meaning behind the blue is the same as in the United States Flag, Vigilance, Perseverance, and Justice-enduring values fit for a free people. All of the symbols are in white, to show that these principles are founded on a desire for peace, even our willingness and duty to bear arms; yet the blue is ever present, a reminder that we must ever persevere, remain ever vigilant, and never let justice leave our thoughts. The heart is also blue, not meaning that peace is not to be loved, but that the republican heart beats forever for justice and that it never falters.

Radiating from the flame are rays of light, spreading warmth and guidance — like liberty itself, like love. A beacon for all mankind that we will bring the natural rights innate to all people to them no matter their station in life or where they live, that the true republican people of America will, like missionaries of liberty, protect these rights where they live, and bring them to where they have been expelled from.

The Flame of Love and Liberty. A symbol of the natural rights of mankind.

The flame represents Liberty — a powerful force that, like fire, must be carefully tended and protected.
At its core burns a heart, symbolizing Love — the love of liberty, which is rooted in a love for the wellbeing and happiness of all mankind, a love that begins with a love for oneself and extends outward to others.

The fire and heart being together shows how these natural rights are intertwined, and together they symbolize life, the supreme natural right.

The Muskets bring to mind the minutemen. They were a weapon of war wielded by common citizen soldiers to defend their lives and liberty. They symbolize the need for republican Citizens to defend their rights and freedom, even against their own government, even if by force of arms, and to make sacrifices if needed. It was their right and their duty. The placement of the muskets crossed over the Flame of Love and Liberty strengthens this image. While liberty is born of love, it must be defended with strength and sacrifice.

The pillar evokes republican Rome. It represents order, rule of law, civic virtue, the solid foundation of liberty, just as the pillar is literally the foundation for the fire. It also shows that republicanism is solidly rooted in an understanding and immersion in history. Just as the founders immersed themselves in the history of classical Rome to understand, define, and defend their values, we must immerse ourselves in the history of our nation if we want it to persevere, remain true to itself, and to improve.

This flag consciously invokes the twin pillars of Liberalism — Liberty and Equality — and the enduring values of republicanism: civic duty, sacrifice, and the rule of law.
It is a call to remember the revolutionary spirit of the early American Republic — a spirit that has too often been misused, misunderstood, or abandoned.
It is a reminder that although these principles are grounded in the peace all kind and free people cherish: that liberty, to live, must be loved, fought for, and built on a firm foundation.

Name

liberal

republican

What it doesn't mean:

Leftist, or member of the "Democratic" party.

What it does mean:
Believer in and supporter of individual freedom, the equality of all people before the law, the protection of natural rights, and the limitation of government power to preserve personal liberty.

This name has been chosen for a very pointed and specific reason.

These words need to be reclaimed.

American political discourse completely mangles the meaning and context of our history and the language we use to understand it, and as a result the language we use to understand ourselves.

These two terms, maybe the most important in American history, have been altered beyond recognition; bastardized and used inaccurately, attached to political parties that have become disconnected from the names that represent them, while their original meanings are lost to us.

This alters the discourse around American ideology and makes it impossible to understand our identity as Americans; therefor these idea must be reclaimed and put in their proper context.

What it doesn't mean:

Conservative or member of the "Republican" party.

What it does mean:
An individual who hopes and strives for a society that cultivates the ultimate aims of liberalism; supporting and cultivating it through civic virtue, rule of law, popular vigilance against corruption and tyranny, the dissipation of political power, the necessity of moral and economic independence of all people, the duty of citizens to participate in their society for the greater good, sacrificing personal interest to public interests.

Historical Context

American history has been hijacked, manipulated, and (in some cases deliberately) misrepresented.

The ideals of Liberalism and Republicanism were, in the early republic, touted as the most beloved and fundamental ideas to American society and culture.

Today the values that were once so self evident are now hotly contested, and the words we use to understand them are used to push agendas wholly opposed to the true ideals.

Liberalism, something that should be embraced by all Americans is so misunderstood as to be used as an insult.

Republicanism is something totally lost to us, its sacrifice, civic duty, and belief in the greater good usurped by a strain of individualism that believes only in acting in one's personal interests.

American history is not a clean and clearcut narrative as it has been frequently mythologized to be. There are many conflicting ideas in our history. Yet, within our political discourse, especially in the revolutionary generation, there are some of the most beautiful ideas ever put forward.

The revolutionary generation was, while believing deeply in tradition, radically progressive in many ways.

Tradition, to them, was not dogma to be followed blindly, but a set of customs that had stood the test of time, and when society found something outdated it should rightly be removed or replaced with something befitting the age.

They challenged a hierarchal, hereditary, and corrupt social structure and posited a utopian vision of egalitarian brotherly love and virtuous selflessness from a wise, kind, and just people.

They believe that rights were innate to human beings, and although through action such as perpetuating slavery, they let themselves, their people, and posterity down in the most egregious way possible; by establishing an ideology of benevolence, equality, and the spread of liberty to all peoples, they laid the ground work for progress that they could not imagine in their own day.

Progress was the fundamental goal of the Enlightenment, a movement the revolutionary generation based its beliefs upon.

Sentimentality

The burden of public service

Education

Disinterest

Self cultivation

Independence

Philanthropy

Below are some of the values that were so important to that generation that have been abandoned by modern Americans seeking to use the past to understand the present.

Natural rights

The pursuit of knowledge

Historical awareness

Posterity

Duty

Weariness of power

Protective of rights

Virue

Political meaning

Patriotism does not belong to nationalists. Our historical identity does not belong to conservatives. Being progressive is not unamerican, it is the most American thing you can do. This flag is for the politically progressive patriot to fly with their American flag, to show the world that they believe in the American promise, and that they understand it better than the malignant charlatans and ignorant pawns that lay exclusive claim to it.

The idea for this flag was born out of the distress of not being able to fly an American flag without being associated with groups who misrepresent American patriotism. There are many flags that can be flown next to an American flag, yet they are either directly associated with these groups, or represent valiant progressive causes, that just aren't directly related to American politics, history, or ideology.

It is based on the humanitarian belief that politics, foreign and domestic, should be driven by the fundamental principles of American ideology, not simply economic interest.

While we must act to protect our own sovereignty, to ensure we are not mistreated internationally, and to help America prosper, we must also stand by our ideals.

The powerful must stand for the weak.

The free must raise up the oppressed.

The land of Liberty cannot sell its soul to foreign dictators for economic benefit.

For just as Thomas Paine said that the cause of America is the cause of mankind, the cause of mankind must now be the cause of America.

For people who believe that American exceptionalism is not a birthright bequeathed to us by god, but something that can only come from our actions.

A country ought to be a system that serves to better the lives of its people, power and wealth mean nothing if their benefits are not felt by people.

A country as powerful and prosperous and secure as ours, has a duty, as a rich man does to a beggar, to lift up those less fortunate.

Our nation has the potential to be a system not only that brings peace, freedom, and prosperity to the American people, but to all mankind.

Quotes

This section is not really relevant to the flag, it is simply a dumping ground for some of the most righteous, beautiful, inspiring, tragic, poetic and fascinating quotes I can find from American History.

"THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."-Thomas Paine

"I recommend it to my sons from my own experience in life, to prefer the happiness of independence and a private station to the troubles and vexation of publick business, but if either their own inclinations or the necessity of the times should engage them in public affairs, I charge them on a father's blessing never to let the motives of private interest or ambition induce them to betray, nor the terrors of poverty and disgrace, or the fear of danger or of death, deter them from asserting the liberty of their country and endeavoring to transmit to their posterity those sacred rights to which themselves were born."-George Mason

"liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people who have a right from the frame of their nature to knowledge, as their great Creator who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings and a desire to know. But besides this they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible divine right to the most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean of the characters and conduct of their rulers."-John Adams

"Now, my dear General, that you are going to enjoy some ease and quiet, permit me to propose a plan to you which might become greatly beneficial to the Black Part of Mankind. Let us unite in purchasing a small estate where we may try the experiment to free the Negroes, and use them only as tenants—such an example as yours might render it a general practice, and if we succeed in America, I will cheerfully devote a part of my time to render the method fashionable in the West Indies. 𝐈𝐟 𝐢𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐚 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐦𝐞, 𝐈 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐛𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐲, 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐚𝐜𝐤."-Lafayette

"The laying a Country desolate with Fire and Sword, declaring War against the natural rights of all Mankind, and extirpating the Defenders thereof from the Face of the Earth, is the Concern of every Man to whom Nature hath given the Power of feeling"-Thomas Paine

"O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia, and Africa, have long expelled her.—Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind."-Thomas Paine

"We must do what we are sure that we can to relieve humanity in any way, and always remember that by nature, we are all equals, that riches and education constitute the only difference."-Thaddeus Kosciuszko

“I wish most sincerely there was not a slave in this province. It always appeared a most iniquitous scheme to me — to fight ourselves for what we are daily robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have.”-Abigail Adams

"merely because his Face is Black, is he to be denied instruction? How is he to be qualified to procure a livelihood? Is this the Christian principle of doing to others, as we would have others do to us?"-Abigail Adams

"Remember the cause for which thou wert call’d to the Command of the American Army, was the cause of Liberty and the Rights of Mankind: How strange then must it appear to impartial thinking men...that thou, who could forego all the Sweets of domestic felicity for a number of years, & expose thy Person to the greatest fatigue & dangers in that cause, should now withhold that enestimable blessing from any who are absolutely in thy power, & after the Right of freedom, is acknowledg’d to be the natural & unalienable Right of all mankind."-Robert Pleasants to George Washington

"the burdens of society [should be] as equally distributed as possible, that there may not be one part of the community appropriating to itself the summit of wealth and grandeur, while another is reduced to extreme indigence."-John Laurens
John suggested accomplishing this by "taxes on luxuries, which would be felt only by the rich. In a Republic these ought to be the Penalties of sumptuary Laws and should be so severe as to amount to a prohibition."

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"Every <male> person of full age neither owning nor having owned [50] acres of land shall be entitled to an appropriation of [50] acres"- proposed legislation by Thomas Jefferson

“We Americans at least in the Southern Colonies, cannot contend with a good Grace, for Liberty, until we shall have enfranchised our Slaves.”-John Laurens

"the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens."-George Washington

"I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living without them[slaves], I will not, I cannot justify it."-Patrick Henry

"every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid."-George Washington

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contact

austinmaurer1776@gmail.com

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If you are looking to get a flag like this, although I am looking for partnerships I am not currently making them, feel free to have them custom made for yourself but please refrain from doing anything to get them associated with right wing nationalism or other distasteful groups.