On this day in 1877, Henry Ossian Flipper became the first African American to graduate from West Point. He went on to be the first non-white officer to lead on the all-black regiments who were being used to kill the Native American tribes throughout the United States. He was generally considered a fine officer. But he only stayed in the Army for five years. The entire time, he faced intense racism. Eventually, his bigoted supervisor William Rufus Shafter manage to railroad Flipper through a Court Martial. Despite the fact that he was found innocent of the charge, he was found guilty of a lesser charge — “conduct unbecoming an officer” — that was introduced in the middle of the trial. Although white officers had previously gotten wrist slaps after being found guilty of the far more serious charge of embezzlement, Flipper was thrown out of the Army.

Flipper did have his defenders, however, and he went on to have a good career as a civil servant. At first he worked as a a civil engineer but eventually became an adviser on revolutionary politics in Mexico for Senator Albert Fall. When Fall because Secretary of the Interior, Flipper followed him. He finished out his career as an engineer for the petroleum industry in Venezuela. He retired to his home state of Georgia, and died at the age of 84.

What I think is interesting about Flipper’s story is how it shows that the end of slavery was very important to the equality in this country. But it was just one step of an endless number of steps. The people who claim that we are in a post-racial time were matched by people in Flipper’s time who also claimed that there was nothing that needed to be done. After all: slavery was over! The struggle goes on and on. Henry Ossian Flipper could not possibly have been any better a person, yet he was nonetheless dumped on by individuals and establishment alike.

We mark this day 138 years ago when one more step was taken in the cause of equality.

On this day in 1777, the stars and stripes were adopted by the Second Continental Congress as the official flag of our country — or at least our little rebellion. To be honest, I’m not fond of it. It’s badly designed. There’s a blue rectangle in the upper left hand cover with a variable number of stars. Don’t get me wrong: I like one star for each state. But I don’t like them relegated to the corner in such an awkward way. And the 13 stripes representing the first colonies? I really don’t care. Maybe we should have eight red stripes to correspond to the eight slave states at that time. Not that they weren’t all culpable.

Anyway, I remember telling my first wife that I didn’t like our flag. She snapped at me, “What do you want? Three stripes like Italy?” I was too shamed to respond, but the truth is: yes, I would prefer that. But what I had in mind was the Soviet Union’s flag, which I still think is gorgeous. But there are many beautiful flags today. I like the simplicity and the symbolism with the Japanese flag. Israel’s flag is arguably better on these counts. Canada has a very fetching flag. There is much to say for Papua New Guinea’s flag with the Southern Cross and its national bird, the raggiana bird-of-paradise. I could go on. And on. And on. There are only a handful of flags that I like less.

Not that any of this matters. A nation needs a distinct flag and we have that. But it annoys me that we could never change it. If anyone tried, Americans would rise up and claim that it is a wonderful flag and we could never admit to being wrong. Just as our 225 year old Constitution is the best one imaginable (except it isn’t), our 240 year old flag couldn’t possibly be improved upon. So we are stuck with it.

Happy Flag Day everyone!

On this day in 1966, in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court found that the police must tell suspects of their right to remain silent in Miranda v Arizona. It’s a curious case. It means surprisingly little. Most cases do not depend upon the things that the defendant said. In drug possession cases, for example, it is very simple: the officer said he found drugs on or near the defendant and that’s that. It’s easier to get off a murder charge than a drug charge. So Miranda never meant that much, but it was a good sign that for a bright shining moment, the United States stood up for actual rights and not just theoretical ones.

Unfortunately, Miranda came to be seen as an icon of the state’s supposed placing of criminals’ rights above those of the victim. When I was growing up, every one thought that murderers were commonly set free because some police officer didn’t read the Miranda warning to the letter. This, of course, was not the case at all. Consider for a moment the case at hand. Ernesto Miranda was retried without his confession and found guilty.

Of course, since Miranda, the Supreme Court has found all kinds of exceptions for when the police do not have to provide the warning. It really doesn’t matter. The default here in the United States is that the police must have complete power to coerce suspects — even to the point of providing false confessions (which they do all the time). The United States is an authoritarian country because far too many of us are authoritarians.

At this point, Miranda just provides us with a theoretical right. You have the right to remain silent, unless the police do not want you to. You have the right to an attorney, unless the police don’t want you to. An attorney will be provided for you — eventually — if you live in the right kind of state. (As I recall, in Wisconsin, you are said to be able to afford your own attorney if you make more than $3,000 per year.)

Happy anniversary Miranda v Arizona — for all the good it does us.

On this day in 1429, the French took Jargeau with Joan of Arc leading the way. She’s quite a figure. And it doesn’t say a lot for the Catholic Church that she is a saint. But I guess that is one nice thing they did for her after trying her and burning her at the stake. But let’s back up.

It was well over a hundred years into the Hundred Years’ War. For all that time, the English had been trying to take over France. Really: it was just a war of aggression. But at least it was honest. No one was running around talking about how France needed to be made safe for democracy or any other such nonsense. But at this point, it really wasn’t going well for France. The English had been barely hanging on and there was a good chance that the royal family would fall.

Enter Joan of Arc — a teenage Christian mystic who had been visited by three saints — Michael, Catherine, and Margaret — and they told her that God wanted France to win the war. Furthermore, she became convinced that the only way this was going to happen was if she was there to lead the French army. There’s one weird trick that all crazy people know: certainty sells! And Joan of Arc was very clearly crazy. And so she managed to work her way up through the royal bureaucracy — all the way to Charles VII. They were impressed and did exactly what she wanted.

But let’s be clear: they were desperate. They had given up hope that they would be able to hold off the English. It’s kind of like if everything had gone wrong in your life: your spouse left you, the house was in foreclosure, and the next day the newspapers were going to report that you had been molesting neighborhood children for the last three decades. Then some young woman came to you and said that God had told her that if she did a little dance on your law, all your problems would go away. You’d let her do the dance, right? What do you have to lose?

And she probably really did help the French cause. She was so certain about her visions that other people believed her. And in the end, the French did win the Hundred Years’ War — although it would take another decade, but what’s that in the context of the war that your grandfather was forced to fight in? And then she was captured and handed over to the English. And they convicted her of heresy, because it had to be the Devil talking through her; certainly God was on their side. Also: she had dressed as a man while making her way to the front. So they killed her in the most viscous way they could think of. Like good Christian everywhere.

The whole thing is amazing. I still think the idea that God wants this or that country to win a war is ridiculous. Yet that is what people thought then. And that is clearly what people think today. I just cannot get my head around the idea of a god so pathetic that it cares about such little things. But that’s what religion seems to be for most people: an idea that validates their very small, very pathetic lives.

We mark this day — the high point of Joan of Arc’s life — 586 years after the French took Jargeau.

On this day in 1837, the Broad Street Riot occurred. It was between English protestant firefighters and Irish Catholic immigrants. It seems that Fire Engine Company 20 was coming back from a fire. There’s nothing that brings on a thirst like fighting a fire, so the men stopped at a bar and got a bit toasted. On their way back to the station, they came upon a funeral procession of Irish Catholics. One of the firefighters insulted or assaulted the Irish and a fight started.

Before long, the firefighters retreated to their station — just like their modern equivalent pussies, the police. And then, because they hadn’t shown themselves to be big enough wimps, they sounded the fire alarm, calling firefighters from all over Boston. Eventually, the mayor had to call in the military to put a stop to it. Interestingly, however, no one was killed. That would never happen today because there would be so many guns around. Also: there would be so many pussy police officers who were vewy vewy awraid!

But one thing was entirely typical of how things work today. In the end, only three people were convicted of any crimes, and they were all Irish Catholic immigrants. Note that I’m not saying there is anything special about the Irish Catholics. Today, they would be the oppressors. That gets to my core belief, which is the moment a group has power, it abuses it. And the rest of the society does everything to justify why that is right and proper.

Think about the swimming kids in McKinney, Texas. Would anything at all have happened to Officer Eric Casebolt if the whole thing hadn’t been caught on video? If there was any room to doubt at all, the society would have sided with him and that would have been that. The children he abused — far from being sympathized with — would have been vilified and jailed. That’s the way things work in America. And it ever was so.

We mark this day 178 years ago when the American tendency to hate immigrants erupted in violence.

On this day in 1949, the FBI released a report on Hollywood celebrities who were members of the Communist Party. These included Frederic March, John Garfield, Paul Muni, and Edward G Robinson. What’s more, it named Paul Robeson, Dorothy Parker, and many other celebrities who shared the beliefs of these radicals. This was the start of the Hollywood blacklist and all the joys that would come with the early 1950s.

Interestingly, on that same day, George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four was first published. It’s enough to make one cynical. Clearly, Orwell’s work was an attack on the totalitarian states of the middle of the twentieth century: Germany under Hitler and the Soviet Union under Stalin. But it’s interesting that in the United States, we figured out a way to control the population indirectly. After all, it wasn’t Joseph McCarthy who blacklisted all those people; it was Hollywood executives just following the easiest path to profits.

Now, I’m not saying that the way that the power elite of the United States maintains power is equivalent to the millions murdered by Hitler, Stalin, and so many other authoritarians. But I am saying that that the millions murdered were just a means to an end — although the Nazis seemed to get confused about that point at the end. I’m not sure why, but the powerful in America just have it easier. Gleen Greenwald’s most recent article is a good example of how Americans are so good at self-oppression. If we weren’t, maybe the power elite would be exterminating millions of Americans every year.

It was a curious day 66 years ago.