The Department of Justice has announced its decision to terminate the Flag Lawfulness Anti-desecration Guardian Squads (F.L.A.G.S.) program. The program, which opened with ample fanfare on 4 July 2005, held out great promise with its mission to “investigate, report and interrupt” any and all desecrations of the American Flag.
The Squads were to be formed by volunteers from the Boy Scouts of America, in part to ensure that no homosexuals were involved in the process.
The ambitious program set out to defend the Stars and Stripes from radicals, artists, and members of the ACLU, who were reportedly routinely destroying and desecrating American flags at a rate not seen since the advent of the republic.
Honorary Squad Leader Rush Limbaugh touted the program as both a boon to the Nation Security and a path to salvation for the youth of America. It was reported that Sean Hannity had designed the uniforms of the squads, brown shirts and crisp black trousers, with the help of Ann Coulter and Alberto Gonzales.
The F.L.A.G.S. program garnered intense scrutiny under the weight of press reports regarding an incident in which a Squad assaulted eight men who were found burning a flag. The men, who were beaten with sacks of doorknobs, were over sixty years of age and were encountered by the Squad behind a local VFW hall. The flag in question had been retired from eighty years of service and was being destroyed according to the codes and traditions of the United States of America. The Squad urinated on the flag to extinguish the flames.
The only other violators reported by the Squads were civil service establishments and businesses that were found displaying American Flags in incorrect postures or in poor condition. The funding for the now defunct F.L.A.G.S. program has been reassigned to the Tom Delay Defense Fund.
