Snakes

The Gadsden flag (named after American general and statesman Christopher Gadsden) depicts a coiled rattlesnake on a yellow field with the words “Don’t Tread On Me”. The flag was popular during the American Revolution. And it is popular now.

The flag is so popular that the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles offers a Gadsden flag license plate. It looks like this:

I’ve seen a lot of these license plates lately. But now that the Revolutionary War is history and We the People live in a Constitutional Republic, I’m not sure what displaying a rattlesnake on one’s car is supposed to mean. Perhaps the driver wants to send the message I’m a snake. Snake is slang for someone who is treacherous and deceitful – a backstabber.

At any rate, it’s dangerous being a rattlesnake. People usually kill rattlesnakes when they see them. People go out of their way to kill rattlesnakes that are just minding their own business and not bothering anyone.

West Texas is a particularly bad place to be a rattlesnake. This year the town of Sweetwater, Texas, held its 57th annual rattlesnake roundup. A few years ago the roundup would bring in about 5,000 rattlers. Because of the drought, the snake haul is down to about 1,000 rattlers. The snakes would probably like to say (or hiss), “Don’t tread on me,” but the humans do far worse than tread on them. The humans lob off the snakes’ heads, strip their skin off, disembowel them, cut out their still-beating hearts and their gall bladders (which are set aside to be sold to China where they are used as aphrodisiacs) and finally the snakes’ bodies are thrown into a fryer to be cooked and sold as edible meat for $4 a plate.

Gadsden fans: you don’t want to be a rattlesnake. Be something truly terrifying. Be the absolute terror of the animal kingdom.

Be a human.