tbh at this point I think the meme doesn’t fit sometimes

the rattlesnake is usually defensive and only attacks when endangered (or when people are within its strike zone)

yeah, the “don’t tread on me” can be interpreted to mean a “freedom” of a kind of godless independence

it can also refer to legitimate self-defense:

Everyone has the right to defend his life against the attacks of an unjust aggressor. For this end he may employ whatever force is necessary and even take the life of an unjust assailant. As bodily integrity is included in the good of life, it may be defended in the same way as life itself.

It is lawful to defend one’s material goods even at the expense of the agressor’s life; for neither justice nor charity require that one should sacrifice possessions, even though they be of less value than human life in order to preserve the life of a man who wantonly exposes it in order to do an injustice. Here, however, we must recall the principle that in extreme necessity every man has a right to appropriate whatever is necessary to preserve his life. The starving man who snatches a meal is not an unjust agressor; consequently it is not lawful to use force against him.

https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13691a.htm

I mean so basically my perception was the original “don’t tread on me” seemed like godless libertarianism, this meme has been used by some to come in to promote a questionable authoritarianism, and I think as a mean between the extremes we can reject godless independence and yet also still safeguard some individual rights or liberties at times. God may trample on individual liberties for a divine purpose, but men will often be called to respect certain freedoms of others.