It’s one, two, three, what are we fightin’ for…
Let’s just get it out of the way so we can move on to other things. You know I’m going to mention it at least once, so I may as well do it now and then we’re done. I mean, really; why kid our selves?
There, that’s done. See, it didn’t hurt one bit.
I’ve been troubled recently by something that I hadn’t ever thought would bother me. I’m a veteran of the first Gulf War and my father was a career Navy man. This makes us a very patriotic family. My patriotism, though, is of the brand that thinks that questioning your government is the most patriotic act you can commit. A government is not something one is loyal to; one is loyal to a people and a set of ideals. A government should be loyal to its people.
That said, I have never placed any great importance on the American flag (or any flag for that matter). It is a symbol of our country, or its people and its ideals, but it is not a relic. Symbols have power on both sides of the fence and to deface a symbol says as much, and as powerfully, as respecting it. I think everyone has the right to salute or burn the flag. I have come to discover, though, that I don’t believe you have the right to be careless with it.
There is a house up on a hill on the drive into town from my little homestead. There’s a bank on the side of the road in front of that house and there, on the bank, crumpled and forgotten is a flag. It’s not a little plastic flag, or a kite with the flag printed on it. It is an honest to goodness, four foot by six foot flag that has been left to rot, still attached to its eagle capped flagpole, in the dirt.
When you salute a flag, by rendering a military salute or placing your hand over your heart, you demonstrate to everyone in witness that you hold that symbol in a high regard; that you hold the people and the ideals it represents in a high regard. When you burn it, or intentionally deface it, you demonstrate to everyone in witness that you vehemently oppose what that symbol stands for and what its people are doing. What, then, do you demonstrate to everyone driving by when you leave one lying in the dirt, forgotten?
To me it is an example of everything that is wrong with our country today. It shows laziness, and apathy, and an utter carelessness and disregard. It is the kind of apathy and laziness that keeps people from voting booths, elects morons to office, and lets its people be blindly led into unjustifiable conflicts abroad.
If you are too lazy to pick up a piece of cloth from your yard, why then would you fly it in the first place?
Fly it, or burn it. Don’t forget it.
“It’s one, two, three, what are we fightin’ for…”