Reflections on Flags
Flag etiquette is a touchy subject in this country. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that burning the American Flag is a protected form of speech under the First Amendment. Still, we hear calls from elected politicians that displaying the Confederate Flag is not protected speech.
The beginning of the Confederate War was never about slavery, it was about the massive tax burden being imposed by the North against southern businessmen. The slavery issue arose two years into the Civil War and at that point the Stars and Bars and slavery were forever linked.
But the original flag, the one that George Washington commissioned, was never about slavery, either. It was about this country’s brash argument that it wanted to be free from foreign rule and oppressive taxes. Yes, George Washington owned slaves. So did many others of the country’s founders. So did the Cherokee Indians, for that matter.
So how is the American Flag any less a symbol of slavery than the Confederate Flag? The two flags are just red, white and blue pieces of cloth stitched together. And now professional rabble rousers are insisting that anything Red, White and Blue be torn down and assigned to the dustbins of history.
The two flags represent culture. There are good and bad things in every culture. But believing that Americans are too stupid to make up their own minds about important cultural issues is Political Correctness run amok.
Flee from political correctness, that apple barrel of hypocrisy and prevarication which is sitting and fermenting and waiting to poison the discussion and the common sense that most Americans have.
Now, we have a very real situation taking place in a Southern Colorado neighborhood. A Hispanic man hung a flag upside down as a show of disrespect because of the racism he feels in his community. He says he feels harassed by the HOA’s management company.
Whew! Don’t we all?
There’s a craziness afoot in American neighborhoods. There’s an intolerance that’s as insidious as a cluster of cancer cells. Let’s get rid of it. Leave the flags alone. Leave our First Amendment alone. If someone has the bad taste to display a flag improperly, just walk away and let him be. What a nice place this would be if we just gave each other some space. Forgive, forget, and get on with life.
(link to El Paso County flag story)
