I want to respond to Mike Marshall’s letter in last week’s Pathfinder. Mike disagreed with some people’s dissatisfaction with other people’s method of protesting. I think Mike is very wrong.
There are acceptable ways of protesting and there SHOULD be unacceptable ways. Nations have even attempted to make rules of fighting wars. In that light there should be rules of protesting.
When a person burns our flag, or stomps our flag into the ground, to me that means he/she hates everything about this country and there is nothing good, redeemable or salvageable about this country or its people. Then to that person, I say go somewhere else to live.
I acknowledge every citizen (note I say citizen) has a right to protest as granted in our Bill of Rights. Free speech is not unlimited! But condemning the whole country isn’t protesting. It is saying, “I hate everything and everybody.”
There is nothing unpatriotic about wanting to defend my country. The flag is not “just a piece of cloth.” Defacing the flag is defacing my country and I don’t like that at all.
Just as when any person disagrees with another, physical attack is not acceptable. In the same venue, burning the flag is unacceptable to me. If you want to protest something, write letters to your representatives at all levels of government, call them on the phone, write letters to newspapers, march in streets with signs (with a permit), run for political office, form a group of people who feel like you do and argue your case at public meetings, support candidates that support your ideas and vote! If you think police are unfair in the treatment of a group of people, contact the police chief and get permission to ride along with a police officer and see what he/she does on a daily basis. Learn why police do what they do. Police lives matter too!!!
Saying we need more patriotic Americans to burn the flag is one step away from saying it is okay to burn down communities! Somewhere along the way, Mike has missed the point. Our flag is the representation of our way of life, our ideals, our heritage, our dreams and our future. Burning one is burning them all! Burning our flag is saying “you want no part of what this country has to offer, you want to burn it all down and start over from the beginning.”
It is beyond my ability to understand how someone can go through military basic training and not gain the respect of our flag it deserves. Disrespecting the flag IS DISRESPECTING OUR COUNTRY AND ALL IT STANDS FOR. If a person does not respect my country and the flag that is its representation, I cannot respect that person because that person has condemned something very sacred to me.
And since Mike thinks it is okay to burn the flag, let me ask him what would have happened to him if he had done so while on active duty? If it was unacceptable then, it is unacceptable now.
Just as freedom of speech does not allow one to yell “Fire” in a crowded theater, burning the flag should also not be allowed. It is simply too much of a sign of hatred for me to stomach. If you hate this country that much, then I say go somewhere else to live! Try burning another country’s flag when you get there and see what happens next!
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