Posted by PBS Mind | Someone just sent me one of those little video clips designed to outline for me all the reasons why flag-burning is wrong. Well, it may be -- I haven't thought about it that much because I believe that sanctifying symbols just makes it easier not to take too close a look at what they really stand for, and the next thing you know, what has happened to our flag happens. So I tend not to pay much mind to symbols, except to regard them with deep suspicion.
Our flag theoretically symbolizes what this country IS. Unfortunately, it's being used to get people to sign off on what this country DOES -- preferably without thinking about it and absolutely without questioning it. (Oh, I'm sorry, was I referring obliquely to Iraq again?)
That makes it dangerous, because, sadly, too often it works. If you are of the mindset to let other people do your thinking for you (why am I wasting my time writing this, because if you're one of those people, you're clearly NOT reading this blog), all they need to do is stand in front of the flag, declare something to be patriotic, and no matter how unreasonable, illegal, ill-thought-out, expensive, deadly, stupid, dishonest or just plain crazy the plan is, it suddenly will strike the non-thinking as righteous.
But what is a symbol, anyway? In one sense, it's a brand name. Now, Coca-Cola is a brand name, and Kleenex, and Burger King -- and if you talk to people at those companies, you'll find they are very careful to protect their brand names. They trot them out with their products, and they don't want them used with anything that would create the wrong image. The guys at Coca Cola know exactly what Coke is, and what it isn't, and they guard their symbol zealously.
But the bigger symbols -- the flag, the cross -- who protects them? No one. In fact, the people who are supposed to protect them instead use them to manipulate others.
Which is why I favor keeping flag-burning legal. Imbuing that symbol with any more power to render people unthinking than it already has would be dangerous, and as a nation, it would only help us to become further lost.
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