Plain Talk

about matters of interest in Washington State and, often, elsewhere

April 2007

With Memorial Day just behind and Flag Day coming up, some thoughts on patriotism seem appropriate.

Memorial Day is just what the dictionary says of "memorial": it is a day "serving to help people remember some person or event; commemorative." It is a day to remind us of the tragic combat deaths of over a million of this nation's men and women. Regrettably, the focus of the commemoration--the deaths and their tragic character--seems to elude to many people. The national commander of the American Legion recently, rightly remarked that the day is "not about picnics or trips to the beach"; regrettably, he then wrongly went on to object to anyone's speaking out on Memorial Day about the justice of wars, past or present: "The families of those killed in war should not be led to believe that their loved ones died for a less-than-worthy cause." His error is subtle but crucial: the cause in which they died--all of them--was seeking to protect the United States.

Soldiers do not declare wars, nor decide how well they do (or don't) protect the nation: they fight them. Whether in fact this, that, or t'other war was or is legitimately necessary to protect the United States is not something that was or is up to the individual soldiers fighting those wars. To hold that questioning the practical or moral validity of a particular military action somehow bemeans those who sacrificed fighting in it is an impossible leap of illogic.

This is not some radical new idea. It is over a century and a half since "The Charge of the Light Brigade", what is widely felt to be the single most imbecile military blunder in recorded history. But however imbecile the action, those who died in it were still heroes, of whom the poet Tennyson famously wrote "Some one had blunder'd: / Theirs not to make reply, / Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do & die". And the poem's conclusion? "Honour the Light Brigade, / Noble six hundred!" Tennyson, and posterity, understand what the Legion commander seems not to: the honor and the blunder are severable issues.

The day we dedicate to remembering the tragedy of war deaths is not an inappropriate time to question whether it is needful for yet more to die in a current war. What answer one has to that question is immaterial to the issue of whether merely asking it somehow dishonors the dead; the truth is the exact opposite, for objections to a war can have no greater weight than our respect for those dead in it: the greater the objection, the greater the respect it shows.

From Memorial Day to Flag Day. Is there anyone who seriously believes that people should be jailed for rudeness? If you're driving and another driver flips you the finger, should that rise to a breach of the Constitution? A flag is a symbol: it spiritually embodies what it stands for. But only the mad confuse the symbol with the thing it symbolizes. An American flag symbolizes the American people and their moral traditions; but if someone, whether for personal principle or sheer devilry, cuts up an American flag, no American bleeds.

What such a person is doing is disrespecting a symbol, which is to say symbolically disrespecting the American people. Such disrespect is rude and insulting; in the case of a flag, grossly rude and insulting. But does a nation founded on respect for individual freedoms that include free speech really want to make mere rudeness or insult a criminal act? Those who effectively flip the finger to America are as vile (or as childish) as those who do so to other drivers. We may despise them, but those who talk about imposing criminal sanctions, much less making the act a breach of the Constitution, are themselves insulting American moral traditions.

And while we're the topic of "flag desecration", how about a little less hypocrisy and a little more knowledge? Last year, right after Flag Day, I happened to be driving about town--not looking for flags, just doing a few chores--but stopped counting at, I believe, 15 flags out in a substantial rain. Those gross breaches of flag protocol were on government property, from Federal to County, at businesses, and at private homes: equal-opportunity desecrators, one might say (not to mention the frequency with which one sees the flag "adorning" clothing--more ignorant disrespect). If you're going to display an American Flag, how about taking a few minutes to learn how to do it without being rude, however unintentionally, to the American people it symbolizes? Flag protocol is not arcane: look it up (suvcw.org/flag.htm has a good summary).

Plain Talk is a more or less monthly feature carried in the weekly Ritzville Adams County Journal.

The text appearing above is a substantially expanded version of the published feature, which is limited by word count.