Defending the Flag

THUS SPAKE the conservative gentleman: "I catch you desecrating the American flag, you've got a problem". He actually said that, as if he were the first valiant, brave Amerian to ever uttter a cliched promise he felt certain he would, fortunately for him, never have to keep. I was tempted to suggest that for every time someone destroys or damages an American flag, a million new ones can be cut from whole cloth and colored properly to replace it, but thought better of it. What I did do is to remind him that whatever "problem" he had in mind, that ultimately the real problem would be his, in the form of civil or even criminal litigation, and that in any event I'm currently in the market for a good lawsuit against some big, bad, brave right winger. He backed off a bit, wisely. The "Gentleman" who gave me this promise of his potential wrath is an election denier who would, he said, vote for Trump today, and who considers all the fuss about the insurrection at the Capitol building to have been "overblown", notwithstaning that seven people died during the overblown event, and dozens of police officers were permanently maimed. The great patriotic defender of the American flag, completely at peace with Trump's failed attempt to bring to an end what the flag symbolizes: freedom and democracy.That brought to mind the time that I actually did defend the flag, and stopped someone from desicrating a copy thereof. It was very early, 1991. George Bush senior had lured Saddam Hussein into invading Kuwait by essentially encouraging him to do so, and then raised holy hell when Saddam took the bait. I, along with millions of informed Americans, took to the streets in protest. I had always wanted to protest an American war of imperialism, having been too young to protest Viet Nam without my parent's permission, which I certainly did not have. So now was my chance. So I wrapped an American flag around my shoulders, and took to the streets with several hundred other people. Later that evening, as a friend sat in my house discussing with me the day's events, he decided to desecrate my flag. He wanted to write something true, but in the wrong place, like "no war for oil". I stopped him cold, though he was the bigger man. Not in my house, and not with my flag, I told him. He seemed resentful, but conceded; he had no choice. The next day I and my pristine American flag once again took to the streets, and this time I narrowly avoided a fight with a huge man who called me a "traitor", and would have beaten me up to prove it. But my flag remained unscathed, and I still have it, properly folded and stored in a speial place of honor. If only these damned idiots could understand that the flag is the very symbol of the freedom we enjoy in the United States, including the freedom to do whatever one choses to do with one's own flag, whether that be displaying it, wrapping oneself in it, saving it, desecrating it, or even, heaven forbid, burning it.