Driving home tonight, I spotted a flag fluttering about the roadway along C-470. In the brief glimpse, it was clearly one of those cheap, plastic things that folks fit into their car door windows. It had come loose, and was now being run over by various cars.
I’m enough of a traditionalist to cringe at such a thing, and a quick dozen plans flashed through my head, all equally rejected. No way, even if I were pulled by the side of the road, that I could run out there and grab it without causing a major accident, myself being a ground zero of same.
Nuts.
But it occured to me — it’s still just a piece of plastic. It symbolizes so much more, but it’s still just a symbol. Not worth, in context, a life.
Which made me wonder — will the current crisis make passage of a Anti-Flag Burning Amendment more or less likely? Will all the flag-waving and patriotic hoo-hah make people more willing to sacrifice political expression for the sake of a piece of cloth? Or will the tragedy of last week make people put things in perspective, and realize that life and liberty are a lot more precious for all of that?