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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Nuts.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-zt-pc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":51609,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/24\/is-the-american-flag-next.html","url_meta":{"origin":551,"position":0},"title":""Is the American flag next?"","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 24-Jun-15 2:04pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Um ... no. That seems unlikely. Unlike the Confederate battle flag, the American flag is, actually, our national flag.Mind you, Americans have a fetish about the stars and stripes that could probably bear with some moderation. But there's a significant difference between the social ostracizing of the battle flag of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":51686,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/07\/07\/and-now-for-a-different-flag-furor.html","url_meta":{"origin":551,"position":1},"title":"And, now, for a different flag furor","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 7-Jul-15 8:22am","format":false,"excerpt":"I'll be honest in saying that I had no idea that there was a quasi-official \"Christian flag\" (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Christian_Flag). While familiar with some denominational flags (e.g. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Christian_Flag#\/media\/File:Flag_of_the_US_Episcopal_Church.svg), I didn't know that there was a long-time movement for common flag for Christianity. Huh.Be that as it may, I'm not sure which I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9256,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/08\/01\/state_in_the_un.html","url_meta":{"origin":551,"position":2},"title":"State in the Union","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 1-Aug-06 7:08am","format":false,"excerpt":"Today, 130 years ago, Colorado was admitted to the US as a state. That's our current flag, adopted in 1911, which has the following specifications: The flag consists of...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/colorado-flag-big.gif?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":51194,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/18\/a-flag-for-earth.html","url_meta":{"origin":551,"position":3},"title":"A Flag for Earth","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 18-May-15 10:39pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A fun design school project, with seven interlocking rings, one for each continent. (Frankly, I think the world of Mortal Man, Doomed to Die, should have a flag of nine rings, but I wasn't consulted). The intent is to have a symbol for multinational endeavors, particularly beyond the confines of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2384,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/07\/02\/youre_a_grand_o.html","url_meta":{"origin":551,"position":4},"title":"You’re a grand ol’ flag","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 2-Jul-02 12:39pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Spotted a flag, but not sure what country it belongs to? Try the Easy Flag Identifier. Keen. (Via BoingBoing)...","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16658,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/02\/03\/tweets-from-2010-02-03-3.html","url_meta":{"origin":551,"position":5},"title":"Tweets from 2010-02-03","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 3-Feb-10 11:30pm","format":false,"excerpt":"If birthdays seem to come faster with age, 6 month dental checkups seem to come twice as fast. Yeesh. # The pina colada-flavored tooth polish at dentist is not as awful as one might think. # Another good dental check-up. I may have awful skin and dodgy eyes, but I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~Tweets"","block_context":{"text":"~Tweets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/tweets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}