LOL –great, on the flag theme–

if I were running for president I sure as hell wouldn’t refuse to wear one.

If you were running for president, I doubt that there would be much question about the 2008 election… it would be all sewn up

I’ll bet your Grandpa would be proud to know how well his lessons took.

In a similar vein, the argument about flag burning misses the point. As much as it infuriates me to see someone burning an American flag, the fact is they are only harming A flag. Only actions against our Constitution and freedoms can harm THE flag.

Just my 2 cents.

Only Obama shouldn’t try to put down those who do wear the pin as if that automatically means they are unthinking/knee-jerk types, and he sounds vaguely close to going there.

All of those things are fine, if they’re the sort of things you’d like to do. However, they don’t make you a patriot or patriotic in and of themselves. We Americans have become less and less aware of this for decades.

I counted 35 faded, torn and crappy looking flags in the past week. A couple were on vehicles, many were hanging, by threads to some ancient pole sticking off someone’s home. My grandfather would likely have blown a circuit at such a lack of patriotism. Yet, you can be sure that the fellow with two faded (pink, yellow and light gray are not the colors of the flag) flags tagged on the back of his motorcycle thinks he’s a Patriotic American.

I think patriotism can be difficult, whereas nationalism can be easy. Patriotism, in the above example, means that you understand what the flag represents and you honor and respect that metaphor. Nationalism, though means you chant America and wave stars and stripes about. I often wonder how many people that claim to be Patriots are actively disgracing Old Glory… without even thinking about it.

Sorry for the rant (pet peeve), my grandpa was a WWII vet and he drilled the flag code into my brain

Viva Google!