![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tsukikageI've been keeping a text file of mini-posts which I'm going to put in one post at the end of the day, but I felt this one deserved its own post:
Just read an interesting poem about veterans, etc., and it stirred up a a lot of feelings in me, most of them positive (although I'm still a pacifist who thinks even killing in the context of war is almost always wrong). Anyway, point is, it roused all the positive feeling I happen to have towards the military, and then threw it away by digressing to a veteran criticizing flag burners and talking about how we need to respect the flag, etc.
Now granted people who go out and deliberately burn flags generally are burning it for deeper reasons, but I continue to believe that the American flag - all nations' flags - are nothing more than pieces of cloth. Yes, it is a symbol for our country, but the symbol's not important. If anything, putting too much emphasis on it is indicative of the sort of blind patriotism/religious fanaticism which I feel led to such things as the Holocaust or the Crusades. It's the rights, the freedoms, the generosity of the people, working towards the common good... THOSE are what's important. THAT is what we must always respect. And for as much as you believe that killing can be justified in war... Give thanks to those who were brave enough and committed enough to risk their lives and sacrifice so much more to try to protect this country. At the very least they were overcoming their own fears for something they felt was just.
The flag? Nothing more than a string around your finger to keep these things in mind, if that.
ETA: You know, I was reading a some Christianity-related stuff (comments to a post linked by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jadeejf) and realized... I think I believe the American flag to be akin to an idol for some.
Just read an interesting poem about veterans, etc., and it stirred up a a lot of feelings in me, most of them positive (although I'm still a pacifist who thinks even killing in the context of war is almost always wrong). Anyway, point is, it roused all the positive feeling I happen to have towards the military, and then threw it away by digressing to a veteran criticizing flag burners and talking about how we need to respect the flag, etc.
Now granted people who go out and deliberately burn flags generally are burning it for deeper reasons, but I continue to believe that the American flag - all nations' flags - are nothing more than pieces of cloth. Yes, it is a symbol for our country, but the symbol's not important. If anything, putting too much emphasis on it is indicative of the sort of blind patriotism/religious fanaticism which I feel led to such things as the Holocaust or the Crusades. It's the rights, the freedoms, the generosity of the people, working towards the common good... THOSE are what's important. THAT is what we must always respect. And for as much as you believe that killing can be justified in war... Give thanks to those who were brave enough and committed enough to risk their lives and sacrifice so much more to try to protect this country. At the very least they were overcoming their own fears for something they felt was just.
The flag? Nothing more than a string around your finger to keep these things in mind, if that.
ETA: You know, I was reading a some Christianity-related stuff (comments to a post linked by
jadeejf) and realized... I think I believe the American flag to be akin to an idol for some.