Flag Burning and Our Schools

Recently on TV we've seen a number of young adults burning the flag, often in public places. To us old folks, we see this as rebellious youth or reprehensible or simply ungrateful. We've seen the Eric Sheppard Challenge, which is to stomp on the flag as a sign of disrespect toward a symbol representing oppression, police brutality, or whatever else it the topic du jour. This is disheartening for a person who for many years has loved that symbol of freedom for us and much of the world.

Is this the new force in America, to reshape it into some utopian vision of all together in a new and totally fair order, with true equality? Makes one think of Lenin, who announced the same goals. OK, this brings up my ages old sense of anti-communism. Maybe they think this time they'll get it right. It was a sign of worry, to me anyway.

But then just by accident I saw on TV a recent flag burning where there was a protest by a number of folks disagreeing with the burning. These anti-police flag-burners were a bit besieged by the protestors, and remarkably needed police protection to be moved to another part of the park where they could demonstrate freely. Huh?

A few flag-burners were interviewed. Only with the comment from one of their leaders, "I am a Communist and an Anarchist", was I assured. I now truly value our public schools. Clearly this person had not read about either, not even the Cliff's notes versions, as Communism and Anarchy are substantially in conflict and even self-contradictory. These demonstrators have neither the intellectual capacity nor the mental stamina to carry off anything close to a new movement. They are capable of simple demonstrations for the evening news, and epithets (e.g. Tweets) of up to 140 characters to express their philosophy. That's it; they are kinda stupid and certainly uneducated. No movement will be forthcoming from our flag-burning citizens!

Thank you, American Public Schools. :)

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