<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif">Tom, thanks for reminding all of us of flag day. </font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:left;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif"> On this occasion I would like to offer one of my columns on the topic.</font></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%"><br></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span style="line-height:24px"><b><font face="georgia, serif">Liberals: Take Back the Flag!</font></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%"><b><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%"><b><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif">By Nick Gier, The Palouse Pundit</font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%"><b><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif"> </font></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif">Patriotism is not a short and
frenzied outburst of emotion</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif">but the tranquil and steady
dedication of a lifetime.</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif">--Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif"> </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif"> It was May
Day, 1967, and I was doing my daily run around the national stadium in
Copenhagen, Denmark, where I was completing my year as a Rotary Fellow. There were thousands of Danish Communists,
Socialists, and Social Democrats on the expansive lawns celebrating the world’s
most important leftist holiday. </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif"> Something
struck me about what these people carried in their hands. For every bottle of beer, some of the best in
the world, there were just as many small Danish flags. As an American I thought: “What a novel idea:
patriots on the left.”</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif">This was not the first time I had
noticed and admired Danish patriotism.
At every major occasion–a birthday or a wedding–little flags are
festooned everywhere and a big flag is flying in the yard. Danish homes, including the summer cottages,
are not complete without a flag pole. </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif"> Let us turn
to another country. The Sri Lankan flag contains two stripes, green embracing
the Muslims and orange integrating the Hindus, thus validating their Sinhalese
identity in the Country of the Lion (Sinhala).
</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif">Buddhist nationalists have removed
these colors from their own flag as a clear warning to Sri Lankan Hindus,
Muslims, and Christians that they are no longer welcome in their own country. For these folks the upraised sword in the
lion’s paw is taking on a much more ominous meaning.</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif">Most Americans could not place Sri Lanka (let
alone Idaho)
on a map, but I still fear that some of our own nationalists might get wind of
this. One might instruct his wife to sew
a new American flag with all the Blue
State stars removed, even
though the Blues pay 71 percent of the taxes and the Reds, from 1991 to 2001,
received $800 billion more in goods, services, and cash from the feds than they
paid in taxes. </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif">Speaking of colors, I just saw for the first time the
bumper sticker “These Colors Do Not Run.”
This is message is obviously a corollary to the slogan “Support Our
Troops.” My first thought actually was a
warning that we must not mix good European stock with other blood to make a
rainbow flag.</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif">With only a few bad eggs, I believe that our military
is the best in the world, but a true patriot would insist that we should not
put these young lives in danger unless there is a direct threat to our country,
at which time it would indeed be cowardly for us not to defend ourselves. But when we invade a sovereign nation, no
matter how poorly led, on the basis of “fixed” intelligence, then a quick
retreat is the only honorable option.</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif">Buddhist and American nationalism are of course the
exact opposite of true patriotism, which, like the Danes’ example, is inclusive
and embracing rather than exclusive and dividing. </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif">Genuine patriots are loyal to the principles of their
country, not necessarily the government’s current policies. They freely exercise their right to dissent
and to resist the tyranny of a “moral majority.” They also make common cause with countries
that share the same liberal democratic principles, and they remain true to the
treaties that they’ve made with them.</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif">Wise patriots would not be afraid to admit their
country’s mistakes, and they would not make exceptionalist and paternalistic
claims about national destiny and obligation.
God blesses all nations, not just ours.</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif">True patriotism is not a narrow nationalism that goes
its own way—“you are either with us or against us”--but one that embraces the
UN charter, international law, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and
the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners.</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><span style="line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif">Some say that self-assertive nationalism is a product
of patriarchy, and patriotism should be replaced by, as Elousie Bell calls it, “matriotism”
whose loyalty would be to the largest community possible. </font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:0.5in;line-height:150%"><font face="georgia, serif"><span style="line-height:150%">Bell</span><span style="line-height:150%"> is wise to insist that her
matriotism does not necessarily eliminate a personal love for country and for
one’s own land. I’ve traveled extensively
on four continents but there is nothing like the mountains, lakes, and rivers
of the Pacific Northwest that I call my true
home. </span></font></p><div><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><font face="georgia, serif">-- <br></font><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div> <div style="height:auto;width:auto"> <div> <div><div><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div></div></div></div></div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><font size="2"><div><font face="georgia, serif">A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. <br><br>-Greek proverb</font></div><div><font face="georgia, serif"><br>
“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.
Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance
from another. This immaturity is self- imposed when its cause lies not
in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it
without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! ‘Have courage to use your
own understand-ing!—that is the motto of enlightenment.<br>
<br>
--Immanuel Kant<br>
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