I have no idea why my personal beliefs have any relevance here. When people start calling a college student a b**** and advocate physically shaking her because she holds beliefs that are different from their own, I think things are getting out of hand. End of story.
First of all, I do think the flag represents a lot of different things, but to me, it's mostly about a symbol of pride. Number two, this girl has every right to do this, and good for her. It takes a lot of guts to go through with this like she has all season, especially as the media coverage intensified. I, too, dislike the idea with a war in Iraq at the present time, I'm just not willing to rock the boat like this girl has and I really don't mind if she wants to look away at the flag, it is her right as a citizen of this great nation. And why should we be proud of everything our government has done, it might be the best one in the world, but does that mean using the CIA to overthrow any regime they saw fit was completely fair(couldn't they have picked those strategic governments that threatened them becoming the most dominant force in the world). Then, you have all the early sedition acts, and the camps for Germans and Japanese during the first and second world war. Now, our government is playing off of our fear after 9/11 to get more and more power: see the Patriot Act. Do I think our government is the best out there? Yes? Do I love being and living in America? Yes. But that does not mean I like everything our government has done either, and just because she has more guts than I do to actually protest this on a center stage, more power to her. The right to peacefully protest and bring about change is one of the best aspects of our government and I shudder to think what we would be like without it. Just because the issue is over the Flag, which is a very touchy one I'll admit, doesn't change the bottom line. Unless we have altered the constitution recently, she has this right, since Justice Brennan did permit Flag burning in Johnson v. Texas after all. Bottom line: I love and respect my country, and I do stand towards the flag for the national anthem, but I do not want to even imagine what our country would be like if you an individual's right to peacefully assemble and protest, away. Heck, that's how this country got started in the first place, with us protesting the British Kings rule and forming our own country. If we as a nation don't allow people this fundamental right, we, as a nation, are going back on everything that we stand for and were founded upon in my opinion. And that's highly hypocritical wouldn't you say?
Mrs. JB, I don't really think she needs a shaking. I was making a reference to a comedian who once said he'd never hit a woman, but sometimes just wants to give her a good shake. Didn't mean to offend the fairer of the sex.
That is the way you happen to interpret it. When you think of one unifying "thing" that represents the USA, it's the flag. That incorporates the government, the past, the present, the future, the economy, the beliefs, etc. Apparently to her the flag represents the present more than anything else. I can't really disagree with her or you on that. Hell, it makes me kind of happy to see that she is able to do that. I'd hate to live somewhere that I cannot protest against what I believe is not right. She never said she didn't "love" living here. She simply responded that there are good things and bad things. There are people that don't like the Bush Administration... should they get out, too? There are people that don't like the way healthcare is handled in this country... should they get out, too? There are people that hate paying taxes, how about them? I know people in the Middle East that have the government or companies pay for their room and board, transportation, gas, etc. There are people who'd kill for that in this country. But there's no way I'd want to live in the Middle East. Simply because the USA may be better doesn't mean it's perfect, and I think that's what she's getting at. It has its good and its bad. Nothing more, nothing less.
The relevance is you have a similar stance on the war issue, thus I would like to know if you feel that it is a means to show your displeasure, or if it crossed your mind that not acknowledging or facing the flag is the appropriate way to protest possible war. If every person I or anyone else in this world that was ever called a b**** felt threatened then there would be a lot of paranoid people. I appreciate everyone who fought for my freedoms and the freedoms of others from the American Revolution in the 1760s-1780s, to Mexican-American War in the 1840s, to The Civil War, WW I & II, Korean, Vietnam, and Gulf Wars in the 1990s. I do not say she should appreciate them in the same way I do, but she should respect the fact that this country is based on freedoms. Freedoms that were won in wars that were fought by people who gave their lives for what that Flag stood and stands for. To not show your respect for that Flag, what It stands for, and those who died for It is completely disrespectful. She should fear me? No, she should fear the day people are not willing to die for some one like her.
Liberty and Freedom are complex concepts. They go back to religious ideas of Free Will and are related to the Ruler Mystique implicit in absolute monarchs. Without absolute monarchs patterned after the Old Gods and ruling by the grace of a belief in religious indulgence, Liberty and Freedom would never have gained their present meaning. These ideals owe their very existence to past examples of oppression. And the forces that maintain such ideas will erode unless renewed by dramatic teaching or new oppressions. This is the most basic key to my life. --Leto II, God Emperor of Dune: Dar-es-Balat Records
That's what I thought. But does that mean a coach could get away with kicking her off the team at Baylor, but couldn't get away with it at Texas? I guess so. I'm just glad this didn't happen at a division I school, because the firestorm would be ten times greater than this.
Excellent post. fatfatcow, I will turn 90 degrees away from your posts if you do not start to type "and"!
Ignorant eh? I was disappointed and upset with the Supreme Court, and the way our country acted as a whole. Not to blow my own horn, but I've probably read more about the 2000 election than you've read in the past 10 years.
eventually they will n they have to , but jsut not now its like the culture revolution they will admit what was wrong at the right timing.
My point is...if she truly does not hate America, she needs to find another way to protest that more accurately reflects her views, because there are people who are taking her protests the wrong way. Seems to me that's more of your problem than hers. Why should change her actions just because you misinterpret her protest?
yes so tell every american that to stop trading with the chinese , kick the chinese out of america n send yao ming back to shanghai
