The Flag Flies Over Our Differences
Re “The Limits of Waving a Flag in a Time of War,” Opinion, Oct. 21: Carolyn See has said what I have been thinking for weeks. As long as I can remember (I’m 77) we always had a flag. We displayed it, we waved it and saluted it on all the appropriate occasions. Now that I see this sudden flag mania everywhere I look, I keep asking myself, where have all these “patriots” been? There have been many times when I was the only one in the neighborhood with the flag flying. But I haven’t had the nerve to speak up, because some fool will accuse me of being unpatriotic.
Peggy Bradfield
San Clemente
*
I’m not sure that See’s annoyance with seeing the flag waving is a good enough reason for those Americans who somehow feel better for flying it to take it down. She might also consider that displaying the flag is not a “portent of war”; toppling two buildings and killing 5,600 Americans in the process is a portent of war.
Her remark regarding Westside “trophy wives” driving SUVs is a petty, unsophisticated argument. Making such a statement suggests some sort of deeper annoyance with those of us who work and, thus, enjoy the fruits of capitalism.
Kristin P. Hornburg
Los Angeles
*
Words come so easily to breathless wordsmith Peggy Noonan (Opinion, Oct. 21) that readers must wonder if she ever stops long enough to think, wonder or question. She obviously assumes she has earned the role of No. 1 American patriot with her ode to flag wavers. Yet she quickly manages to discredit some fellow Americans who live in “wonderful socialist-agnostic, non-patriotic Manhattan.” Why not “liberal” and “Democrat”? Patriot Peggy thus demonstrates the very kind of un-American hypocrisy that genuine American patriots--flag wavers or not--should oppose.
June Maguire
Mission Viejo
*
After the Sept. 11 attacks, my wife proudly displayed the American flag outside our home. It has been there ever since. Recently I told her she was being hypocritical flying the flag while at the same time condemning our government for the use of military force of any kind. Now I realize how wrong I was. That’s what makes our country great. Like a member of our own family, we can disagree with our government and love it at the same time. We have that right. Just as we had the right to burn the flag in the 1960s.
The greatest freedom we have is the freedom to disagree. My wife and I patriotically fly our flag while having totally opposite political views: a microcosm of America. The flags will keep flying because it took one big and tragic event to realize we’re all one family.
When our kids inherit the house, the flag will come with it.
Paul Solomon
Encino