The Flag Flies and Feelings Rise

I am appalled by the amount and viciousness of the e-mail that has begun to appear on my computer over the past few days. Bigoted people seem to have found an acceptable base for their attacks on anyone who is different--they label it “patriotism.” Anyone who looks different, does not speak good English or questions the killing of innocents of other countries is automatically told, “Go back where you came from!” God is not the God of all people but only of those who believe in Jesus. The Supreme Court can be ignored and prayers in school can be the order of the day, because we need God (as defined by these writers) to survive and prevail against his enemies.

I am and always have been patriotic. I love my country to the extent that I have put my life on the line in its defense. But the reason I love it is that I and all of its citizens have a right to believe and speak as we might see fit and a right to live in peace with our neighbors regardless of their personal beliefs.

Albert J. Grafsky

Palm Desert

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Re “Americans, Yes, but World Citizens, Too,” Opinion, Oct. 21: We ourselves have wrestled with a question: How to display our deep love of our own country, while still signaling our concern that the world as a whole suffers in these hours and may do so increasingly in months to come. After careful thought, we fly with pride the American flag--and below it, the flag of the United Nations.

Riley and Becky Newman

Irvine

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Your special edition of Opinion featured authors with different opinions, and all were well taken. Peggy Noonan, however, hit a nerve and turned on my tears once again.

As long as I can remember, singing the national anthem swelled my chest with pride. As I get older, my emotions are on my sleeve. Each firefighter interview, heart-wrenching survival story or talk with widows and children puts a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. Noonan’s column said every single thing I feel about our flag, our country and its history. She showed us flags in battle, still there, and people of all callings who hold the flag high. Her final idea was to print out our most precious documents to discuss with our children. My children will do that with theirs, and we grandparents will read them together.

Diane Macfarland

San Marino

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Richard Rodriguez’s “The Pulse of Patriotism” set my patriotic self in a tizzy. I take offense at the terms “un-American” and “disunited.” We as a nation are diverse, broad-thinking and accepting of all who come to our nation in peace. We are extremists because we can be; we are free. And as a whole we are united, not nonconformists or divided.

We are a great nation, and because of the Sept. 11 horror we want to show the world that whatever anyone does to us we are still united. United we stand against terrorists everywhere. United, we will win this fight as we have in the past.

Karen Connor

San Dimas

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It’s obvious that Carolyn See (“The Limits of Waving a Flag in a Time of War”) wants peace, not war, as all of us do, but the American flag doesn’t symbolize something sinister even if those who wave the flag are “young men with their gun racks and tattooed arms hanging out of shiny pickup trucks.” Perhaps See would feel better if they were book racks of poetry by T.S. Elliot. Maybe then she wouldn’t feel so threatened. I mean, you’d better watch out for those young men who are not afraid to fight and are patriotic!

Clyde Feldman

Sherman Oaks

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I’m a left-leaning intellectual with pacifist tendencies. I don’t like or trust leaders like the Bushes (even though I too went to Yale). And I proudly fly our flag on my house and car. Why? Because it is the only flag of the only country of which I am a grateful (and often disappointed and critical) citizen. When a better country is invented (the world needs one), I will move there and fly its flag. But for now this is my country, and I love its flag and what it tries so falteringly and nobly to stand for.

I also fly the flag to be provocative, because many of my friends think that flag-waving is wrong or beneath them. If they see me displaying the flag they’ll have to either write me off as a closet warmongering fascist or puzzle over the possibility that Old Glory may stand for something worth considering, even to its critics.

I also fly the flag as a challenge to myself. If I am not going to be embarrassed by flying it, I have to review each day why I love it and re-create what it means to me and what I want it to mean to others who fly it. The U.S. and democracy have to be renewed every day. And so does the flag.

Thomas Greening

Los Angeles

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When it comes to the red, white and blue I’m right at the front of the pack. But it can be overdone. In Hollywood, for example, someone has taken it upon himself or herself to paint the fire hydrants red, white and blue. Assuredly this was done with good intentions; after all, you cannot conjure up Sept. 11 without thinking of the firefighters. But on the flip side, when you think fire hydrant, you soon imagine a dog lifting his leg on the same. Is that the image we want for our colors?

Another case of patriotism amok. Thankfully it wasn’t physical aggression taken out on someone another considers “un-American.” These fireplugs need to be repainted.

David Reid

Hollywood