It was George Bernard Shaw who first offered a snarky but
frighteningly accurate definition of patriotism as “fundamentally a conviction
that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born in
it.” Ouch.
Maybe because I’m kinda
thin-skinned on the subject it’s so easy to draw blood but that does sting a
bit, especially when I’m forced to concede he’s probably right.
I wondered what George would make of the kerfuffle that
the University of California at Irvine found itself
in, up to at least its butt, over the course of the last week as to what to
do/not to do with the American flag.
By George (M), It’s a
Grand Old Flag, though your mileage may vary. I served
eight years in the Air Force protecting, among other things, freedom of speech,
though I often had precious little of it myself, so I squirm in physical
discomfort when we shout one another down pretending to debate freedom of
speech.
Actually, I’m mindful of all those in my life who died
wearing a military uniform so that we can have unending discussions about how
many pinheads can dance on an angel (golly that doesn’t look right at all) and
I very often feel we owe them better than what we do with the freedoms they
defended to the fullest measure.
In my time on this orb, the hardest moments for me in
defending the theoretical values of freedom of speech when practically applied
in the real world have always been when the speech I’m defending is hateful and
hurtful.
And I placed those descriptives in alphabetical order
since they are sadly otherwise interchangeable with little
to no loss of intent or meaning.
-bill kenny 
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