For Starters, the Flag is a piece of cloth, most likely, nylon and nowadays often printed in China. The National Anthem is just words. The Anthem won't clothe, feed, pay your mortgage, cover your health costs or comfort you if your loved one is killed fighting in Iraq to "protect" America. When the symbol takes on more power than what it was supposed to represent, than it's time to ditch the symbol because we've become Idolators.
Josh Howard got in trouble when during the national anthem he stated, "“The Star Spangled Banner’s going on right now, and I don’t celebrate that shit. I’m black. Obama. Obama '08.”
This caused immediate "controversy" as fervent nationalists immediately began to pillory Howard. However, after reading some of the comments made about and to Howard as posted on the blog of Mark Cuban, my choice of words is to kind and too intelligent for the bigoted racist trash that spewed forth from unthinking buffoons, who also used this as an excuse to castigate Obama, including the mega-patriots at FreeRepublic.
It's easy to wrap oneself in the flag. The flag provides armor. One need not examine any positions, question whether or not a policy undertaken by the Federal Government could have repercussions for the American people. It's an unthinking persons line of attack and defense.
As a juxtaposition, listen to the comments of Michelle Bachmann (at 4:29 in the video) as she whips the crowd into a zealot-like frenzy with her appeal to God and Country. As if she knew anything about either.
This is the same Bachmann who claimed, "God called upon me to Run for the United States Congress." Any politician who invokes the almighty as a supporter of them and who claims the Divine Right of Leadership as god's choice has immediately abrogated the right to be in a position of authority.
Those who use this rhetoric and fall back onto God and the Flag do so to cover their evil motives which do not benefit you. The politician who speaks of God’s Will is really speaking about Their Will. And in order for Their Will to be done they need your tacit or active approval. Their actions are done in order to enrich them, their families and their cronies and when the evil of their actions rebounds upon the nation and innocent Americans they use the whirlwind they created to further ensconce themselves in power and further delude and shackle the people they Lord over.
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