For beginners

I have seventy minutes to get to the dock, so this'll be brief. I have been struck so often lately by the shallowness of news coverage, the fact that the "news" purveyors get away with such shoddy shallow analysis, and the gullible society that not only lets them (or is it "Them") get away with it but assimilates so much of this nonsense that they appear to be a bunch of idiots.

Fifty five minutes to get to the dock. For example, (John Stewart pointed this out. I'm not copying him--just giving a redundancy warning) some lady videos a question for a presidential debate and it is selected to air on national TV; it is Mr. Obama, "do you believe in the American flag?" If he answers her question literally, he comes off as a condescending elitist. I mean, if you believe that the physical universe that we perceive around us is real then, yes, American flags do indeed exist. That's not her point of course, what she actually wants to know is really more profound. She wants to know if he believes it is a sacred symbol of our American democracy.

OK. Now, I have an issue. Is this lady a Catholic or a Protestant. I ask because I want to know just how stupid she is. Isn't one of the protests of the Protest-ants that Catholicism promotes the worship of physical idols and icons rather than the holy "spirit"? Are we all on the same page here? So she's replaced America, which is a small physical empire ruled by a surprisingly brief set of principles laid out in the constitution (give or take all the laws), with a symbol. I think her misperception of this American symbol is pervasive. As a symbol of the principles we hold dear, one of which is some degree of freedom of expression, we should be able to raise it up the pole, wear it, carry it into battle, burn it, drape a coffin with it, or wipe our respective asses with it. It is a SYMBOL of the US, not a physical embodiment of the US. The flag exists as an expendable representation of the things we hold dear. Certainly we would never carry our constitution, our mothers or even an apple pie into battle because we wouldn't want any harm to come to them. Enough.

Obama's response should have been more direct. This lady's idolatry is an affront to the principles we hold dear. It is a diversion from the business of democracy and the values of America. He doesn't wear a lapel pin because it is a symbolic distraction from the physical reality of America in all its good an evil glory. Isn't there some rule against that in the Judeochristian tradition that she ought to be familiar with.