How to treat the American flag

I love the American flag.

I learned to love it early. My parents were strict about it. When we went to parades, they taught me to take off my hat and hold it over my heart whenever the flag passed.

In elementary school, we said the Pledge of Allegiance every morning.

As a Cub Scout, I learned flag etiquette that I still follow to this day.

In high school, I was a state finalist at the American Legion Ohio Citizens Bee and won an American Legion college scholarship.

We fly a big American flag on the front of our house every day. I raise it at first light every morning and take it down at sunset every night. I never leave it up in the rain.

I’m disappointed by some of my fellow Americans who don’t seem to know how to treat the flag with honor and respect.

Some examples:

The American flag should not be left out in the dark unless a light is shining on it. But in my neighborhood, I see a lot of people leave their flags out all night in total darkness.

The American flag should not touch the ground. Every year around Independence Day, people in our neighborhood line the streets with those little American flags stuck in their front yards. Within days, most of them are broken and lying the muck. I pick them up or put them back when I can.

The proper way to dispose of an old American flag is to burn it, yet I sometimes find old flags sticking out of garbage cans on the curb.

The American flag should not be altered by changing its colors or its pattern. Yet, I see patriotic Americans making their own versions of the flag to promote certain causes or groups.

What I’m saying is: I know how to treat the American flag with honor and respect. I’ve been doing it my whole life out of deep love for our country.

So, I’m going to tell you what I–a flag-flying patriot–know about Old Glory.

First of all, the flag is a symbol. That is, it stands for something other than itself. A symbol cannot symbolize itself. It has to stand for something greater or more substantial than itself or it has no meaning.

The American flag symbolizes the union of We the People. This is the most important thing to understand about the flag. The canton (the blue part of the flag–also called “the union”) features 50 stars because that is the purpose of the flag: To represent and symbolize our union.

Union is so important to understand if you want to appreciate the flag.

The union of what? The 50 states? Yes.

But, more important, the union of We the People.

This is why there is so much inclusive, “union” language in the Pledge of Allegiance: “united,” “one,” “indivisible,” “for all.”

Now, if the flag symbolizes the union of We the People, it stands for all of the people of these United States. Not just some of them.

It is the flag for all Americans. All.

The armed forces may carry the flag into combat, but the American flag does not stand for the armed forces. It is not the flag of the military. The military, a group of citizens who take up arms in service to the people, carry the flag to remind them who they serve. It is not the military’s flag; it is the people’s flag. The armed forces carry the flag to remind them that they are serving the people.

One of the most disturbing trends that I see in our country is the belief that the flag represents the armed forces. It must never. The armed forces are the servants of We the People. They carry our flag. They lay down their lives for the idea and people the flag represents.

The Republic is in trouble if we ever forget this. The military must not seem “more American” or more essential than We the People. America makes its military; the military does not make America.

Yes, the flag stands for all of the people.

Not some of the people.

And not some people more than others.

All of the people (“…with liberty and justice for all”).

The idea of America is summed up in equal citizenship and rights under the law regardless of gender, nationality, race, religion, or sexuality. The American idea is that, among We the People, there are not first, second, or third class citizens. We are all equal. Each and every one of us.

The flag weaves all of that–and all of us–together into one symbol.

When we honor and respect the flag in the proper way, we honor “..the Republic, for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Do you see the language in our pledge of allegiance to the flag? Honor to the flag, done the proper way, is honor to union of the people and the American idea we share.

The honor due the flag is not due the symbol itself; it is due to that which the flag symbolizes.

And what the flag symbolizes is the equality and union of all Americans.

We pledge allegiance to the union of We the People.

We rise and take off our hats in honor of E Pluribus Unum.

We treat the flag with the same care and love with which we treat the idea of America itself.

One of the most important parts of that idea–maybe the most important part–is that each citizen has a right to personal beliefs and free expression of those beliefs. Even, maybe especially, when he or she calls out fellow citizens or criticizes the government. This is the most American thing there is to being American.

What other nations find so crazy about the American idea is not that we believe in this right. Rather, it’s that we believe union is possible in spite of this right. We believe that union works, even when citizens are using theirs rights to disagree with each other and even with the government itself.

If you want to know what the American flag stands for in the world, it stands for that.

So, when we pledge allegiance to the flag, we are not really pledging allegiance to the symbol. As I said, a symbol has neither life nor meaning apart from that for which is stands. No, we pledge allegiance to the union of We the People. We salute a union that comes neither from blood nor soil, but from a common belief that the people can self-govern with “liberty and justice for all.”

When we stand for the flag, we should be standing up for fellow Americans who are expressing beliefs and feelings and opinions that run counter to our own. We acknowledge their right to exist and to live and to speak different from how we exist and live and speak. We express our enduring faith that, despite these difference, E Pluribus Unum.

What is more American than calling the country to account?

What is more American than a critique of the status quo?

What is more American than free expression?

What is more American than peaceful protest?

These things are more than the exercise of the personal rights we enshrined in our Constitution. They are essence of self-government. They are the language of a healthy Republic.

As a lifelong flag-lover, I am proud of Americans who exercise their rights and exercise our collective conscience as We the People. These citizens embody that for which the flag stands.

It is patriotic to serve in the armed forces and We the People owe servicemen and servicewomen our gratitude and respect.

But it is also patriotic to serve We the People through peaceful protest. When we say the Pledge of Allegiance, we pledge to unite in our pursuit of “liberty and justice for all.” We need Americans who will tell us when We the People may not be living up to that pledge.

For that reason, I am proud of Americans who kneel in peaceful protest during the national anthem and presentation of our flag. Nothing could be a greater honor and tribute to the aspirations and idea the flag represents. Far from dishonoring the flag, peaceful protesters pay it a greater honor by recognizing and using the rights the flag represents. Far from dishonoring those who died fighting under that flag, peaceful protests honor the very ideas for which those heroes died.

When we begin to confuse America’s symbols for America itself, our experiment in self-government is in danger.

It is easy and popular to “defend the flag,” but it takes far more courage to defend what the flag represents.

And that is why I, a flag-lover and patriot, salute those who kneel. I salute my fellow Americans who, by kneeling, show us how to truly honor the flag and the Republic for which it stands. I salute those who choose peaceful protest, exercising their right to critique and question We the People.

And I kneel in prayer that God will yet bless America and make us a nation of “liberty and justice for all.”

I am a patriot and proud American who loves our flag. I understand what it is and what is it for.

And so I kneel.