One Flag Lacks Nothing

Whoever may be the next president of the United States, I would hope that he would make comments in his acceptance speech (or whatever they call it) about the flag.

Hear me out.  Yes, that would make me click on to find better reading too, but what I have to say may be different from what that opening sentence might have led you to expect.

 I’d like to hear the next president say something like the following:

“You may have noticed, I hope not with too much alarm, that I am sharing this stage with but one flag tonight.  This is very intentional, and it’s important for me to tell you why I am standing off to the side here.

I could have a dozen, twenty, maybe even sixty flags back behind me, lining the wall and framing my image for the cameras in red, white and blue.  But this flag that stands out here stage front center tonight, the symbol of our country – it is not wallpaper, and I will not have it be my backdrop.  This is a rousing and great symbol just as it is.  I cannot improve it by displaying two flags, and while it is not my place to try to stop others from displaying multiple flags, this one flag stirs me in a way fifty flags cannot. 

It lacks nothing.

In recent years it has been good marketing to wrap an image or an idea or a policy or some other product in the colors of the flag.  At the risk of annoying some who have taken flag displays to the extreme, I encourage you not to use the flag as a decoration or a marketing tool.  It’s a good thing to fly a flag at your home or business, but flying a hundred flags at your business does not make your products better than that of the competition.  It only serves to suggest that this flag is somehow lacking. I could fly a hundred flags, and it does not make me more patriotic than a neighbor who proudly displays *the* flag.

Just as we would not measure a person’s hospitality by the size of their home, or their love by the number of times they’ve been married, it would seem silly to suppose that we can appear more patriotic by waving one more flag than the next guy.

I realize I may be asking a lot, so in turn I promise you that I will not wrap myself in the flag.  If you have concerns about my policies, your right to question me directly and without fear – I will honor that right.  If you have a problem with the way I do the job you have entrusted to me, it is your patriotic duty to say so and it is my duty to answer to you.   I will not hide behind this flag, and pretend you are questioning your country.