A Thought Experiment about Flags

Let’s engage in a thought experiment.  Imagine America in the future.

In scenario number one, we have an America much as it looks today—except there are no national flags.  All other aspects of life are the same, including schools, restaurants, the federal, state, and local governments, shopping malls, a separate and independent judiciary, movie theatres, and libraries, etc.  But again, there are no national flags anywhere.

In scenario number two, we have an America much as it looks today.  There are flags everywhere – at schools, government buildings, along public roads, at many businesses and private residences.  Flags fly anywhere someone wants to put them.  But one of the freedoms that the flag represents is missing.  Pick a freedom, any freedom – freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press.  It hardly matters which freedom is missing, just pick one.

Now tell me which America you would rather live in:  an America without a flag that you currently love and cherish or an America without a freedom that you currently love and cherish.  Is it even a close call?

Let’s look a bit further.  Here are the countries that have the worst record regarding religious freedom:

Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Uzbekistan.

https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2014/01/worst-countries-religious-freedom/

Here are the countries with the worst record regarding freedom of the press:

North Korea, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Eritrea,  Belarus, Cuba, Iran, Equatorial Guinea, Syria, and Bahrain.

https://freedomhouse.org/article/10-worst-countries-journalists

Here are the countries with the worst record regarding freedom of speech:

Senegal, Jordan, Pakistan, Ukraine, Burkina Faso, Vietnam, Lebanon, Japan, Turkey, and Russia.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/freedom-of-speech-country-comparison/

So if you want to imagine an America without a basic freedom, you don’t have to try very hard.  There are lots of countries in the world that lack basic freedoms and rights.  Are you in a hurry to visit these places, let alone live in one?

Even the countries above don’t ban their own flag.  Some of the most despotic regimes in world history have flown their flags with enthusiastic abandon.  Think about the Nazis, when the Swastika reigned supreme.  Think about North Korea, where an American student was sentenced to hard labor (and likely tortured) for attempting to steal a propaganda poster.  Imagine if he had attempted to steal a flag.  Think about the Ku Klux Klan which honors the Swastika (the flag of the holocaust) and the Southern Cross (the flag of the Confederacy and slavery).  http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article29557972.html

Flags are both good and bad.  They can symbolize great freedoms or they can stand for repression and oppression.  Our US flag is great, not in and of itself, but because it embodies the freedoms that Americans enjoy.

There is no doubt in my mind that I would much prefer a future devoid of the Stars and Stripes than one devoid of any of the freedoms symbolized by our flag.