POW-MIA

POW-MIA:

Greyhawk points to an article from the Boston Globe against the POW-MIA flag. Hawk notes that the article attempts to paint the flag as being a kind of mechanism to demonize the left so the right can win elections.

The article ends on a note of conspiracy:

No wonder the grief-struck flag refuses to go away. When we Americans behold that silhouetted bowed figure -- the prison tower, the barbed wire -- we may feel the pointed shame anew, but now we recognize the unknown image. We ourselves have become the prisoners of war; it is our own government that has taken us captive. The black flag at last belongs to all of us.

I suppose the author doesn't know anyone who actually flies one of these flags, or he wouldn't dare say such a thing. I know a few men who do: some Vietnam veterans, some bikers, and families of those who did not come home. I don't think they'd much like him saying that the figure on the flag represents "all of us," we poor suffering Americans imprisoned by our evil government.

I think they only wish that their missing loved ones, or friends, were here to suffer with us.

This kind of rhetoric is exhausting. I'm tired of hearing Hollywood stars gripe about how dissent is stifled, as they give another anti-war, anti-administration speech and then go to cash their next million-dollar paycheck. I'm tired of hearing professors gripe about the crushing of their freedom to criticize the government, which criticisms still end up crossing my desk every single day, while their authors are punished with tenure and gold-plated benefits plans. I'm tired of hearing US Senators, who are paid fortunes out of the public dole to do nothing but talk, complaining about how hard it is to express opinions that draw criticism from the public. And I'm tired of journalists like this guy whining about how he 'understands' what it's like to be a POW, because he has to live in Bush's America.

Dissent can be -- not necessarily is, but can be -- patriotic. Whining is neither patriotic nor acceptable. Good gracious, people. Grow some perspective.