Boy Sacrifices His Safety for Flag

Today's heart-warming/bone-chilling human interest story is a little boy who took a blow to the head rather than let a U.S. flag touch the ground. It was on the front page of the The Grand Rapids Press with a big color picture, and a glowing article about how this kid single-mindedly "protected" the flag when he tripped and fell to the ground, injuring himself in the process.

Fortunately his injuries - included a scraped forehead and nose where his head hit the pavement - were superficial. But that's just luck; he didn't know on his way down how he'd hit, and whether his own safety was in danger. He could have broken his nose, gotten a concussion, or even broken his neck. He explained to the reporter that all he thought about as it happened was what he'd been told since kindergarten: don't let the flag touch the ground.

What's most alarming is that no one involved is questioning the priorities he's been taught. Sure, self-sacrifice is a noble characteristic, and if he'd risked injury to protect a classmate, or even a puppy dog, I'd smile and congratulate him. But he did it to protect a thing. And not from physical damage (the flag wasn't likely to be harmed), but from the supposed indignity of touching the ground.

Flag etiquette isn't a bad thing. Taking care of one's flag and displaying it according to protocol is a way of demonstrating one's respect for the government and the principles it represents and aims to carry out. And in battle, defending the flag as a tactical or psychological rallying point makes sense.

But this goes beyond etiquette or combat motivators. This kid's treating it like something holy. As if the rituals for handling a cloth banner were more important than his own safety.

Just as he's been taught.

The First Amendment prohibits the establishment of a state religion, but we've done that anyway: it's a religion of the state. It has its holy days, like the Fourth of July. It has its saints and martyrs, like Washington and Lincoln. It has its holy places, such as the Capitol Building and a Holy of Holies: the Oval Office. It has its scriptures, most notably the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. It has priests in the form of Supreme Court justices. It has holy icons such as The Flag. Children are taught this religion from the time they enter school, and even before. It's no wonder the kid acted this way.

If there's any doubt that the U.S. flag has been elevated to the status of a holy icon, listen to the language we apply to it. We pledge allegiance to it... not just to the republic for which it stands, but to the flag itself. Congress likes to pass laws against desecrating the flag, and there are those who want to add a Constitutional amendment to ban that. But by definition, you cannot desecrate something unless it's sacred.

Personally, I find the whole notion of a sacred banner silly. I imagine that Moses (the real one, not Charlton Heston) would have smashed some tablets over it. By Christian standards, it's idolatry. And yet somehow flag veneration is considered just completely wholesome and admirable, and little boys are praised to high heaven for risking their necks to practise it.