So now we're like the Communists.

Can you believe that the right wingers are now complaining that flying the flag at half-mast to honor the war dead is a protest against the war? Read this excerpt from an article entitled, "Flying Flag at Half-Staff Undermines War on Terror?":

At the same time as Congress was distressed over the occasional burning, the right wing was concerned over how the flag was being flown. In some states governors have begun flying the flag at half-staff to honor their sons and daughters who have died in the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld war.

According to a story in the Wall Street Journal by Jeffrey Zaslow, 16 states have begun this practice. Some people see honoring the dead as a disguised attempt to criticize the war. Bruce Butgereit is one of those. He is the national patriotic instructor of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War. He objects to the Michigan governor’s call to lower the flag saying it violates the Flag Code that was adopted in 1942. Not without compassion, he acknowledges that the governor “feels some sense of loss” when one of Michigan’s own dies, but having unique insights into her motives adds that “her motivation to order the flag lowered was purely political.”

Republican County Executive Brooks Patterson in suburban Detroit at first refused to follow the governor’s order that the flag be lowered. His spokesman said Mr. Patterson believed lowering the flag “would be a constant reminder of the high cost of war, and would undermine the war on terror.” According to the report in the Journal, “he didn’t want the governor using this as a political thing, holding a tearjerker news conference every time a soldier was killed.”

Unbelievable. Simply unbelievable.

And now take a look at an excerpt from the same article about flag desecration:

Two hundred eighty six members of the U.S. House of Representatives and 67 U.S. senators would have loudly applauded the decision by the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeals.

In 1999 Ng Kung-Siu and Lee King-Yung, regular protestors at pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, were convicted of flag desecration. Their offense consisted of marching in demonstrations bearing torn Chinese flags on which were inscribed the words “shame." When Hong Kong was a democracy (like the United States was before George Bush became president), it had no law against flag desecration because its former rulers did not think that important. When Hong Kong became part of China, however, it became subject to the laws of China and flag desecration was considered a crime.

Well, well, well. Look who we're emulating. If we criminalize flag burning we'll just have one more thing in common with China. Why not? They practically own us financially anyway.