Work is such a fine place to interact with folks you don't have much in common with, and, because of that, see different ways of looking at some things. So here goes....
With all of the heated rhetoric in the news lately about "respecting the flag", a co-worker of mine wore a shirt to work emblazoned with the slogan, "If you stomp on my flag, I will stomp your ass.". He was informed that the shirt was not appropriate and asked to either change it or wear it inside out. He did turn it inside out, but grumbled the rest of the day about his freedom of speech rights. Our company, as well as our client company, have pretty clear guidelines about what constitutes inappropriate outerwear....this one falls under "provocative clothing". I am not going to go down the rabbit hole of the First Amendment and the freedom of speech, at least not at this time. What piqued my interest was the line on the shirt. I should explain that I would consider myself as patriotic as the next guy, but I cannot truly understand why a person would threaten another person's well-being for the actions described. I was chatting with another co-worker about it and told him that and he seemed to think that I do not love my country as I should. I told him, in return, that the flag is a symbol, a large piece of cloth emblazoned with a design that we have agreed upon to fly in places of importance. It is not my country....it is not me or my family or loved ones.....it is not a person at all. He said that it represents us and our freedom....I told him that, if he were to stomp a mudhole in someone over disrespecting the flag that he would be not just breaking the law (assault), but he would be violating the freedom (of the other guy) that he claims to treasure. We ended the discussion amicably and said we'd just have to agree to disagree, still.....
Just wondering about y'all's take on it.
