Recently I received a spam email from an Evangelical Republican friend attacking Barack Obama for not wearing a flag lapel pin. Here is my response to him. Please pass it on!
Since you have decided to discuss politics with me and send emails to tell me whom I should vote for, here's my answer:
Thanks for the email that Barack Obama is "disrespecting the flag" for not wearing a lapel pin and thanks for telling me how upset this makes you. NOW let me tell YOU what upsets ME!
Not too far in our past, a group of self-righteous rednecks decided to overthrow the government of the United States because they disagreed with the premise that ALL Americans should be free.They were almost successful in this endeavor, coming closer to destroying us (and causing more American deaths) than any other enemy in our history including Hitler and Osama Bin Laden. There is a word for what they did: It is called TREASON.
If these enemy combatants had succeeded (and they almost did), the flag that I pledge allegiance to would not be flying today, yet the descendents of these traitors feel that it is their "heritage" and right to display the Confederate Battle flag on the same pole as Old Glory.
THAT to me is disrespecting the flag. I am just as insulted by this gesture as I would be if you hoisted up a Nazi Swastika or the flag of Al Qaeda to fly under the Stars and Stripes. The idea of not wearing a lapel pin doesn't even come close to this insult.
And while we're talking about the Pledge of Allegiance: Every election season I get 50 blind copy emails decrying some unseen Liberal trying to remove the words "-under God" from that verse!
They tell me that to keep this horrible fate from happening, I need to rush right out and vote for every Republican candidate from president to the local dog-catcher!
In your party's overzealous attempts to defend GOD, you have lost sight of the more important provision of the pledge, which reads: "indivisible, with liberty and justice for all".
It occurs to me that the last 7 years have left the country more divided than ever before in my lifetime. I should also point out that the Patriot Act with its warrantless wiretapping and Alberto Gonzales' Justice Department has negated the rest of that concept as well.
Speaking of God, what gives your party the audacity to claim the Almighty as YOUR ally? As a friend of mine once said "-GOD is not spelled "GOP"!
Your "right to life" philosophy decries a first-term pregnancy termination as "murder" (even if the mother's life is at risk). Apparently the "right to life" ends at BIRTH however, because you have no problem with underprivileged newborn and small children STARVING to death or dying of some common childhood illness! You can't fathom the idea of giving food or health care to some poor minority parent who may not meet your employment expectations! It's FAR more important to give another tax cut to Exxon than to feed some lazy (you use the "N" word)'s kids!
You demand a constitutional amendment to mandate that two people who love each other enough to get married don't have the same genitalia. You insist that this must be done to preserve the sanctity of marriage. Yet you don't suggest banning divorce or constitutionally outlawing infidelity, even though these destroy almost half of all marriages nationwide!
The hypocrisy doesn't end there! You start preemptive wars using the logic that we need to "Kill them before they kill us!" Again, speaking of God, If Jesus Christ had taken that attitude at Calvary, we would live in a very different world today!
You lock up suspected "terrorists" for years with no access to legal services, You strip them naked, beat the crap out of them and hold their head under water to get them to say what you want to hear. You say "It's not torture and we HAVE to do it!"
It sounds great in a Fox News sound bite, but if we tried that philosophy here at home you might end up with some small town cop pushing your head into a toilet because you were seen walking by a bank robbery on your way to the Bible book store!
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