The American flag

[Jeff Dalton <jeff@aiai.edinburgh.ac.uk>]

People in many other countries find the American attitude to the flag
bizarre.  For example, in the UK wearing the Union Jack is fairly
common, and usually done by the Right.  In the US, the Right seems to
regrard such things as disrespectful.  And all fuss about flag burning
and constitutional ammendments looks worse than silly.  It makes it
easier to discredit the American system (written constitution, balance
of powers, freedom of information act, etc) for anyone who wants to
argue that, for example, there's really greater freedom in the UK and
so (implicitly) such reforms as a written constitution and bill of
rights are unnecessary.

-- JD