In my quest to understand the world and therefore have the ability to blog intelligently, I was advised by wmm4786 to go to Europe. Before I continue, let me reference the original blog. It was titled "St. Louis, Missouri, Edward Jones Dome, August 16." and was written a few days ago. In his blog wmm asserted his superiority to the masses by saying that anyone who stands for the national anthem is a mindless lemming, unable to think for himself, an idea I wholly reject. Standing for the national anthem, ANY national anthem, is done out of respect. This concept seems to elude wmm so he just blogs in his typical "I hate everything, I'll never conform, you're all idiots!" style.

The following paragraphs are directed more towards wmm's response to my comments and not so much towards the body of his original blog.

I have been to Europe. I lived there for a while and I must say, its not all butterfly kisses and puppy dog tails like you make it out to be, wmm. They have freedoms, sure, but they're not absolute. Freedom of assembly? Sure, as long as you schedule it and have a permit from the government. But I'm not here to talk about different liberties. I'm addressing the concept of national pride and respect, two concepts that are completely foreign to you.

You don't stand for the national anthem because, in you own words, "it's a fucking song (about, you guessed it, a fucking war)." Its intereresting to me how somebody supposedly as intelligent as yourself can get nothing more out of it than "it's about a fucking war".

You don't salute the flag because it's a piece of cloth. No, a blanket is a piece of cloth. A flag is a symbol of a nation and if you think other people around the world don't take pride in their own flag then you are sorely mistaken, truely living with your head in the sand. Taking pride in one's flag, or one's country, doesn't make one a lemming. Again, its about pride and respect. Learn something about them, you may actually benefit. You know, expand your horizon by looking at something from a viewpoint other than your own.

Nobody said we can't learn from other countries. We can and we do, just like they learn from us.

 "We feel that if we're American, and we bolt tires onto cars in an assembly line, that we're somehow special and deserving of a life of luxury." That's an interesting statement from sombody who touts the idea of wealth distribution. Shame on people who make money while there are so many others who go without. People in Europe, at least those in the European Union for sure, expect a certain quality of life or "life of luxury" because the government will provide it for them, at the expense of the taxpayers. The only way that system can survive is if they import workers from other, less developed countries to maintain the incredibly high tax revenue. In addition, usually, when a new country is added to the EU it costs the taxpayers more because of how it affects the value of the Euro. But hey, that's a different topic for a different discussion, and off the point of why respecting the flag is not a bad thing.

You're right, globalization is a reality, for better or worse (mostly worse in my opinion). And, in a lot of ways, the USA is being sold to the highest bidder. I agree that that doesn't bode well for our future but it has little to do with respecting the flag, ANY flag.

Now, I'm not a writer or an expert in literature so if I made some mistakes in my grammar or sentence structure, please forgive me.