People do have right to burn flag but should not to respect that liberty

Dear Editor:

This letter is in response to the “Point/Counterpoint” in Wednesday’s Stater, particularly Miss Roof’s column. Okay, you don’t get it. You SERIOUSLY don’t get it. It is practically laughable. Your entire thought process is completely contradicting! So what, people are buying things in red, white and blue? They have every right — much like the right you are so eager to defend. God forbid I might actually be proud and LOVE this country! You, however, HATE it. I wish you would get out. Move. Please. I will help you pack. You might want to consider a nice communist place — free of “capitalistic greed.” China maybe?

But seriously, I want you to understand something. I am a D.A.R. (Daughter of the American Revolution). My family, my blood, fought to give you every freedom you trample on over and over again. My grandfather (on my father’s side) passed away a couple of years ago and was buried in the National Veterans Cemetery in Medina. He was a World War II decorated hero. A HERO. He was given a 21-gun salute from other World War II veterans. Also heroes. Heroes who wept at my grandfather’s grave and trembled as they handed the folded American flag to my grandmother. When my sister sang the national anthem, she began to weep. Unable to finish, my wheelchair-bound grandmother picked up where she left off (followed by everyone attending the service.) Everyone cried. My grandmother held the flag as she sang. That flag is now displayed in our family room. It didn’t matter that most of the people at the service had never actually met my grandfather. We cried together, tears of great honor and pride. We, unlike you, understood what the fight was for.

I called my grandfather Jaja, Polish for grandpa. You see, my mother’s family arrived here during the 17th century. My father’s family, Jaja, came to this great nation around 1906. Leaving Poland and Croatia, my family sought freedom and opportunity. It is odd you were so disgusted by the idea of using Chief Wahoo as the Indians’ mascot (I happen to agree), but flag burning is your right. Why is it so hard for you to understand that by desecrating the flag you are SPITTING in MY family’s face? I see the flag and cry. I thank God for the life I have been given. I thank my family for everything they have done to help give me this life.

Thank you to Mr. Cox. I think you are dead-on. Yes, you have the right to burn the flag. But one should RESPECT that very right by NOT doing so! Miss Roof, what you seem to misunderstand about this country is your place in it. You are free. You are privileged. Maybe you should stop and think about why that is. This may have been explained best by an Iraqi woman my mother talked to while on a train from Chicago: “Those who suffered under Iraq oppression do not understand freedom any more than Americans can understand not being free.”

I hope you, maybe now, might get it.

Libby Smas

Junior psychology major

Flags don’t matter; ideals behind them do

Dear Editor:

Flag burning is of course a sensitive topic; it always has been. However, people need to realize, the flag is merely a piece of cloth. It is not the flag that is important, it is the ideals that the flag represents that matter. The ideals of free speech, free religion, free expression … freedom in general. That is what matters, not a piece of cloth. To ban flag desecration would do far more harm to that flag and what it represents than burning it ever could.

Matthew Finamore

Freshman political science major