No,you can't!

No,you can't! Back when I was a Boy Scout, the went quickly upFingerprint Time Attendance the pole in the morning and came down slowly at sunset. There was none of this letting it sit out there in the dead of night in the rain and snow. At our home, the flag came out, as something special, on Memorial Day, Flag Day, July 4, Veterans Day and other important holidays. It wasn't plastered to the front of our house day and night, year in and year out. The few places where the flag should be out all the time include memorials to those who died in our wars (and then only if there is a spotlight on the flag through the night hours) and military graves.

We also didn't wear the flag. Now the British, they don't care. The Union Jack appears on shopping bags and T-shirts. Soccer fans paint it on their faces when they go out to beat up soccer fans from other countries. We're moving in that direction. People have T-shirts with the flag on it and jackets that look like flags. Olympic athletes run around with the flag draped across their shoulders, like shawls. Politicians are a bit more discrete; they wear lapel pins with the flag on it just in case we don't know they're presidents, vice presidents, senators, congressmen or what not.

The only people who should be wearing the flag on their clothing are military troops serving overseas; there it serves the original purpose of the flag. It helps tell the good guys from the bad guys.

The used to be something special. When I was a color guard in high school (I did live an all-American boyhood), people saluted as it went by. They also took off their hats as it passed by. They stood up.

Some of our political leaders are going to spend hours of talk show time, legislative staff time, voting time and vocal energy to promote a constitutional amendment to ban desecration of the U.S. flag. If it gets past the U.S. Congress, it will then go on to each of our state legislatures where, again, hours of debate will go on about freedom of speech and the importance of holding the flag sacred above all other symbols of our country.

But if we're going to make this a priority, let's get serious. Let's not just focus on flag burning, which hardly ever happens. Let's look at all the other ways, big and small, that we desecrate the .