Freedom of Speech and the Patriotic Biting of Tongue

Yesterday, I spent some time pushing daisies. Admittedly, my original intention was a photo op. I heard from a friend about a woman who did this once in an era before my birth. I believe she did it in protest of the Vietnam War. I couldn't find the picture online. I hadn't planned to reiterate her protest. I honestly believed it was a little tacky to park tanks in a cemetary and decided they needed their own flowers. I just didn't realize that the flowers should have been 'mums.

The chrysanthemum, the flower of my own birth month, is the traditional flower to stand sentinel over the graves of our fallen. It is a fitting flower. The voices of the dead are hushed in their graves - "mums the word" and all that jazz. But, as the commentary and backlash of yesterdays photo op turned political, I grieved over the loss of speech that came when the Twin Towers fell (perhaps sooner).

The men and women protesting the Vietnam war or the draft (or both) went so far in voicing their own opinions that they disrespected and made miserable the lives of those who were called upon by our nation to fight a war they may or may not have understood themselves. Their treatment was disgraceful and should never have happened. But, since it did, American citizens who disagree with the current war - no matter how respectfully - have been labeled "unpatriotic" for voicing their dissent.

The week of Cinco de Mayo, a photo floated around the Internet of some high school students flying the American flag upside down underneath the Mexican one. Sometimes it seems we allow everyone their freedom to speek but our own and each others. I wonder what it is we are afraid of and where all these decisions, made in fear, our leading this Nation.