Deference suggests more than respect. It is the respect given to someone who is your superior. In the United States, the people do not defer to public servants or the military even though we should show all due respect.
We are a government of the people, for the people and by the people. If you disagree, by all means, defer to your heart’s content.
Again, I should ask, since you were yourself a public school teacher, don’t you think your students and their parents should have shown respect toward your work and your position in the community, and should they have deferred toward your expertise in areas you were better trained in?
I realize you may not want to answer a question addressed toward your self-interest, so feel free to answer in the general.
I notice in the news today that some people have also confused patriotism with Nazism - they burned a bunch of American flags decorating veterans’ graves in Washington and replaced some with sheets of paper depicting a swastika.
Now, I wouldn’t dream that anyone on these boards would do anything so stupid. I will say, though, that if you don’t teach your kids an appropriate American expression of patriotism, they might confuse it with other, less innocent kinds, and pull boneheaded stunts like this.
I don’t want to make more of the incident than what it was - probably a bunch of kids doing something stupid. I do hope, though, that my kids, when they reach that age, will know why that kind of behavior is wrong, and choose not to do it.
That’s exactly why I don’t pledge the flag or feel patriotic about any particular country.
I saw a piece on a religious show where they were extolling God’s goodness in appointing such a devout man as George Bush as our president. :eek: 