{"id":114,"date":"2011-04-01T16:31:51","date_gmt":"2011-04-01T22:31:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jchap.com\/blog\/?p=114"},"modified":"2017-01-16T13:30:51","modified_gmt":"2017-01-16T19:30:51","slug":"citizenship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jchappell.com\/blog\/citizenship\/","title":{"rendered":"Citizenship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I stopped at the post office this morning to pick up mail. When I got out of the car, I noticed that the lanyard on the flagpole had apparently slipped and the US flag was on the ground. As I approached, at least six people looked at it and walked on by. When I got to it, I picked it up and hung it on the hook, went inside and told a postal employee about it. They immediately got somebody out to re-raise the flag.<\/p>\n<p>The people who just walked past the flag on the ground really got to me. My thoughts turned from them to the people I&#8217;ve seen toss empty cups, hamburger wrappers, and other trash out the window of their car. Then I thought about the people I&#8217;ve seen kick trash on a sidewalk instead of picking it up and putting it in a trash container two or three feet away. Then I thought about, well, I&#8217;ll just say my mind didn&#8217;t run short of more examples along the same lines.<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, though, my thoughts turned to the founding fathers. I&#8217;ve often thought they must be turning over in their graves with what&#8217;s become of the government. But, this time, I thought they must be turning over in their graves with what&#8217;s become of the citizens they created this country for.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The flag should never touch anything beneath it, such as the ground, the floor, water, or merchandise.&#8221; \u2013 United States Code Title 4 Chapter 1 (<a title=\"United States Flag Code\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ushistory.org\/betsy\/flagcode.htm\">The Flag Code<\/a>), \u00a78.b.<\/p>\n<p>Article about the <a href=\"http:\/\/ammo.com\/articles\/betsy-ross-flag-5-things-you-didnt-know-about-this-american-icon\">Betsy Ross Flag<\/a>. I haven&#8217;t personally\u00a0verified the information, but you might find it interesting. I found it interesting to ponder the possibility that it might&#8217;ve been six-point stars rather than five-point, inasmuch as six-point stars now seem to be viewed by many people as a jewish symbol.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I stopped at the post office this morning to pick up mail. When I got out of the car, I noticed that the lanyard on the flagpole had apparently slipped and the US flag was on the ground. As I &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/jchappell.com\/blog\/citizenship\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jchappell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jchappell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jchappell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jchappell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jchappell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/jchappell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":230,"href":"https:\/\/jchappell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114\/revisions\/230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jchappell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jchappell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jchappell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}