Marching and Advocacy Orders

   As I write this commentary, I’m sitting where I can easily see an American flag flying on private property. It’s waving in the stiff breeze coming off one of Wisconsin’s beautiful lakes. I’m not far from Madison or Milwaukee right now geographically, but it feels as though I’m a million miles removed from what has been taking place in these two cities and other Wisconsin cities over the last couple of days.

   Looking at the flag and pondering the mayhem, the senseless destruction of property and the hurting of people, I am conflicted. The flag stands for everything I want to believe about this country…the blood shed by the early colonists to acquire our independence, the growth from 13 original colonies to the unity of fifty individual states forming one nation under God.  Even amidst all that is happening in our communities, state and nation, seeing the flag waving today is heartening, maybe something akin to what Francis Scott Key felt on that September day in 1814.

   No, we aren’t fighting a physical war with a foreign enemy as we were when Key wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner” during the War of 1812, when we were back at it with England as our principle foe. But in a very real way, we are fighting for our lives as we deal with the coronavirus and the actions of all levels of government and now as we sort through the aftermath of the tragedy of the de ...

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