Attitude is Everything

For the past three years, I've been rather uncomfortable with all the flag waving. We all know when this started: when, as they say, we were all Americans. Somewhere along the lines, our flag got hijacked. "Patriot" became an acronym for Provide Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (catchier than HR 3162, isn't it?). The flag has become a rallying banner for the War on Terror. It's on the lapels of our pandering politicians and draping the caskets of our dead. It's presented, neatly folded, to widows who are far too young. The one place it isn't lately is anywhere happy. I've come to miss the Fourth of July parades I went to as a child, when the F-15 flyovers were ceremonial, and we stood as the flag passed, in respect to the country and the principles of hope on which the country stood. That was back when I could look at the flag and think of America, not just the government.

Tonight, I saw something that brought those old feelings back. In three years, I'd almost forgotten what it was like to see someone waving the flag for a reason other than supporting the current administration/policies/military actions. Then I watched the first half of "Black Sky," the Discovery Channel documentary of Scaled Composite's flights that won them the Ansari X-Prize. As Space Ship One was towed back to the hangar after the winning flight, pilot Brian Binnie stood on top of the spaceship waving the American flag. In a change from what I've seen out of a lot of people lately, he was waving that flag because an American group had accomplished something to the benefit of all mankind that had nothing to do with "making the world safer." Here's the irony: the fundamental accomplishment of winning the Ansari X-Prize was breaking governments' monopoly on space travel.