A store owner put up the Confederate Battle Flag, the Nazi flag, the flag of the former Soviet Union, the flag of North Korea, and the flag of ISIS. On the other side of the store, he put up a New England Patriots flag, a New York Yankees flag, a Detroit Red Wings flag, a Los Angeles Lakers flag, and flags from the Universities of Notre Dame, Georgia, Southern California, Alabama, Michigan, Penn State, Harvard, and Yale.
A customer walked in, noticed all the flags, and asked a basic question. “Why do you have all these offensive flags inside?”
The owner, smiling, looked the customer square in the eye and gave this answer:
“These flags all offend someone, somewhere. The Confederate Battle Flag offends northerners, black folks, and many other minorities. The Nazi flag offends Jewish folks. The Soviet flag offends conservatives and a lot of other folks. North Korea’s offends Korean War veterans, and ISIS offends most Americans with a lick of common sense. The sports flags offend anyone who doesn’t love the teams, and especially anyone who loves the rivals of those teams. I never let them be seen from outside the store, because I don’t used them to advertise.”
The customer, now not only mildly offended but slightly perplexed, pushed the issue. “But why have them if they offend people?”
The owner pointed outside to a flagpole featuring the United States flag fluttering in the breeze, and responded. “This store is only open in the evenings, and it has no windows, so these flags will never have their day in the sun, which means they are in their rightful place. The flag out there, the Stars and Stripes, is up from sunrise til sundown, because that flag is the ONLY one which should EVER fly that high and see the light of day.”
John E Guzzardo - Writer, Author, Blogger 