Lowering our standards with a tired old flag

The Age (Melbourne) ^ | 27th December 2005 | Peter Maddock

[naturalman1975]

Australian Flag at Australian Embassy Bombing, September 9 2004

Our flag bears the stars that shine at night
In our southern sky of blue
And there's a little old flag in the corner
That is part of our heritage too,
It's the English, the Scots and the Irish
Who were sent to the end of the earth
The rogues and the schemers, the doers and dreamers
Who gave modern Australia birth.

And you who are shouting to change it
You don't seem to understand
It's the flag of our laws and language
Not the flag of some far away land
Though, there's plenty who'll tell if you ask them
How when Europe was plunged into night
How that little old flag in the corner
Was a symbol of freedom and light.

It doesn't mean we owe our allegiance
To some forgotten imperial dream
We've got the stars to show where we're going
And the old flag to show where we've been

It's only an old piece of bunting
It's only an old coloured rag
But there's thousands who died for its honour
And fell in defence of our flag.

[toddlintown]

Leave your flag alone.

[Ninian Dryhope]

Too bad Australia has the same sort of liberal, foolish, leftist professors as we have. Maddock is an idiot.

[fallujah-nuker]

Keep your flag, loose the Moslems instead.

[magslinger]

Keep the flag! It has something the US flag sadly lacks, crosses.

[Dont Mention the War]

Has there been a national flag redesign in modern history that hasn't turned out to be a disaster? Look at South Africa's:

They say it represents the two races coming together and moving forward in harmony.

I say "When's Amtrak getting their royalty check?"

[abercrombie_guy_38]

Sounds like my kind of Australia.

I've been there before and love the country. How dare Maddock bring up such an assinine suggestion. A different design on the flag will do very little to create the kind of liberal utopia he wants. If thinks Muslim bashing is bad, he hasn't seen anything yet.

[Cicero]

This guy ought to leave Australia and go somewhere else that suits him better.

[Sterm26]

Better the Union Jack than the Crescent.

[Joe 6-pack]

"My patriotism is coloured green and gold..."

It's for sale??

[Frank_2001]

LMAO!:)

[inquest]

Oh yeah, that's exactly what Australia needs - some New Age, multi-culti, PC, "We Are The World", kumbaya symbol on its flag. I'm sure that'll bring peace to the country...

[fallujah-nuker]

Amen!

[Gritty]

Maybe a Union Jack with a superimposed star and crescent would please the author's taste a bit more, assuaging his horror at Neanderthal white Australian racists who reject having their heretofore peaceful society bullied by "youths" in a multicultural death trap?

[antaresequity]

There is always an ulterior motive about these things...its an attempt to get a culture or society to redefine itself and these movements typically have initiators and advocates that are dissatisfied with current 'state' and have had little success in changing that state 'normally'.

The advocates are big on symbolic victory if they cannot achieve a real victory, or cannot seem to convince the status quo that their message is 'more' valid.

The efforts to remove the stars and bars from southern flags is perfect example...

Its all about symbolic and incremental change...these people are a corrosive on the fabric which binds a people.

I have no use for these people and their none sense.

Be weary Australia...

[VanDeKoik]

Total foolishness. The Aussie flag is as close to perfect as any flag on this planet can be. In color, placement, and symbolism, it has few flags that can approach it.

A number of US state flags can use the hand of the person that designed it.

[Moose4]

Leave the Southern Cross alone. The last time we had a flag redesign here in the United States, the legislature in Georgia decided to sneakily change the state flag to remove the old Confederate St. Andrews Cross...and wound up creating the most hideous design ever seen, one often called "King Roy's Placemat" (after Roy Barnes, the governor), and one that lasted less than two years before being replaced by another, better design.

I love the Aussie flag. The problem, this pinhead professor needs to realize, isn't the Australians...it's the Lebanese Muslims that refuse to BECOME Australians.

}:-)4

[oldleft]

[FierceKulak]

FOR me, the nightmarish recent events in Cronulla have condensed into a recurring hallucination of red, white and blue. The national flag blurs across heads, biceps, marching standards and car bumpers, then suddenly morphs into red and black flashbacks of the Nuremberg rallies.

This guy has PTSD over something that he never experienced, so everything he has to say is suspect to me.