[Wormwood]

To be fair, you have maintained a level of civility fairly rare for liberals who post here. Most of our ideological opponents who make their way to this forum are rude and disruptive---a fact which has rendered many of us a little quick to assume the offensive.

That said, wouldn't you agree that objecting to flags being raised in classrooms is *just* as polarizing and divisive as putting them up in the first place?

[bmauer]

The question you ask -- is objecting to flags in the classroom as polarizing as proposing flags in the classroom? -- not at first, no. Because there haven't been flags in the classroom for forty years, and no one complained about the lack of flags, objecting was not polarizing but merely "conservative" in the sense that it sought to maintain the environment that everyone had come to expect.

Now that the flag is such a hot issue, anything one says about flags can be seen as doing something "polarizing." I happen to believe that ROCK wanted things to be this way. They picked the most divisive thing to do they could think of. Even pro-war protests didn't get people this polarized. I know you can't believe the flag is so divisive, and in fact by itself it isn't. But the specific proposal -- a flag in every classroom -- along with the implied threat of being tarred as "anti-patriotic" if you don't go along, really lays down the gauntlet for people with fears about McCarthyism, etc.

I think there were many other options for ROCK if they didn't want to be divisive. They could have proposed to put flags in common areas of campus (large meeting rooms, public gathering places in the student union or in front of the library, etc) and they could have offered to co-sponsor some kind of legislation with other groups. Their steadfast insistence on the classrooms as their targets, however, indicated to many people that they were seeking to make a wedge in the school in order to isolate "liberals" and anyone critical of U.S. policy as "traitors," which sets an extremely dangerous precedent.

So what to do now? I fear that both sides are prepared for a "scorched earth policy" in which they are prepared to sacrifice the reputations and jobs of those on the other side in order to "win." I don't like this situation at all. Furthermore, I don't like to sound like I'm on a playground, but "they started it!"

Can we please have our school back now?

Barry

p.s. thanks for the praise about my tone. I am sincerely sincere.