This is absolutely true, as far as it goes—the silliest example is the preference liberals often express for concealed weapons-carry over open carry; if they can't see it (shudder) they don't have to think about it—but in the symbolism-over-substance department it's damned hard to beat anybody anywhere to the right of Hubert Horatio Humphrey (look him up—he was my generation's live-action equivalent of Porky Pig—except I think he wore trousers with his sportscoat and bow- tie) for sheer, hysterical foaming-at-the-mouth fury when the subject happens to be something like burning the American flag.

"That's the symbol of American liberty, boy!" they gibber. "Thousands of American heroes made the ultimate sacrifice to preserve your freedom to disrespect that flag!"

Well, not exactly. If that's not just empty bloviation, Nowhere Man, then answer me a question or three. Exactly which American's freedom was in danger when the claim was made—by William Randolph Hearst, the only American newspaper publisher more unscrupulous than Joseph Pulizter, that it was Spanish operatives who blew up the battleship U.S.S. Maine in Havana Harbor in 1898, igniting the Spanish-American War.