I recently purchased a Ukrainian flag to hang in front of my home. Not because I have ancestry or any other ties to Ukraine. I fly it in support of a people fighting for their country and their right to choose who will lead them.
Ukraine is a democracy. Vladimir Putin wants to impose his autocratic leadership on Ukraine. The Ukrainians are fighting back fiercely to retain their sovereignty and frustrate Putin’s ambitions. We should support them any way we can. Flying the Ukrainian flag is a small gesture of support for a people under assault by a murderous dictator.
I also recently purchased an American flag to hang outside my home. After watching video clips of the assault on our democracy on January 6, 2021, repeatedly, I decided I needed to make a statement in support of the democracy that the mob incited by Donald Trump attacked on that black day. Members of that mob carried Confederate flags, Trump flags, black and blue flags — even “Jesus Saves” signs. It struck me that true patriots of the United States of America, as the rioters incorrectly considered themselves, would fly only one flag: the Stars and Stripes.
The Confederate flag represents a rebellion that attempted to split our country to allow the stain of slavery to continue. No true American patriot would fly that flag.
The black and blue flag represents support for law enforcement and some of the rioters carried that flag, even as they beat the policemen fighting to protect the Capitol with poles, sticks, even fire extinguishers. Somehow that seems inconsistent. I support law enforcement, but don’t believe in flying a flag that is a distortion of the Stars and Stripes and then beating the people you claim to support with that black and blue flag.
Many flew a blue flag with the name “Trump” emblazoned on it. Trump is certainly who the rioters represented. They did not represent the Constitution of the United States, and their actions certainly did not demonstrate either an understanding of the Constitution nor support for it. Nowhere in the Constitution does it establish violence as a means of “legitimate political discourse,” as the leadership of the Republican party so recently described the riot of January 6. How ridiculous!
Also ridiculous is the support for Putin expressed by leaders in the United States. Tucker Carlson defended Putin’s build-up of troops along the Ukrainian border as a legitimate defense of his border. From what? The Ukrainians? They had no army massed on the Russian border.
Trump called Putin “savvy” and “smart.” How is relentlessly bombing innocent women and children savvy or smart? It is inhumane and puts Putin right up there in the pantheon of evil dictators like Hitler and Stalin, who killed anyone who stood in the way of their power.
Putin is an evil dictator who cares nothing about the people of Ukraine, nor the people of Russia, for that matter. The Russians have suffered under Putin’s autocratic leadership for 23 years. Sending Russian men to die in a misguided attempt to reconstitute the Soviet Union is just another of Putin’s crimes against his own people.
Far more worthy of admiration is Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the courageous president of Ukraine. He declined a ride out of Ukraine but has stayed to lead his people in their fight for freedom and self-determination. They are fighting for democracy and against fascism.
I fly their flag and ours to show my support for the principles that America has stood for ever since its founding.
David Op’t Hof
David Op’t Hof, Lehi, is a retired educator, writer and philosopher.
