Symbol and sensibility

Is there validation sweeter than being on the receiving end of a corporate charm offensive? Their ploys are usually more creative than convincing. 

My car insurance company, for instance, sent me an AI-generated birthday card reminding me that I am part of their family and that they appreciate my uniqueness. It was full of personalized tabulations of trivia about my life's journey so far.

The heartfelt compilation included how often I've blinked (dust, tears), the number of hours I've slept (not counting tossing and turning), the quantity of minutes I've been alive (with or without purpose), how many breaths I've drawn (taking into account hyperventilation while fleeing authority), and how many gallons of milk I've consumed (dairy, almond for the lactose-intolerant, breast). 

It sounded nuanced but was tailor-made for suckers.

Their industrial psychological consultants probably told them that customers will assume that because the company showered them with so many details about their body functions, the company, being sincerely mindful of their individuality, did detailed research about their customers' additional insurance needs as well. In fact, a day after I got my birthday card, I received a tantalizing offer to buy additional products and "bundle" them into a new, umbrella insurance policy.

When it comes to slick enticements to customer loyalty, corporations pull no punches. But loyalty to employees often leaves corporations cold and unmoved.

The Park Lane Hotel, owned by the Qatar Investment Authority and located squarely in Billionaires Row, recently fired its entire front of house staff. They did so a few days after the workers had petitioned the National Labor Relations Board to unionize with Restaurant Workers United. 

Anyone believing the timing was coincidental would make the same claim about the cause of death instantly subsequent to being thrown off a skyscraper being actually attributable to a neglected ear infection.

The hotel is owned by the Qatar Investment Authority, a "sovereign wealth fund directly controlled by the Qatari government. It was purchased in 2023 for $623 million. Sounds like the owners found a good deal, but the idea of basic fairness to their workers seems to have been lost on them. 

What among the workers' demands was a bridge too far? Their ballsy request for a 15-minute break during their duty tour? Was that the fatal sticking point, or was it their quest for equitable tipping opportunities?

The freedom to fire people, incidental of cause, is these days considered indicative of national progress towards restoration of old cherished traditional values. 

Attorney General Pam Bondi recently sacked a paralegal for throwing a sandwich at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. That's no baloney. And she also axed a Department of Justice worker for salacious hand movements towards a National Guardsman.

When visualizing the context of such occurrences, most people are unshakably guided by their partialities. Shattering someone's livelihood, especially when it may have the effect of blacklisting them from similar employment in the future, seems excessive for an intemperate toss of a peanut butter and jelly hoagie. It was purportedly a symbolic act of protest against the autocracy of the state, but should that mitigate the penalty?

Was the termination censure or censorship?

If an academically failing student threw a sandwich at his teacher for his enforcement of the school principal's grading policy, the action would also have shown poor judgment and been misplaced, but the direst consequence he would have faced would have been to receive an honorary appointment of eraser monitor for the dean.

But Pam Bondi's severe decree was harsh, unforgiving and non-proportional, yet justified because of the larger issues at stake. 

Securing civil amity at the price of freedom is a very delicate proposition, and non-compliance with authority may sometimes be a moral imperative, but the physical behavior of the disciplined employees didn't rise to the standard of permissible free speech. Is that ethical, though, given there are times when far greater harm will likely ensue from simple speech, yet nothing is done to quash it, such as when members of Congress stop barely short of advocating the doxxing of their colleagues "across the aisle" or even on the U.S. Supreme Court?

Who manufacturers the badass brakes that work on the slippery slopes of respect for law and defended speech? Should there be a distinction between violations of people and infringements of symbols, such as national flags?

In order to "restore pride and sanctity," President Donald Trump's recent executive order calls for one year's imprisonment, with no possibility of early release, for burning the American flag. Allegations will be investigated by the DOJ, now that they're done surveilling suspected domestic terrorists among parents at school board meetings.

Rarely are Passion and Rationality so mismatched as over flag burning. The flag is mere fabric and not sacred, and the people who deify it are the true flame-throwers, say some of the torch bearers. But they know perfectly well that the meanings of flags may be literal, but their significance is metaphorical. 

Ironically, a flag burner ousted by Pam Bondi was a decorated 20-year veteran of two theaters of war.

In the Star-Spangled Banner, "the flag was still there," and among the most iconic and poignant historical images is of our flag being hoisted on Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II. Most people of other nations have imbued their country's flag with evocative spiritual power also, for better or worse.

Flag reverence can't be dismissed as childish. The "cloth" casts a hypnotic spell, as does the paper of scriptures and holy books. In the semantical sense, cloth and paper are not sacred, yet they can be "desecrated." A grasp of their holiness engulfs and commandeers psyches and sometimes confounds the hearts of even the freest of people.

By a 5-4 majority,  the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that flag burning is protected speech under the First Amendment, and that states cannot impose an outright ban. Dissenting former Chief Justice William Rehnquist drew a distinction (without a difference?) between the nation's symbol and the message content itself. An arch conservative and "originalist" Justice Antonin Scalia sided with the majority, as did libertarians. 

Do our laws about flag burning say anything about our maturity and evolution as a nation? Are other countries more or less repressive or nonchalant?

They vary from the act being legal to its being punishable by ten years' imprisonment. Sometimes, fines and community service suffice. Generally, the degree of leniency correlates with officially practiced tolerance in other areas.

There's one country where it's legal to burn their own flag, but not that of other lands. Now that's etiquette befitting a congratulatory greeting card from the United Nations.