SOUNDING OFF:

Flying the flag upside down is recognized as an international distress signal and is even mentioned in the flag code. Marie Kolasinski is certainly correct that America is in distress and that more people need to wake up to it.

Unemployment is skyrocketing; inflation is running at 12%; the federal government is $10 trillion in debt with more than $48 trillion in unfunded liabilities; the IRS stole nearly $3 trillion from American taxpayers last year; the Fed has expanded the money supply by $3 trillion in the last two months, which means roaring inflation next year; the U.S. dollar is crashing; we are bogged down in at least two wars, with a third and a fourth on the drawing boards, which our money and our sons are paying for; 4,000 troops were killed in Iraq alone while our government is responsible for killing more than 1 million Iraqi civilians; Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and virtually everybody else in the Cabinet is guilty of genuine war crimes and should be “Nuremberg’d”; Bush is building a police state at home with warrantless surveillance and expanded police powers through unconstitutional legislation such as the PATRIOT Act; a motorist can have his car impounded at a DUI checkpoint for not having a driver’s license; Costa Mesa citizens can be fined for not watering their lawns.

And some people think everything is hunky dory.

The misguided veteran who kept stealing the Piecemakers’ flags shows the power of government propaganda — that poor fool thought it was moral for him to steal the flag because it “offended” him.

Warped thinking runs rife in this land.

Pilot reporters and readers need to study the documents that created this nation — the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Those documents are the true “America,” not the government, not the flag, not George Bush and his wars, not the military, but the philosophy of individual freedom and limited government as spelled out in those documents.

As for God’s law outranking man’s law, it is government which has put itself above God. God says, “thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not kill,” etc, with no exceptions. But government claims a right to steal and kill every day!

Anyone in Costa Mesa who truly loves liberty should give thanks for Kolasinski and the Piecemakers who follow God’s laws over government’s laws.

We should stand with Kolasinski and demand government perform its constitutional function as our servant. Anything else is tyranny.

DON HULL lives in Costa Mesa.