Beautiful essay. Thank you for posting it, Mr. Don-O.
I remember when Abbie Hoffman wrote the F-word on his forehead and wore an American flag shirt. Both gestures were considered disrespectful and people were shocked. Rather disengenuously, he claimed himself to be a lover of America, its flag and its Bill of Rights; his inappropriate displays, he claimed, were merely demonstrative of his profound love for all things American.
Now the f-bomb is everywhere and our flag cannot be displayed at all, whether on flagpoles or t-shirts, on many campuses, although American flag bikinis on voluptuous young women are still enthusiastically tolerated.
BTW, Tom Wolfe seems to be curiously silent of late. His choice? Due to age or ill health? I suspect the great satirist would have much to say about current events, but that he couldn’t get published in these PC times.