Excon, Based on your argument our founding fathers through their dissent were demonstrating patriotism to the British Crown, NOT THE UNITED STATES.

To answer this question its helpful to ask can an individual show respect at a funeral proceeding by laughing out loud the whole way through it? Maybe it was a buddy of yours from school and you were just personally showing your "Respect" to him by remembering the good times from grade school----However based on the moment it's still disrespectful to the family.

This is no different, As a Country there is a long-standing cultural history of standing as a sign of respect for the flag. Not doing so, and drawing attention to yourself in the process is a sign that you are choosing your own agenda over showing reverence and respect. There are times and places to express personal agendas, and times and places that expressing personal agendas is disrespectful.

GMO'S are terribly dangerous. The precautionary principle dictates if you don't know whether or not something is safe, avoid it until it is proven safe. Human's have evolved since before we were humans eating only non-genetically modified organisms....altering structures to non-organic states and then ingesting them into our system is a recipe for potential disaster including cancer offspring issues etc.

If everyone on earth applied strictly Scientific Standards to everything across the board then everyone would be atheists as of today. The counterargument would be that do to the limitations of Science today there is no proof of God, but Science may be able to prove the existence of a God in the future.