Everyone knows the white flag is the universal sign of surrender. It means to give up, to admit to having no chance of overcoming the opposition and resigning to a fate of defeat. But did you know there are other signs that have been used over the ages? When I was a kid, we often relied on one of the following banalities when faced with a verbal assault:

I know you are but what am I?

I’m like a mirror, you’re like glue. It bounces off me and sticks to you.

No one would pull one of those chestnuts out today, right? We’ve come a long way. Or have we?

This topic came to mind this week when two people passed me on a bike path doing about 25 MPH on an e-bike without even signalling their approach, a serious breach of bike path safety etiquette. If you’re unfamiliar with e-bikes… where the heck have you been?? They are bikes with electric assist motors to augment pedaling, capable of speeds up to nearly 30 MPH. They’re typically used by one of two classes of people: older folks who want to keep riding but need a little extra boost from time to time (God bless’em; that could very well be me some day) or sociopathic Peter Fonda wannabes who think they’re filming a reboot of “Easy Rider”. My passing duo were clearly of the latter variety.

The guy I was riding with was as perturbed as I was by these clowns. He called to them as they passed, “Slow down!”, a reasonable request, given that they passed within inches of us at the speed of well-tuned Yugo. One of the pair retorted over his rapidly receding shoulder, “Shut Up!”

A flagrant white flag.

We were actually lucky in this case. The usual comeback muttered by such mental midgets is the clever (and ubiquitous) rejoinder, “f*** you” accompanied by a brazen display of the middle finger. These are people who probably didn’t fare too well on their high school debate teams. Although in today’s world of uncivil discourse, they’d rock in a Republican presidential debate.

When I was protesting the Vietnam war (yes, I’m that old) I was regularly attacked with a white flag that still unfurls at regular intervals today: “Commie!” Tell someone we should even consider Medicare for all, some way of reducing the wealth gap, or trying to limit the number of mass shootings in this country to something less than, oh, over one every day, and you’re bound to hear that white flag still flapping in the breeze, a breeze driven by the hot air coming from people who are happy with the completely unworkable and unsustainable status quo.

Basically, name calling of any kind is the white flag of choice for anyone with no intellectual resources or valid arguments at his disposal. Without even knowing it, they’re saying, “I give up. You win. You’re right. But I’m not leaving this fight without letting loose one last volley of invectives (although he’s unlikely to know what “invective” means) worthy of a poorly educated middle-schooler.”

There are lots more white flags out there. It’s good to be aware of them so we don’t waste our efforts trying to communicate logically with those who go into a battle of wits unarmed.

Long may the white flag fly!