Not to be political but.THIS IS WRONG

[LizzieMaine]

That's the Serapis Flag, used by John Paul Jones on a commandeered British ship during the revolution. The weird appearance is due to a garbled description given to the flagmaker of what an American flag was supposed to look like.

 

[Big J]

Hey guys, I used to be a student in the UK, and while I was there some guy was ordered by court to take his Union Flag down from outside his house because it made 'non-whites' feel uncomfortable. I don't want people to feel that way about their own national flag. I think that it's important to prevent the national flag from being hi-jacked by people with an extreme right-wing agenda, and kind of making association with it 'dirty'.

In my opinion, the best way to do that is for ordinary folks to fly the flag with pride. Not right up in peoples faces, but just to take ownership of it with pride and respect.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Hey guys, I used to be a student in the UK, and while I was there some guy was ordered by court to take his Union Flag down from outside his house because it made 'non-whites' feel uncomfortable. I don't want people to feel that way about their own national flag. I think that it's important to prevent the national flag from being hi-jacked by people with an extreme right-wing agenda, and kind of making association with it 'dirty'..

That's exactly the way I feel about it, and it's a big reason for why I do fly the flag. It's mine just as much as it is theirs, and I'll be damned if I'll let them co-opt it.

To answer Lizzie's question what would I have done regarding the Mob situation? If I knew the reason behind the Mob doing what they did, I guess I would have had to "gear up" and go out to confront the Mob and would have used my very last shot, defending those that were innocent....I may have died and maybe would have, but those individuals had rights of freedom and those in the Mob had no right to destroy the other's freedom

I'd like to think that every decent American would feel the same way. And yet *nobody* in Litchfield tried to interfere with or stop the mob, not police, not clergy, not respectable leaders in the community. All of those groups were represented *in* the mob. It wasn't frothing-at-the-mouth Fascist agitators who were responsible for this, it was the nice, corn-fed Midwestern folks next door, who decided that absolute orthodoxy was above all the central definition of patriotism.

There were, however, some Americans who were worthy of the name during that series of incidents in 1940. On June 14th -- Flag Day -- a mob of several thousand American Legion members converged on the upstate New York town of South Lansing with plans to sack and burn a large farm operated by Jehovah's Witnesses there. But a townsman having a drink in a local bar overheard a couple of the ringleaders planning the event, and he was upset enough by it that he tipped off the county sherriff, who did his duty and assembled a force of armed deputies and State Troopers that managed to turn the mob away before it could reach the farm. That townsman and that sherriff were real patriots. I'm sure they had no love for the Witnesses, but they understood that compulsory patriotism degrades any people and any nation who enforce it.

 

[T Jones]

Hey guys, I used to be a student in the UK, and while I was there some guy was ordered by court to take his Union Flag down from outside his house because it made 'non-whites' feel uncomfortable. I don't want people to feel that way about their own national flag. I think that it's important to prevent the national flag from being hi-jacked by people with an extreme right-wing agenda, and kind of making association with it 'dirty'.

In my opinion, the best way to do that is for ordinary folks to fly the flag with pride. Not right up in peoples faces, but just to take ownership of it with pride and respect.

I think that it's important to prevent the national flag from being hi-jacked by people with an extreme right-wing agenda,

Yes. Indeed....and I'll also proudly fly mine to prevent those people with far-left agendas who would exploit the Flag by burning it to make a political statement.

 

[Big J]

Yes. Indeed....and I'll also proudly fly mine to prevent those people with far-left agendas who would exploit the Flag by burning it to make a political statement.

Yeah, I was kinda talking about neo-Nazis and stuff.

 

[T Jones]

Yeah, I was kinda talking about neo-Nazis and stuff.

I knew what you meant. The way the political climate's been in this country over the past several years, there's an element that refuses to disassociate those groups from the Republican Party and other conservatives. They're another element out on the fringe that have nothing to do with us. On the other side, there's also a far-left fringe that have nothing to do with liberals and the democrats. It would be just as unfair to associate all liberals and democrats to far-left anarchists who hate our country and burn our Flag.

 

[Big J]

I knew what you meant. The way the political climate's been in this country over the past several years, there's an element that refuses to disassociate those groups from the Republican Party and other conservatives. They're another element out on the fringe that have nothing to do with us. On the other side, there's also a far-left fringe that have nothing to do with liberals and the democrats. It would be just as unfair to associate all liberals and democrats to far-left anarchists who hate our country and burn our Flag.

Sorry, I get you now.
I've only been home 3 times in 15 years, so I'm kind of out of touch with a lot of stuff. My bad.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'm pretty far left, and I don't burn flags. And let's end this part of the discussion right here, before it goes any further. Nobody here burns flags, or advocates burning flags.

 

[T Jones]

Sorry, I get you now.
I've only been home 3 times in 15 years, so I'm kind of out of touch with a lot of stuff. My bad.

Not a problem, buddy.

 

[MisterCairo]

I know that. My post wasn't clear, but I've edited it. I said that the 1920s, when it was passed, were just like the 1950s in terms of legislating patriotism. A lot of questionable "Patriotic" legislation came from both time periods.

Many countries have laws, codes or simply rules of etiquette regarding how flags should be treated. Are you suggesting that they too, including those in Canada where I live, are also products of hysteria or "questionable patriotism"?

http://www.pch.gc.ca/eng/1359048153800

As Hudson put it, freedom to do something doesn't mean it isn't bad form.

 

[sheeplady]

Many countries have laws, codes or simply rules of etiquette regarding how flags should be treated.

But there is a *significant* difference between a law regulating how flags should be treated and rules of etiquette. One could put you in jail, the other doesn't.

In the US we like to set ourselves apart from countries where our flag is burned while people chant, "down with America." Plenty of these countries would punish their own citizens harshly for applying the same treatment to their own native flag (imprisionment, torture, threats against family, you randomly disappear and they never find your body). I don't want to be like like those countries in any way. No matter how sickening it is to me to see those behaviors on TV, I will not stoop to their level. Period.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Mr. President, about your tablecloth...."

 

[Stearmen]

Just out of curiosity, what do you think of this American flag?

It is one of the most important flags in the history of the United States! Lizzie of course got it right! When John Paul Jones captured the HMS Serapis, (I have not yet begun to fight,) his ship, the Bonhomme Richard, sank soon after the battle, and he transferred to the Serapis. When he sailed into the island port of Texel, the British demanded he be turned over as a Pirate, since he sailed under no recognized flag. He needed a flag fast, the only description he had was from Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, ambassadors to France, who wrote, "It is with pleasure that we acquaint your excellency that the flag of the United States of America consists of thirteen stripes, alternately red, white, and blue; a small square in the upper angle, next the flagstaff, is a blue field, with thirteen white stars, denoting a new constellation." Thus a flag was made and flown on the now USS Serapis. The Dutch recognized the flag, and thus the United States as a sovereign nation. It is sad, how few know our history, yet get offended over a flag they know so little about!

 

[Big J]

"Mr. President, about your tablecloth...."

Touché!
Very good Lizzie!

 

[Fading Fast]

But there is a *significant* difference between a law regulating how flags should be treated and rules of etiquette. One could put you in jail, the other doesn't.

In the US we like to set ourselves apart from countries where our flag is burned while people chant, "down with America." Plenty of these countries would punish their own citizens harshly for applying the same treatment to their own native flag (imprisionment, torture, threats against family, you randomly disappear and they never find your body). I don't want to be like like those countries in any way. No matter how sickening it is to me to see those behaviors on TV, I will not stoop to their level. Period.

Great point and this is one where I see being consistent and honest to a principle - free speech / freedom to express ones opinion - as being one that challenges many from both sides of our political divide. Many conservatives want to prevent groups from burning the flag and many liberals want to stop certain types of speech (see many campus speech rules, for example) to prevent racist and other vile ideas from being expressed at colleges and offending some students.

While I can't stand seeing the flag burned and I find racist rants repugnant, I will defend both as a examples of one of America's greatest freedom - the freedom of speech. In both cases, if those incidents are attached to calls to violence or other illegal activities then they should be stopped, but not for the flag burning or racist rant, but because calls to violence should be illegal.

(My guess is this post will be expunged, as an earlier one of mine was, but my intent here and there is not to violate the the rules on discussing politics. I am at a loss as to how most of this thread doesn't do that, so I see my posts as consistent with others in this thread. But I thought that with my earlier post as well - so toss this one down the memory hole if you wish, but please understand that I am trying to be consistent with this thread's seeming boundaries. FF)

 

[T Jones]

Touché!
Very good Lizzie!

Probably used more along the lines of ceremony when Lincoln visited the troops, rather than being used as a table cloth. The flag draped table probably could have served as a podium for some sort of function, like from which to speak or to sign documents. Interesting to note, in a larger version of that very picture there's a captured Confederate flag laying on the ground beside that table.


In Ford's Theatre, the night Lincoln was assassinated, the Flag was used as ceremonial bunting on Lincoln's box to honor the president's visit...

as opposed to this by the Occupy protesters...

 

[LizzieMaine]

That appears not to be an actual regulation US flag, if the number and layout of the stripes is any indication. I remember novelty beach towels being sold in the seventies that had a similar "looks like a flag but isn't one" design. Manufacturers today are selling far more realistic versions. And for wintertime patriotic relaxation, don't forget a cozy Flag Fleece, made in China for real discount-snuggling pleasure.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Meanwhile, here's another example of the flag being used in a widely-known advertising image, in a way that many might consider inappropriate:

That version of Lady Columbia dates to 1936, and is the way the figure of "Columbia" was usually depicted, not just as an advertising mascot or company logo, but in general, up until the postwar era. Suddenly her flag wrap was painted over on the original artwork -- not entirely at first, but enough to obscure what it actually was.

And by the mid-fifties, it had been entirely replaced by what appears to be a blue beach towel.

Likely all this can be explained by the heightened sensitivity to flag-related matters, first during the war, and subsequently during the Red Scare era of the postwar years. Not surprisingly, the Soviet Union also stepped up its flag-related patriotism during these periods, instituting a range of laws to protect the red hammer-and-sickle banner from physical desecration or inappropriate display.

 

[scotrace]

"Mr. President, about your tablecloth...."

Excellent, Lizzie. Wish I had remembered this image. And it is without doubt being used as a table covering.
The Flag Code came later (and specifically prohibits the use of the flag in advertising).

 

[T Jones]

Excellent, Lizzie. Wish I had remembered this image. And it is without doubt being used as a table covering.
The Flag Code came later (and specifically prohibits the use of the flag in advertising).

The Flag Code...

http://www.usflag.org/uscode36.html#36

... It was not until June 22, 1942 that Congress passed a joint resolution which was amended on December 22, 1942 to become Public Law