I don’t understand this weird American obsession with flag. I was looking at some photos of Trump’s rallies. Flags everywhere - on shirts, hats, glasses etc. And this bizarre cult of the flag - “it cannot touch the ground” etc.
At the end of the day the flag is just a piece of cloth. If you worship any flag or take offense to any flag, you need to get a life.
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Only to the American haters such as yourself obviously
no.
Coming from a country that doesn’t have this sort of thing it’s really weird as an outside observer. Students have to swear allegiance to the flag every morning too which is the sort of thing I would imagine happens in north Korea or dictator states.
That flag worship thing always seemed like a weird cult thing to me. I suppose Americans might not see it that way since they grew up with it.
if everyone is doing it, it’s not a cult ;-)
But may still be a cult thing.
I mean, sure. But it’s a thin line between a religion and a cult :)
They don’t have to. It would be unconstitutional if they did. What happens sometimes unfortunately, for teachers to sort of discourage not taking part, or potentially punish the student for an “unrelated” reason. The school I went to only did the pledge once a year though.
I was suspended from school multiple times for refusing to pledge allegiance when I was in high school in the states.
Then you would have had legal recourse to sue and no one told you your rights.
https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/west-virginia-v.-barnette-the-freedom-to-not-pledge-allegiance
It was a class role that we had to recite the pledge. I was suspended for not following the rules of the class, not for not reciting the pledge. But this was the early 90s and I was more worried about not being beat by my mother than I was about my rights.
No one tells children their rights and this country basically operates on the idea that they don’t have rights other than don’t be raped or made to work.
That said, kids get punished for not doing the pledge every day by power tripping teachers, they have for decades and will for decades more
You do though because the teacher will punish kids who don’t do it. Is there an official law or rule? No, but that doesn’t stop power tripping teachers and admin from punishing kids that don’t toe the absolute obedience line
Wait til you learn about the Texas Pledge!
The context of the origin of the US’ pledge of allegiance is it came shortly after the end of their Civil War when there was still a lot o political tension. A desire was born to instill national loyalty in children.
However, today as mentioned by another commenter, students cannot be legally compelled to recite the pledge, nor punished for not reciting the pledge as decided by the Supreme Court in 1943 using the first amendment as the base.
I mean, i’m swiss and we did a thing called “Geistige Selbstverteidigung”, mental self-defense, with mythos of Wilhelm Tell & focus on independence in WW2. But we don’t anymore. Why do you still do?
Probably comes from a combination of belief in American exceptionalism, tradition, and either popular opinion remains with reciting the pledge or a lack desire to change.
States are managed individually for the most part and only 47/50 still require reciting the pledge (with some exceptions). Without a call for change from the people, it would be political suicide for any lawmaker to come out for a change like this. Opponents could use this decision as a claim of lack of patriotism.
Nationalism is part of fascism. Just a FYI, it used to be illegal to make clothes out of the US flag. It’s only because of capitalism that it changed. And yes, any nation that goes flag crazy is stupid. Why do people fly a flag at their residence? We know what country we are in.
US Flag Code:
There is a reason why you see flags in Germany only for big sporting events usually.
Nationalism is part of fascism.
Being nationalistic in itself doesn’t in any way imply fascism.
But nationalism is still a key component of fascism. Or do you know a fascist system that is or was not nationalistic?
You’re correct, but it’s a non sequitur comment. There was no reason to point out the coincidental fact that “nationalism is part of fascism” and they’re right to refute the suggestion that fascism is implied by nationalism. It’s the other way around.
They may have been trying to implicitly claim that the US is fascist and that’s why it’s nationalistic. But… that’s not what fascism is - fascism is not a collection of traits but a small group of distinct class-collaborationist ideologies. The USA is liberalist, and that has resulted in it being an ultranationalist, militarist, socially-stratified state easily compared with fascist states.
I’m no nationalistic fanatic of the flag, but is it really so difficult to understand that the flag is a symbol?
Obviously each flag, be they for nations or other groups, represents more than just a piece of cloth to many people. Taking offence at someone else’s identifying with what a flag symbolizes is not okay. But, I tend to look skeptically at worship of any kind of idol, be it flag, cross, or text. That still doesn’t mean it’s okay to hate or persecute people for their beliefs, even if they appear silly to you and as long as they don’t hurt others.
One group can demonstrate their respect for the nation by physically following some rules around the flag and others can demonstrate their loyalty to their ideals of the nation being violated by flying the flag upside down or burning a flag.
A flag or banner is not just a piece of cloth, never has been.
Very well put.
IMHO human beings are more important than stupid symbols. If you don’t respect humans and their non violent choices, the symbol lost all its meaning, especially the one about being the “land of the free”.
IMHO human beings are more important than stupid symbols.
At no point did I make anything close to a claim like this. In fact I very clearly stated that hurting others was NOT OK.
you’re absolutely right, and reminds me of the George Carlin bit, hopefully I’ve remembered it right:
“flags are symbols for the symbol-minded”
Fascism.
The success of flags on https://canvas.fediverse.events (!canvas@toast.ooo ) still shows that it’s a way for people to identify.
Interesting to see how New Zealand tweaked their own, though.
Whats funny is the flag fanatics are disrespecting it from a historical perspective. Paper plates and napkins dirtied up and tossed. Crumpled up tshirts tossed into bins or crumpled up on a floor.
I’ve seen American flag diapers. These flag-worshipers wouldn’t even hesitate to let their kid shit in a flag diaper. It makes no sense.
All of which is against the flag code too, but while they’ll attack you for letting it touch the ground they’ll lose it if you can them out for their flag trunks cause laws end when their convenience and desires begin.
Symbols are incredibly powerful things. It’s pretty easy to understand.
Worshipping is a weird thing, but I think flags of all countries should be respected as it’s a signature of a nation’s independence.
No flag no country https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_9W1zTEuKLY
I’m an American and I don’t get it either.
My daughter got in trouble in the fifth grade for refusing to say the pledge of allegiance in class because, in her words, “it’s stupid to say a pledge to a flag.” I didn’t teach her that, she’s just a smart kid. For non-Americans, it is illegal to force a child to say that pledge, which was decided by the Supreme Court in the 1940s.
I let her shitty permanent “substitute” teacher (yay Indiana teacher pay being shit) know about this supreme court case and told her that if she got in trouble again, lawyers would get involved. She got super apologetic and claimed that my daughter wasn’t in trouble, she just took her out in the hall and had a private talk with her about it. Which is totally not punishing a schoolchild as everyone clearly knows. She never apologized to my daughter, but I knew she never would and I didn’t bother to push it.
My daughter never stood up to say the pledge again, as was her right.
Fuck the flag, it’s cloth, like you said. Americans should be revering the founding document and its amendments that gives them their rights, not something designed so that friendly ships wouldn’t fire cannons at each other.
also the pledge was invented by a flag salesman to sell more flags.
I understand a flag having meaning. What I don’t understand is kids pledging allegiance to the flag everyday. That’s some North Korea shit.
Note that they have the legal right to refuse to do that.
https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/west-virginia-v.-barnette-the-freedom-to-not-pledge-allegiance
Sure, but kids are kids, they probably don’t understand that. It’s fucked up.
And they should, so spread the word and let parents know.
That’s some North Korea shit.
Nope. That’s some American shit. And it was American shit long before the DPRK even existed.
However, that wasn’t the only reason. The Pledge of Allegiance also was created to venerate the flag and “foster patriotism,”
From your own link. To me sounds more plausible than “it was Big Flag!”
it’s post-ww2, cold war-era creepy shit. Need to make soldiers and weed out the conspirators.
Flags are just cloth, words are just symbols or hot air depending on the medium, and cars are just metal and plastic.
At the end of the day, everything is just atoms. If you disagree, get a life.
Oil and blood.
It’s some creepy as fuck shit for sure BUT it allows us to identity the weirdos and avoid them.
That reminds me of a neighbor that seemed normal and nice enough… then he put up a “Let’s Go Brandon” flag and my opinion of him completely changed. I didn’t realize he was a pedophile:
So a while ago an American who moved to the Netherlands asked about the proper way to store the Dutch flag.
The consensus was: put in a little plastic bag from a supermarket and shove in the back of a random closet.
What else would you do with a flag anyway? Assuming you even had a flag to begin with.
* stares in Sheldon *
