It’s a hate flag, no less than the Confederate or Nazi flags, but they’re allowed too — in your window at home, or on the bumper of your personal car.
This, though, is vile —
… Tensions began when the Springfield Township Police Department incorporated the “thin blue line” flag into its official logo in 2021. …
Springfield Twp is largely progressive, I hadn’t even noticed that our police had added the thin blue line to their logo. This doesn’t represent the majority of people here, just the cops, whose biggest on-the-job risk is that someone might get in line ahead of them at Wawa.
I don’t think we should ban flags
Headline could be misleading, but it was a ban on police and municipal employees not private citizens.
Tensions began when the Springfield Township Police Department incorporated the “thin blue line” flag into its official logo in 2021.
Springfield Township officials banned its employees from displaying the flag on township property in January, saying that the flag had become central to tensions between marginalized communities and law enforcement, and adding that it had been adopted by white nationalists since its introduction.
Springfield officers displayed variations of the flag on pins, clothing, bumper stickers, and other personal items — even on rubber replacement wedding rings, according to the lawsuit. They also displayed the flag at department events, which took place on township property.
Oh, I hate misleading headlines. Yeah, I think that’s fair.
It’s a hate flag, no less than the Confederate or Nazi flags
This is why people don’t take this shit serious.
It’s absolutely a hate flag. It represents their support for police brutality and outright murder. Little more than a gang sign.
Just need to make it shameful to fly it. Spam the internet with “patriotic” posts about our flag is Red, white and blue. Give people shit that their flag is disrespectful to our troops since the red signifies the blood of our armed forces that protect us. Make it the equivalent of kneeling for a flag.
Trying to shame authoritarians into doing anything is always a losing strategy. They’re not capable of shame because they’re not capable of seeing themselves as doing anything wrong.
Make em think it’s gay then. Next pride parade should reappropriate it as a American LGBT Unity flag. They’ll run, not walk, to the nearest fire to burn all their flags/decals/shirts.
Believing that banning a piece of fabric will stop police oppression is, ironically, encouraging such oppression by coercively violating the right to private property and freedom of expression.
Did they choose black and blue to symbolize the color you’ll be after they’re though with you?
In general, I am happy to give people the right to express themselves in awful ways because it is supposed to mean that everyone’s free speech is protected, but this isn’t quite as easy:
Springfield’s commissioners voted, 5-2, to ban the flag’s display by any township employee who was on duty, as well as on township property and vehicles.
(re-ordered)
… saying that the flag had become central to tensions between marginalized communities and law enforcement, and adding that it had been adopted by white nationalists since its introduction.
That seems fair, but was probably too restrictive. They should have banned all kinds of extraneous messaging.
District Judge Karen Marston wrote in Monday’s ruling that the Springfield’s ban was an “unconstitutional restriction on employee speech under the First Amendment,” which “protects speech even when it is considered ‘offensive.’”
This sort of thing generally escalates and gets picky – down to “you must wear your uniform and nothing else” and then they get exceptions for wedding rings, crosses, hair bands, glasses, jewelry, and then people wear pins of the ‘banned’ item but since it is jewelry it becomes hard to argue that certain jewelry is OK but some isn’t.
They should still be able to completely disallow ‘defacing’ of their public propert (vehicles, etc.).
I live in a Midwest city of 2 million people, and almost all of our police cars have a thin blue line sticker.
You know we probably should have all see this coming when we told cops that they literally didn’t need to serve communities and that their job was not to protect it even enforce laws equally but to make money.
All cops are now just 9-5ers with the right to use guns against people they dislike dealing with. Like a gas station employee with the right to kill.
Like a gas station employee with the right to kill.
That would be fun.
I’ve never understood why some people are so proud of being the thin blue line that divides the USA
