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.
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 rule 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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Very well put.
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"
Warning: my takes on this are probably even more unpopular than the OP. I typically don't mention them to avoid whining, but since we're in a comm for unpopular opinions, might as well speak my mind.
A country flag is neither a symbol of your people, nor of the general population under the same government as you. It's the symbol of the government itself - an abstract entity, best seen as some sort of tool.
People who wave flags strongly remind me cows shaking their arses to show that they've been branded as property. "MOO! I'M PROUD OF BEING OWNED! MOO!"
Against the above, some might argue that their governments' flags used to represent some popular movement, or similar. Well, it is not your flag any more; co-opting symbols is bread-and-butter of exerting soft power over you.
And if you do feel the need of a flag for your identity... sorry to be blunt but you have millions of identities at your disposal; if the one that you pick is what subjects you, you probably need to touch some grass.
"But the president/king/minister said that..." - of course governments will tell you otherwise, it's convenient for them. But, most likely, not for you.
I understand your view, but it depends on your country. In Denmark the flag is used in a different way in everyday life I think. And I would say there are good reasons to be proud of Denmark as a country and the people have done well to own the flag themselves in this way. But yea, it can also be used in bad ways.
My vaugue understanding as a dumb American is that folk in other countries by and large aren't about repping flags in the first place, flying them, wearing them, etc
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.
it's post-ww2, cold war-era creepy shit. Need to make soldiers and weed out the conspirators.
That’s some North Korea shit.
Nope. That's some American shit. And it was American shit long before the DPRK even existed.
The national flag. What a weird American obsession.
In the UK we call them "flag shaggers" and they are laughing stock.
If you are not trolling and you genuinely don't see the difference between occasional flag use and everyday cult typical for the USA and for the far right in other countries, you may be even slower than you appear from your comments here.
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.
and a book is paper and ink. but it's what it represents
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.
There is a reason why you see flags in Germany only for big sporting events usually.
When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross
There is no when. Fascism is already here.
Symbols are incredibly powerful things. It's pretty easy to understand.
Buddy of mine visited after some time in the army and I had to stop him from beating some other dude's ass because they accidentally let their flag graze the ground barely, I'll never understand loving the symbol of the people you supposedly joined up to protect over the ACTUAL FUCKING PEOPLE themselves. Thankfully, that behavior and the PTSD he got from being in the middle east for a while seem to have subsided.
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.
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.
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.
Unless youve never noticed, America has a huge Nationalism problem and always has. Drive through any subdivision and you'll see flags on many houses. Go to a sporting event and you'll see the National Guard in some capacity. America has always been a nation that skirts the edges of Fascism just waiting to be led there.
Source - a Canadian that has been there to smaller towns many many times.
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.
People tend to care more of a fucking piece of plastic trash (most of flags are made of just shitty plastic btw) than other's people lives. Not without reason "patriots" rhyme with "idiots".
The flag is just a symbol for the country, and the country is something are can be proud of if you have nothing else worthwhile to form your identity around.
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.
It's some creepy as fuck shit for sure BUT it allows us to identity the weirdos and avoid them.
Every flag is a piece of cloth that people project their ideologies on to. To say it is only a piece of cloth misses the point of why various flags are important to various people.
A flag is a symbol. Words aren't just a bunch of letters, there's social meaning in the unique message conveyed.
But yes, that nitpick aside, it's absurd nationalism at play. When someone burn the flags and books of my political alignment, I couldn't care less. Sure, it's an offensive gesture to burn a symbol, it's not crazy for someone to get mad at a burned bible or national flag. But at the end of the say, I see it as no different to someone saying 'America sucks', which is pretty common.
And the weird nationalism is pretty internalized to the point where it's just normal to most Americans. They point to the nationalist displays of other countries like 'Cult of Personalities' elsewhere and don't notice their local fixation with Washington and the rest, or reciting a daily oath to their flag, or flying them everywhere constantly all the time. But from an outsider perspective, those rituals are just... concerning. It's ingrained nationalist propaganda.
If you worship any flag or take offense to any flag, you need to get a life.
This I disagree with. A flag is a symbol, it represents concepts. And some flags can represent, among other things, "I want you killed" (consider the Nazi swastika being flown today). I think it's reasonable to be offended by a flag representing an offensive idea.
But a national flag flown by the world superpower? It's a bit fragile to flip out over that, isn't it?
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