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An American sickness

We have a chain restaurant that advertises with intimidatingly large flags

I don’t have any flags flying from my house, which makes me an exceptional American. OK, maybe not too exceptional — most houses don’t have flagpoles and aren’t waving their patriotism in everyone’s faces, but having been to Europe and Australia and Asia, I know that in comparison we tend to be a flag-happy nation. But really, the only places, other than official places like the county courthouse and schools, that display a flag also tend to be draped with MAGA nonsense, with pickup trucks covered in ugly political bumper stickers parked in front of them.

That’s fine, I appreciate seeing another visible signifier. But then, I was sent this tweet from Eric Daugherty, a Florida Republican nobody, who has somehow earned the approval of Twitter to send out mass notifications. He is shocked, shocked, shocked that some Americans might see no problem with other country’s flags.

How strange and peculiarly American. Mexico is an ally, and Mexicans are our friends, so she is showing support for an allied nation. We are not enemies, although MAGA seems to think so. It does not diminish us to exhibit solidarity with Mexicans and residents of Mexican descent, especially when an American regime is in power and trying to oppress them.

As for the cost, you can buy a pack of 25 small Mexican flags for less than $20 on Amazon. You don’t need to be George Soros to afford that. Also, people voluntarily attend these kinds of protests without demanding payment — I was at a couple of them earlier this summer. If I ever get out to another protest, maybe I’ll sink some pocket change into getting a few flags-onna-stick to hand out.

If I want to be daring, maybe I should get a bunch of Canadian flags, too.

Anything to counter this weird “patriotic” obsession with the American flag. Did all those years in school pledging allegiance to a stupid flag poison our brains?

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Comments

  1. tedw says

    I am liberal and occasionally fly an American flag, such as July 4th. We need to reclaim the national symbols.

  2. dangerousbeans says

    @tedw
    Nah, too late for that. The symbol has been poisoned

    The American flag habits are spreading here in Australia among the nationalist crowd

  4. KG says

    Denmark is the most flag-happy country of western Europe, I think. And has shown a nasty streak of xenophobia recently, although it’s far from unique in Europe in that respect. In the UK, the situation is complicated by the existence, in addition to the Union Flag, of the national flags of England, Scotland and Wales (northern Ireland doesn’t have an official one, for reasons you can probably imagine). There are culture wars for ideological “possession” of specific flags (does either the Union Flag, the St. George Cross flag of England, or both, belong to the far right?), and disputes about what should fly where (outside the Scottish Parliament are the Union Flag, the Scottish Saltire, and the flag of the EU).

  5. cheerfulcharlie says

    Matthew 5, “Make no religious oaths”. A command of Jesus. “37 But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. “Putting God in the pledge makes it a forbidden religious oath. But who really reads the Bible today?

  6. says

    I’m curious what the excuse for the confiscation was. (I know, I know, contempt of cop/ICE) A shield is kind of the reverse of a weapon, and “other items” isn’t terribly enlightening.

  7. stuffin says

    I used to put up my American flag on Memorial Day (May 30th) and take it down on Veterans Day (Nove11th), but when I bought my motion detection video camera/flood light for the front door the flag kept setting it off, so I took it down. Was annoyed at first, kept trying to think of ways around the problem, but had limit places and decided it had to remain down. Kind of glad now, wouldn’t want to be mistaken for a MAGAt.

  9. John Watts says

    In Germany, neo-Nazis fly the Confederate battle flag because the swastika is banned. That tells me all I need to know about that flag.

  10. says

    Decades ago when I was a school. Kid and Lizzie 2 was still alive we used to start the school day with a morning flag raising at which we would recite these words: I honour my God, I serve my Queen and I salute the flag. Back then I was an agnostic Republican so by the time we got to the bit about the flag I would change the words to “I shoot the flag”. Probably a good idea when you see the number of faketriots that wrap themselves in it.

  11. fusilier says

    I used to fly RevWar flags: 1st/2nd. Massachusetts, Ethan Allen, Betsy Ross, Cowpens, etc.. Gave it up as the MAGAts usurped their meaning. Now I fly anything but; Eire, Brittany, Vanuatu, Aruba, and the like, instead.

    Had a couple walk by admiring My Beloved and Darling Wife’s flowers who mentioned enjoying the flags as well – and googling the images to figure out just which one was up today.

    fusilier

    James 2:24

  12. says

    I have 2 large Canadian flags I keep in my dresser drawer. I had one of them hanged up on the wall of my apartment house for awhile. Then I took it down. I placed both of them in my dresser drawer in my bedroom where I keep them to this day.

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