Is it still appropriate to fly an American Flag?

My dad once told me what the flag meant to him. He was returning from one of his bomber missions in World War II with one or two of his B-17 engines out. He struggled to keep the plane out of the English Channel and wasn’t sure that they would make it. But then through the mist the American flag of his base came into view and he knew they would survive. He said it felt as if the plane lifted as he saw the flag. When he told me that story, it was one of the very few times that I ever saw him tear up.

 

I proudly have a small American flag on my front door. Proud in part because I served for 4 years as an officer in the U.S. Navy.

I regret, however, that many of those who wave American flags most aggressively have no clue what it means to be an American. For them, it's divisive, as if to say I'm an American and you're not.

 

"What is your view on the flag now?"

You are not worthy of it.

 

Geee. . . . Why would they think that???

 

It's always appropriate to fly the flag if your are American. Fly it upside only if you anti-American.

 

I do feel as though the flag has been co-opted by certain groups of people. The flag means a lot to me as a veteran, but I hesitate to display it in certain contexts because doing so these days implies a certain set of beliefs. Sad, but real. When I see a flag flying in certain situations… like on a lifted pickup truck… I make assumptions about the general views of the individual, right or wrong.

 

I'm so old that I remember when conservative meant loyalty to the Constitution and the rule of law. Now, the first loyalty of a lot of Americans who refer to themselves as conservatives is to a deluded narcissist who refuses to accept the fact that he lost a free and fair election rather than to the Constitution and the rule of law and very often they also express an affinity for displaying the flag of a region of America involved in an insurrection that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans the goal of which was to preserve an extremely cruel system of involuntary hereditary servitude.

 

From this . . . .



To this . . . .



Disgraceful.

 

I obviously wasn’t around in the lead up to the Civil War, but I wonder if this is what it felt like. Feels like some people really want it.

 

My first instinct would be to say no, that this is mostly just bored and immature people thinking about how fun it would be to be part of something exciting that shows up in a history book. But then I remember the story of people showing up at the First Battle of Bull Run to picnic and watch, so maybe.

 

That cant be. I read on a certain site that the left leaning mods of this forum only purge conservative threads.

 

Can it wait for the “2024 National Champions” edition?

 

It seems some have a fetish for some kind of wet dream than involves a civil war in which the maga mob either kills off or imprisons anyone who disagrees with them and they can then live happily ever after in some kind of neofascist authoritarian theocracy. It isn't and never would be that simple, in spite of their fantasies.

 

They do want it. They don't want democracy anymore. They don't have to say it. They want a strongman, particularly if he's orange, hence their absolute fealty to the Moron of Mar-a-Lago.

 

My dad was a medic in WWII (Germany). Never talked about the war, the sacrifices he made, friends who never came home, the carnage he saw daily, etc.

Wish I had tried harder when he was alive to pry it out of him, but I wanted to respect his privacy.

 

What the hell….
I am a strong conservative in my values and beliefs and I find the OP disgraceful and disheartening. I have much harsher… and shorter… I’d like to use but I cannot right now.
I will fly the Stars and Stripes with Pride. We are not a perfect country and have never claimed to be. There will be things I like and things I don’t like but I will not throw a temper tantrum and show the world my ass when I don’t get my way.

 

I know olivia newton john died yesterday. I'm guessing something else happened that I missed?

 

I wasn't either, but in contrast, Lawrence, KS was sacked by a pro-slavery militia in the run up to the Civil War which set off a violent border war between Missouri/Kansas as well as open violence on the Senate floor when Preston Brooks nearly killed Charles Sumner. This eventually led to the election of Lincoln, Kansas becoming a free state, and the secession crisis.

 

I must have been drunk