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Why the tattered U.S. flags?

mag71911

New member
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
Messages
8
Location
Olivet, Michigan, USA
Hi, everyone.
I'm from Michigan, and live in a rural area, and I've noticed something lately that alarms me.
At two different houses in the area where I live, on two different roads miles apart, there are tattered American flags hung outside for display. Both are absolutely tattered-- actually almost completely shredded --and very faded and weather-worn.
At least they appeared to be. But as I've looked closer at them, these tattered flags looked exactly identical, with the same shredding and color-fading. At one of the houses, the flag flies from the house itself, but there is a nice flag pole outside also, with a brand-new, yellow "don't-tread-on-me" NRA flag on it (but no U.S. flag).
What I want to know is, are those tattered U.S. flags ones you can actually buy that way (pre-shredded and faded)? As some sort of protest flag, maybe?
If so, I find them very offensive and disrespectful.
Does anyone here know? Perhaps it's just by chance that those two U.S. flags are so worn-out, but it sure looks like they were manufactured that way.
Thanks!
 

pfries

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 8, 2012
Messages
182
Location
East Tennessee
Could be this one of my favorites

[video=youtube;cUh7GgE-OvE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=cUh7GgE-OvE[/video]
 

carsontech

Activist Member
Joined
Apr 7, 2011
Messages
529
Location
Anderson, SC
If so, I find them very offensive and disrespectful.
Does anyone here know? Perhaps it's just by chance that those two U.S. flags are so worn-out, but it sure looks like they were manufactured that way.
Thanks!

So, what you're saying is, you're offended of someones choice to hang some "worn-out" cloth on a pole?

Ponder this:

"I gotta tell you folks, I don't get all choked up about yellow ribbons and american flags... I consider them symbols, and I leave symbols to the symbol-minded." -George Carlin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVHgpe9TwW8



And one of my more recent favorites by Carlin:

[video=youtube;iw0MripVxss]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iw0MripVxss[/video]
 
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MAC702

Campaign Veteran
Joined
Jul 31, 2011
Messages
6,331
Location
Nevada
Are you as offended by the countless other commercial violations of the US flag code?
 

Citizen

Founder's Club Member
Joined
Nov 15, 2006
Messages
18,269
Location
Fairfax Co., VA
SNIP What I want to know is, are those tattered U.S. flags ones you can actually buy that way (pre-shredded and faded)? As some sort of protest flag, maybe?
If so, I find them very offensive and disrespectful.
Does anyone here know? Perhaps it's just by chance that those two U.S. flags are so worn-out, but it sure looks like they were manufactured that way.
Thanks!


Parable: A woman comes up to me and says, "Your gun is scaring me." I reply, "The gun does not emit fear-waves, ma'am. If you're scared of the gun, its because of your own ideas."


Disassembling things further, who authorized government to make a flag code, if there is one. I can find no authority in the constitution for regulating how the flag is handled by private citizens. If there is no federal flag code bearing on private citizens, who put the code-writer in charge? I certainly wasn't consulted on what constitutes respect or disrespect.

Also, the flag is a symbol. As a symbol it is invested with whatever meaning the viewer brings to the flagpole. But, if you distill it down to bare essences, there are only two.

One essence is that the flag symbolizes the federal government. Literally. A fedgov that afflicts us with laws unread by the legislators, a debt to Jupiter, a Federal Reserve whose policies drove us into a 2008 depression that still has something like 9M people out of work, that daily finds new ways to reduce our freedom. Now, if a fella wants to protest that, I'm right behind him. Hell, I may wave that flag myself. If a fella wants to burn that flag, I say, "let me get you some matches." Kinda like its not possible to insult a prostitute, its not possible to desecrate such a flag. In fact, if there is any desecration going on, it is the government who is desecrating by being something the flag was never meant to symbolize!!

The other essence is that the flag symbolizes every single person in the nation. I like to use the analogy that if you had a big flag, you might even have one fiber for each American. In protecting liberty, I would permit anyone who wants to disrespect that flag. I think it was Jefferson who wrote that we can always correct error in thinking. We can always explain it to them so they understand. Also, it might be kinda handy to let such anti-social people make themselves known to the rest of us. My other thought--contradictory-- is that we as a nation have right in the Bill of Rights the freedom of association (peaceably assemble), a corollary of which is the right not to associate. If somebody demonstrates his disagreement with every single other American, revoke his citizenship or deport him or both. Of course, there are probably so few who actually hate every single other American that there is no point in handing the government the power to revoke citizenship and deport over such matters; in fact, it is an article of faith with me that giving government any more power than the barest essentials is dangerous. So, no, while revoking citizenship and deportation may sound patriotically satisfying, it wouldn't be a good idea to give government that power.

Besides, maybe the tattered-flag exhibitors in the OP just don't understand. Or, were never taught. No point being offended or insulted until those are confirmed or dispelled.
 
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Felid`Maximus

Activist Member
Joined
Nov 12, 2007
Messages
1,712
Location
Reno, Nevada, USA
It seems many of the obsessed "flag code" people will find a reason to be offended at any flag. Not lit well enough, facing the wrong way in a window, not touched properly etc. and people will send you hate mail for it, and then if you were to actually follow the flag code and burn a flag that needed to be retired you'd probably get hate mail from the same people who whine about slight flag code violations because they never read the flag code themselves to know that a retired flag is supposed to be burned according to that same code. Similarly, you put a flag in a window, facing the right way, I guarantee someone will complain that from the inside it looks to be wrong.

I wouldn't fly a flag without adhering to the flag code, out of respect, but because people seldom understand the flag code and people are as apt to complain about following the flag code as not following it, it seems like someone who does not wish to offend others is best off not flying a flag unless it is in a very conservative circumstance where people will not quibble over which side the union is on because they either do not understand the flag code or because the person who flew the flag did not understand it.

I don't think it is very American to quibble so much over the flag, especially when the person who flies the flag does so out of a sense of patriotism, regardless of his adherence to the code. If it is a military organization that is one thing, but if Joe Schmoe down the street making $7.50 an hour hoists the only flag he can afford and it is a little bit worn out and he does not know everything about flag etiquette, I don't think Joe Schmoe deserves to be called unamerican for trying to reflect his patriotism, especially when his neighbors have no flag at all.
 
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SovereignAxe

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 29, 2011
Messages
791
Location
Elizabethton, TN
Parable: A woman comes up to me and says, "Your gun is scaring me." I reply, "The gun does not emit fear-waves, ma'am. If you're scared of the gun, its because of your own ideas."


Disassembling things further, who authorized government to make a flag code, if there is one. I can find no authority in the constitution for regulating how the flag is handled by private citizens. If there is no federal flag code bearing on private citizens, who put the code-writer in charge? I certainly wasn't consulted on what constitutes respect or disrespect.

Also, the flag is a symbol. As a symbol it is invested with whatever meaning the viewer brings to the flagpole. But, if you distill it down to bare essences, there are only two.

One essence is that the flag symbolizes the federal government. Literally. A fedgov that afflicts us with laws unread by the legislators, a debt to Jupiter, a Federal Reserve whose policies drove us into a 2008 depression that still has something like 9M people out of work, that daily finds new ways to reduce our freedom. Now, if a fella wants to protest that, I'm right behind him. Hell, I may wave that flag myself. If a fella wants to burn that flag, I say, "let me get you some matches." Kinda like its not possible to insult a prostitute, its not possible to desecrate such a flag. In fact, if there is any desecration going on, it is the government who is desecrating by being something the flag was never meant to symbolize!!

The other essence is that the flag symbolizes every single person in the nation. I like to use the analogy that if you had a big flag, you might even have one fiber for each American. In protecting liberty, I would permit anyone who wants to disrespect that flag. I think it was Jefferson who wrote that we can always correct error in thinking. We can always explain it to them so they understand. Also, it might be kinda handy to let such anti-social people make themselves known to the rest of us. My other thought--contradictory-- is that we as a nation have right in the Bill of Rights the freedom of association (peaceably assemble), a corollary of which is the right not to associate. If somebody demonstrates his disagreement with every single other American, revoke his citizenship or deport him or both. Of course, there are probably so few who actually hate every single other American that there is no point in handing the government the power to revoke citizenship and deport over such matters; in fact, it is an article of faith with me that giving government any more power than the barest essentials is dangerous. So, no, while revoking citizenship and deportation may sound patriotically satisfying, it wouldn't be a good idea to give government that power.

Besides, maybe the tattered-flag exhibitors in the OP just don't understand. Or, were never taught. No point being offended or insulted until those are confirmed or dispelled.


Wow, unemployment is down to 4.5%!? :p

Assuming the eligible workforce is 200M, and unemployment is 8.3% (I know, it's actually higher if you count those that have stopped looking), that number should be closer to 16 or 17M out of work.
 

Citizen

Founder's Club Member
Joined
Nov 15, 2006
Messages
18,269
Location
Fairfax Co., VA
Wow, unemployment is down to 4.5%!? :p

Assuming the eligible workforce is 200M, and unemployment is 8.3% (I know, it's actually higher if you count those that have stopped looking), that number should be closer to 16 or 17M out of work.

Now you've got me wondering. What are the correct stats, I wonder. You see, I've come across info that the workforce is 150M. But, the Bureau of Labor doesn't count those who gave up looking.



ETA: Ha! I know a correct stat! Percentage of panics, recessions, and depressions caused by the Federal Reserve and fractional reserve banking in the last 99 years: 100%.
 
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mag71911

New member
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
Messages
8
Location
Olivet, Michigan, USA
Some Clarification

Thanks for the interest, everyone.
I guess the answer to my original question (are these tattered U.S. flags manufactured that way?) is a collective "we don't know." Okay.
Now for some clarification for my reasons for being alarmed and offended:
I am a firm believer in the First Amendment, and that to me includes the right to burn or otherwise desecrate the American flag as some sort of protest statement. I don't agree with such actions (unless it is some fictionalized depiction in a book or film or some other creative work, if it was somehow necessary to the plot), but I believe people should have the right to express themselves in that fashion if they want to. I am an aspiring writer and I give the First Amendment extreme latitude.
I was just saying that I was offended because if these tattered flags are some sort of actual protest, the motivation to protest in this way defies me. We still have freedom of speech in this country. We have more freedom under the Second Amendment (generally speaking) than we have had in a very long time (although still not as much as we had at this country's founding, unless, of course, you were one of the enslaved blacks in this country at that time).
There are no U.N. troops marching through our streets (I remember what some said when Obama was elected back in 2008:))
I just feel, that if people think it is so bad in this country that they have to fly a shredded flag in protest, that they should go live in a North Korean labor camp or some PRC gulag and then see how they feel. (And no, I don't think we should actually send them to those places; I'm being a bit hyperbolic, but I think you get my meaning).
I'm not one who gets hung up on the flag code; that's not why I was offended.
Anyway, I hope this clears up my positions a little bit.
 

Citizen

Founder's Club Member
Joined
Nov 15, 2006
Messages
18,269
Location
Fairfax Co., VA
SNIP [we still have some freedom in this country compared to other places]

I think you are conflating country with nation and government. Nation and government are two separate things. If you are a writer, then you know what it means to differentiate. Now's the time to start. Its the whole reason I went to some length to differentiate meanings in the cloth symbol for you.
 

PistolPackingMomma

Regular Member
Joined
Oct 1, 2011
Messages
1,884
Location
SC
Thanks for the interest, everyone.
I guess the answer to my original question (are these tattered U.S. flags manufactured that way?) is a collective "we don't know." Okay.
Now for some clarification for my reasons for being alarmed and offended:
I am a firm believer in the First Amendment, and that to me includes the right to burn or otherwise desecrate the American flag as some sort of protest statement. I don't agree with such actions (unless it is some fictionalized depiction in a book or film or some other creative work, if it was somehow necessary to the plot), but I believe people should have the right to express themselves in that fashion if they want to. I am an aspiring writer and I give the First Amendment extreme latitude.
I was just saying that I was offended because if these tattered flags are some sort of actual protest, the motivation to protest in this way defies me. We still have freedom of speech in this country. We have more freedom under the Second Amendment (generally speaking) than we have had in a very long time (although still not as much as we had at this country's founding, unless, of course, you were one of the enslaved blacks in this country at that time).
There are no U.N. troops marching through our streets (I remember what some said when Obama was elected back in 2008:))
I just feel, that if people think it is so bad in this country that they have to fly a shredded flag in protest, that they should go live in a North Korean labor camp or some PRC gulag and then see how they feel. (And no, I don't think we should actually send them to those places; I'm being a bit hyperbolic, but I think you get my meaning).
I'm not one who gets hung up on the flag code; that's not why I was offended.
Anyway, I hope this clears up my positions a little bit.

Why should what someone else does offend you?
 

skidmark

Campaign Veteran
Joined
Jan 15, 2007
Messages
10,444
Location
Valhalla
I would rather see a tattered U.S. flag waving than none at all.

A while back I did a bulk purchase of a dozen national ensigns. I carry them in the car, and will stop and make contact with whoever is at home/in charge of the office where a worn-out flag is being flown. I'll offer them a brand new one in exchange for their old one. I've only been told to mind my own business once, and I sort of expected that from the totality of the person/place.

I'm down to about 4 left, so will be keeping my eyers open for good prices again. Buying in bulk they were individually less than what I pay for three cups of coffee at the stop&rob. I can give up a few cups of coffee.

It's no use getting upset over something if you are not willing to do something about it. I do admit that going past a place I recently stopped at and seeing the new flag flying does give me warm fuzzy feelings.

stay safe.
 

DrakeZ07

Regular Member
Joined
Mar 26, 2011
Messages
1,080
Location
Lexington, Ky
I fly the Kentucky flag above the U.S. flag on a home-made flag pole made out of cast iron piping, and using para-cord. So, it's neither a good thing, nor a bad thing, or both, because there's no disrespect towards the U.S. flag because its just a dyed piece of cloth? or that its a good thing or a bad thing, because to the individual it can mean something that others wouldn't see at first? I'm confuzzled.

I personally fly the State flag above the Federal flag to represent my allegiance to the state first, and foremost, and to the ideal of States being above the Federal system >.>; Thats actually a lie, I hate my neighbor and he flies the US flag above the State flag, and I fly mine the way I do to p*ss him off.
 
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davidmcbeth

Banned
Joined
Jan 14, 2012
Messages
16,167
Location
earth's crust
Hi, everyone.
I'm from Michigan, and live in a rural area, and I've noticed something lately that alarms me.
At two different houses in the area where I live, on two different roads miles apart, there are tattered American flags hung outside for display. Both are absolutely tattered-- actually almost completely shredded --and very faded and weather-worn.
At least they appeared to be. But as I've looked closer at them, these tattered flags looked exactly identical, with the same shredding and color-fading. At one of the houses, the flag flies from the house itself, but there is a nice flag pole outside also, with a brand-new, yellow "don't-tread-on-me" NRA flag on it (but no U.S. flag).
What I want to know is, are those tattered U.S. flags ones you can actually buy that way (pre-shredded and faded)? As some sort of protest flag, maybe?
If so, I find them very offensive and disrespectful.
Does anyone here know? Perhaps it's just by chance that those two U.S. flags are so worn-out, but it sure looks like they were manufactured that way.
Thanks!

Seen this in the past and talked to the managers of the property ... never did any good. I just ignore it now. I don't care anymore; they want to fly a flag that ratty, go ahead..its america.
 
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