Do not delve into understanding the SovCits. They are a mind-twist of the same sort as all the various CTists.
The word “pseudolegal” is key here. SovCits (or “Freemen-on-the-Land” (FOTL)) believe that they can opt out of the law of the land, and operate under their own jurisdiction. They believe that by “filing” certain documents using certain wordings and decorated with certain items (e.g. a US postage stamp cancelled with their thumbprint in red ink) with various governments, they can largely ignore laws, and courts cannot prosecute them. As a review of court cases involving SovCits and FOTLs will show, they are always wrong.
No, they are easy to understand. Here’s a handy primer:
Meads v. Meads, 2012 ABQB 571.
It’s a large PDF, but well-worth reading, if you want to understand SovCits and FOTLs.
No, I did not mean to imply that they are not easy to understand. After all, their ideas reflect enough intellect to not eat laundry soap and to wipe their butts after crapping, but not much more (cf their great success at the Malheur Wildlife Preserve). It is the elaborate nonsense they subscribe to that is nightmarish to explore. I have only gone just far enough to get a really good idea of where their heads are at, but I have known people like that IRL, and they make me a little uneasy.
If it’s on the driver’s side it means you’re cum-thirsty. This is what I’ve heard. If on the passenger side it means you are the rotisserie - I don’t even know what that is! If it’s lashed to a pole with non-flexible nylon cordage and skewed at an angle, then it means you are up for all-male group cuddling. That’s a thing now.
The last time I vacationed in the US (circa 1995) I was in Hilton Head. There was a parade of pickup trucks with confederate flags driving up and down the island, many yelling racial epithets. (IIRC they were protesting a move to take the confederate flag down from a state building)
Since that time I’ve taken my vacation dollars to the Caribbean.
These flag wavers are mostly trumps base. Supporting a man that shows the ultimate disrespect for the US, the constitution and what we stand for.
The first time I saw this phenomenon was when GHW Bush led the coalition to kick Iraq out of Kuwait. That was 1990. Even here in ultra-liberal NorCal you’d see quite a few such trucks.
There has been a slight uptick recently, but nothing like what we saw back then. At least here.
It’s a form of virtue signaling. Not so different than putting a political slogan bumper sticker on your car. It’s just bigger and “badder”.
Do you mind sharing the context(s) in which you’ve met 99% of the Tea Partiers you’ve ever met? And apropos of nothing in particular, do you self-identify as a Tea Partier?
Various political events over the years (state / county conventions, caucus meetings, at the Capitol during the legislative session, etc.) And not particularly (to the self-identified question), but I sympathize enough with enough of their ideals that I suspect most here would lump me in with them.
Perhaps it’s just our Utah variety that are non-menacing?
I’ve wanted to start a website called the Pink White and Blue where people can post pictures of worn out flags along with the address or business name but I’m too lazy.
Around this area, the flags flying from trucks are an easy way to identify people I don’t want to associate with. Usually accompanied with confederate flags, don’t tread on me flags, american redoubt stickers, molon labe stickers, etc. I live in prepper-central. Half the population is dying for the day the SHTF.
That’s the state flag of Jefferson … or one of the options … our state legislature in Redding hasn’t decided yet … of course they have to wait until they’re seated and that can’t happen until we have an election but that can’t happen until WE THROW OFF THE BINDING CHAINS OF THAT EVIL SALEM/SACRAMENTO AXIS OF EVIL … (them bastards) …
Let’s back up a bit … we have to consider that type of person who would drive around in a pick-up in the first place … sure, farmers and contractors have the need … but most people who drive pick-ups do so “for that look” … these drivers want you to think they go out running sand dunes, swamps and up vertical granite cliffs … in spite them being in mid-town Queens … way way back in the 20th Century, we called these types “drug store cowboys” … folks who wouldn’t know which side of a horse to climb up on …
Now we have people driving these rigs with 2 cubic yards of cargo space with absolutely nothing better to haul than an American flag … just pathetic … nine out of ten of these MORONS don’t even know about writing off the depreciation on IRS Form 4562 … pfffft … nothing says PATRIOTISM better than flinging a BMW Z3 down the Interstate at 135 mph …
Maybe a flag is just a flag? What about if an American flag is flown from the front of one’s house?
A flag in front of a house is okay I guess. I wouldn’t do it, but I don’t assume those who do are assholes, like the assholes who drive around with one in the back of their pick-up.
People who do things differently from me are assholes. I thought everyone knew that!
All generalizations are not true, including this one.
I have a pickup and am neither a contractor nor a farmer. Mine does not have a United States flag in it nor do I want people to think I ‘go out running sand dunes, swamps and up vertical granite cliffs’. They are very handy vehicles for hauling stuff and, since I live in snow country, the four-wheel drive also comes in pretty handy.
Plus, I do know which side of a horse to climb up on. 
The crew operating the big machine at work hung a flag vertically off the upper catwalk rail. About 8’ long I think it was, put it up there in the fall of '01 and it stayed there for years. It seemed like a slightly intimidating thing there. It kind of said America! Fuck Yeah! And if you don’t like it, don’t be comin’ round here with your pansy-ass liberal whining. When people make a big patriotism display like that, they are not interested in discussion, just never criticize America, unless it is to denigrate the librools.
It’s a founding principle of politics.
I put flag up at home on special days. I don’t have a pickup truck. I have a Jeep Grand Cherokee and I have a 3’ x 5’ flag pole that mounts on the trailer hitch receiver. I sometimes ride (motorcycle) and drive in Patriot Guard ceremonial processions, such as when Jon Hancock, a combat Marine who had suffered from PTSD and other combat stress-contributing maladies, finished his walk across the USA. I was there with him at this web picture, https://goo.gl/images/KaXtFG, and then a couple of hours later we escorted him by motorcade onto Camp Pendleton where he finished his circuitous walk from Maryland.
I had met Hancock serendipitously a few months before while on vacation in Washington and Oregon.
We welcomed him when he arrived in San Francisco, and had a nice well-attended dinner at the Marines’ Memorial Club, and then later drove south when he finished his 5,800 mile walk. I know this lady (another gImage), she is a friend of mine and that’s her son on the back of her jacket: camp pendleton jon hancock finishes walk - Google Search. He died in Iraq, 2004. I can’t find any gImages of the motorcade, but if you see a white Grand Cherokee with a big flag on it, that’s me. The motorcade looked grand! It was a nice welcome home for Hancock. We were just ahead of him in this pic: http://www.1stmardiv.marines.mil/Photos.aspx?igphoto=2001681164.
Didn’t mean to hijack…
The flag, it’s a celebratory, patriotic thing for me. I have seen some pickups with their flags on them, like the OP states. But I’ve seen these for years, about 10-15 years ago is when I saw the first one. They have motorcycle mounts for them too, for the 3’ x 5’ flags, but I don’t have one. Yet.
So these pickup drivers, are they country bumkin bumbfuck hick types? I’ve only met a few, when I rode in some PGR rides, and they were country, whereas I am not, and they were nice, pleasant folk.
I feel like I’m missing out. Is prepper-central in Idaho, or Montana (if your PERSEC doesn’t foreclose the possibility of sharing your state)?