Pftt. Pfffttttttt. (snicker). Bwaahaaaaaa! Who the fuck are you trying to fool? 
And I agree with everything you said Kam…now that’s scary! :eek:
He’s just lowering the flag to get reelected. Same with the aid. Oh wait…
I’m waiting for the post that accuses Bush of engineering the tsunami to take public attention from Iraq.
I don’t think this is a very interesting GW Bush issue, but it is a fairly interesting issue that I think most people are too busy patting each other on the back to consider much beyond the usual “George Bush: shall we masturbate or gag?” sogn and dance.
Some questions:
- Has the flag been lowered for any other huge natural disasters previous to this?
- Is the flag lowered in respect for ongoing situations like the current disaster in the Congo in which plenty more just as innocent people have died but which recieve little media coverage?
- How would societies of the past commemorate mass casualty events like this?
- Is there some reason that large amounts of death that make great television are more sacred and important and worthy of this particular special ceremony than those that don’t? Does this tell us anything interesting about humanity in general or modern society in specific?
While I certainly wouldn’t want to stop anyone from feeling grandly self-satisfied and especially compasionate by whaling on Chefguy, I do think it’s pretty interesting to consider how traditions and rules evolve over time, and for what reason. There does seem to be an ongoing element of comptetition to outdo past ceremony in our culture that tends to erode the normal context for traditions like flag lowering and tradition itself.
I wonder: would it one day soon make sense to separate the executive powers further and have a national office solely dedicated to leading and arranging national ceremony and telling the nation how it feels about this or that? It seems to me that the once-monarchy nations that are now Democracies have a leg up on us there.
As others have already pointed out, the President can make the decision to lower the flag for other purposes. Also, what “everything that remotely smacks of sentimentality”? Cite?
I am definitely no fan of Bush, but in this situation he is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. I personally think it is a nice gesture to go along with the aid we are sending.
Also, I had a case of food I wanted to get rid of but could not find any organizations that would take anything but money. I tried for 2 days. I ended up donating it to the local food bank.
Not accusing you of making it up but I am truly curious. Who took your goods and what were they?
::yawn::
Well, lessee what the ol’ SDMB is up to this morning. Wha…? What idiot posted this crap about the flag!? D’oh!
I guess I could chalk up this shitstorm over my thread to too much champagne with the family yesterday, but I always take responsibility for my actions. In retrospect, this should have been a thread in GD over the appropriateness of lowering the flag, or perhaps in IMHO.
To those who offered reasoned responses, thank you for being thoughtful. To those who indulged in namecalling and character assassination, well…hopefully, you will never venture an opinion that will subject you to the same abuse.
I suspect what aggravated me about using the flag in this manner was that it’s most likely done as a sop to the critics. I’ve worked in disaster areas (Guatemala in 1976, for one) and can tell you that the victims are too engrossed in their own misery and suffering to care whether the flag is flying at half staff or at all, for that matter.
As a gesture to the masses, it’s pointless. As a tool to help repair three years of alienation with other governments, perhaps it’s a stroke of genius. Since it does no actual harm, I think I’ll just shut up about it now and go on kicking myself for not presenting it in a better forum.
Please carry on with whatever insulting or supportive remarks you care to make.
I engaged in name-calling because I felt you deserved it. A minute or so ago, I saw your post, started to read it, thought I saw some contrition, and I could make some sort of "no harm no foul, water under the bridge"friendly reply.
But now I’m not so sure. Was that an apology or wasn’t it?
I don’t apologize for having an opinion. I apologize for the manner in which it was presented.
Cheers. That’s fair enough. Thank you.
Excellent questions all. “Excellent questions” being defined here, as usual, as “ones to which I don’t have the answer.” 
A web search wasn’t particularly helpful to me, except that of course flags flew at half-staff following 9/11.
I did find an answer to another question which might be considered relevant. The flags of Taiwan, Sweden[sup]1[/sup] and Germany, perhaps among others, are all flying at half-staff. So it’s not like the US is alone here.
Nah. It’s not that important. And it’s not like you go to jail of you disobey the President on this matter. One could fly the flag at full staff today if one chose, and the Green Bay Packers lowered their stadium’s flags to half staff following Reggie White’s death.
[sup]1[/sup]: An aside that I found weird. The Indian Ocean tsunami may turn out to be the largest natural disaster in the history of Sweden. Thailand and Sri Lanka are apparently very popular vacation destinations for the Swedes and nearly 3,000 of them are still missing. That’s lower than it was and further checks will doubtless bring the list down somewhat, but the Prime Minister believes the final death toll of Swedes alone may exceed 1,000. This was truly a tragedy of global scope.
Sorry, forgot to post a link to the Guatemala earthquake to which I alluded. What a mess that was. After the buildings collapsed, people dug caves in the hillsides in which to live. Along came a big aftershock and buried them alive. Many of the churches collapsed, leading the people to believe that the apocalypse had arrived.
You were wrong, though. You based your rant on incomplete information, and you don’t even have the sack to admit it. Sad. (Not that I expect little things like ‘facts’ or ‘technical accuracy’ to get in the way of the anti-Bush crowd, but still…)
And you just try to weasel out of it with a ‘Oh golly it should have been in GD!!!’. Bullshit, motherfucker. You specifically cited a section of rules that you thought supported your ‘The flag must not be flown’ position. Your stupid fucking rant had nothing to do with ‘appropriateness’. Fucking lameass, at least have the stones to issue a proper retraction when you are so damned wrong.
Hmmm…no, I believe my opinion was:
I know that the president can authorize half-staff for whatever reason he deems appropriate. My contention was that this occasion was not appropriate. As noted in my previous post, I concede that perhaps it wasn’t pointless, but pandering nonetheless.
Your childish insults are typical of the ranting right and equally ranting left, but crazies abound in this world. You saying that my opinion is wrong doesn’t make it so. It just means you disagree. Sorry to inform you that you’re not the last word in any discussion, your ego notwithstanding.
Ya. Now you know, disingenuous motherfucker.
I was overseas on 9/11. Transportation and communications were a mess. Much of it had been shut down altogether. No one could get through on the phones. I had no idea if friends who worked in the towers had survived. (They had, thank God.)
I remember walking out of the airport in the evening, after spending all day watching the news in the tiny, crowded snack bar and translating for shell-shocked travelers who couldn’t understand the broadcasts, hashing out the conflicting reports, getting people what they needed from the local workers, none of whom spoke English. We were in a very small place, smack in the middle of nowhere. Most of the people there had been diverted. Many didn’t even know where they were.
The evening was lovely – clear, cool, with the smell of salt and the sweetness of wild grasses and the sound of the implacable ocean. The stars shone and winked as they always had. And I felt more alone than I had in as long as I could recall.
I had not yet cried. I had not had the time.
Above the terminal, I saw a flag, a strange flag which meant nothing to me. But it was flying at half mast, rippling so easily in that gentle late summer breeze. And then I cried. I cried like a child who at last feels a friendly arm around him. I knew I wasn’t alone. That none of us were alone. That someone cared enough, at least, even if they could not give us what we so desperately wanted, to say “We know. We know.”
I believe that’s some powerful perspective that was badly needed here. Thanks for sharing that.
Yawn.
Sample_the_Dog, that was a beautiful post.
Why don’t you go outside and fuck yourself, you heartless cocklicker?
Chefguy, apart from commemorating dead dignitaries, are there any circumstances when you would consider it appropriate to lower the flag?
Okay, I think I see the confusion with Brutus on the previous page. I was actually AGREEING WITH HIM (for once) and disagreeing with the OP. I was merely pointing out what I thought the OP’s argument seemed to be, from what he was saying in subsequent posts. Apparently he thought I was agreeing with the OP, which, as I said, I don’t.
All of that makes more sense now. 