I voted 0, it’s just a piece of cloth. All the same, I don’t like seeing people fly them in obvious disrepair, it’s just aesthetically unpleasing.
I also dislike businesses that feel compelled to fly super de-dooper huge ass flags as if to say “hooray for us! look how patriotic we are!”
I’m a lot less offended by people burning the flag as I am by politicians that make speeches next to flags while proposing vote-rigging, voter disenfranchisement, or wanting to rape the treasury on behalf of the wealthy.
I like to think that I have a moderate point of view concerning the flag. I also have a sense of patriotism, however, and I cannot stand to see someone burning or otherwise deliberately destroying the flag. If it’s ‘just a piece of cloth,’ why don’t they just burn an old bedsheet instead?
Remember Rick Monday taking the flag two radicals wanted to burn in the outfield at Dodger Stadium? The fans cheered him, and when he came up to bat in the next half-inning he got a standing ovation (and the message board said, “Rick Monday, you made a great play!”).
I used to work as a security guard at a government buidling, so on weekdays I would raise or lower the flag, depending on my shift. The agency gave me simple rules for this, and I handled the U. S. flag, the California flag, and the agency flag (The Los Angeles County Office of Education) accordingly; this included not flying them on holidays or in inclement weather.
If I lived in a house with a flagpole in the yard, I would most likely only fly a flag on the holidays, unless the weather were bad. I would not fly one that is dirty or torn, or oversized, just your average flag.
And I would NOT fly a flag made in Taiwan, or made anywhere else outside the U. S., whose distinction cannot be seen, unlike dirt or tears, but which I consider even a greater disgrace! :mad:
I voted zero. To me, burning a flag in protest is treating the flag with respect in the sense that the person doing the burning understands completely what the flag represents during their act. They are taking it seriously, as well they should.
When I see flags mistreated, dragged on the ground, tattered and ripped because they have been mounted on the back of a truck, dirty because they are never taken down, etc… I find that level of disrespect reprehensible.
By using it as a means of protest you are inherently recognizing its significance as a symbol of our nation and values. It would be a stupid protest to burn an insignificant object. Moreover the flag stands for freedoms including the right to protest. Therefore protest in any form cannot be disrespectful to the values the flag represents.
On the other hand if you are using the flag self-aggrandizeingly you are already disrespecting it’s significance as a national symbol, to permit it to be displayed in a tattered and dirty condition demonstrates that the displayor considers it an item of no worth meriting no special thought.
To me, it’s right up there with record or book burning. It shows that you’re unable to be succinct or educated enough to maturely espouse your views. But at the same time, it’s your property, do with it as you please.
I just don’t care. It’s a thing. What it symbolises is important but it isn’t that thing and that thing isn’t harmed by the mistreatment of the symbol.
I’m going against the pack here… I voted 4, as being upset by someone who would burn it for no reason, or out of sadness that someone would feel strongly enough about it that they would want to burn the flag… in both cases, it shows a profound lack of communication.
If it’s good enough to make decals and bathing-suits out of, it’s good enough to print on my toilet paper.
Frankly, I think that most people who get worked up about the flag (not saying that it’s anyone in this thread) view the flag not as a symbol of America, but of America-As-It-Exists-In-Their-Imagination; a symbol of a symbol. It stands not just of Democracy, but of a European-derived culture, married and hetero-sexual parents, Jesus, and apple pie. But, the more people project their own private utopia onto the flag, the less universal a symbol it becomes, and the more personal the “disrespect” feels.
I hold flag-burning twits around the world responsible for the collective “meh” response to defacing/disgracing/incinerating/nastyizing of the American flag.
It’s been done so often there’s virtually zero shock factor any more, and people will only react if it precipitates a local air quality alert.
Poorly following flag code when flying it bothers me, all the more when a store is using the flag for marketing purposes (no - I can’t prove that, but it bugs me).
Using the flag for protest reasons bugs me more, mainly because it hurts. I consider it the equivalent of the fighting words issues of the 80s. I am older now, and not as prone to an emotional response - but it really used to piss me off. Today I apply the same rules of Freedom of Speech to flag burning as I do to the Westboro Baptist Church, the Klan, or other assholes who think that they have to step it up a notch to get noticed. You aren’t convincing anyone, and you are turning a lot of us off. But I no longer find myself angry as I was, I just roll my eyes at the idiots out there.
