# England, my England **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 19, 2006, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/england-my-england/361257 "2006-06-19T05:09:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2006, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/england-my-england/361257/21 "2006-06-19T15:22:14Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] To my mind, the easiest thing would be to replace the blue of the bottom half with the Welsh of the green half. Then the Scots would get peeved no doubt though… [/QUOTE] Later on I might write this in English. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2006, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/england-my-england/361257/22 "2006-06-19T15:32:39Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] Later on I might write this in English. [/QUOTE] What, when you’ve slept off a few units? ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2006, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/england-my-england/361257/23 "2006-06-19T17:12:21Z")
[QUOTE=slaphead] I’ll hazard a guess that this started out as the police advising landlords not to hang up england flags for fear of attracting lots of noisy football supporters who will annoy the local residents at chucking-out time (prompting anguished letters to the Daily Mail about “drunken yoobos ruining the country”) and a process of chinese whispers turned it into a “Oh noes - teh BROWN PERIL!!!11!!11” scare story. [/QUOTE] _CHINESE_ Whispers??!!!??!!!1!!!1one!!eleven!!???!!eleventy-one!!11!!? Dude, you are SO gonna get it now. \*Disclaimer: the above is intended in jest. It is a joke. If you needed to read this disclaimer to understand that I made a joke, plase understand that it is not intended to be a whoosh. Please don’t tell **DrDeth** on me. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_Wright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Steve\_Wright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_Wright)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2006, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/england-my-england/361257/24 "2006-06-19T17:31:19Z")
[QUOTE=Angua] Its not all that long ago, and certainly within my living memory, that the St George’s Cross was a **huge** symbol of the BNP and other associated racists. As a young English-Indian girl in the late 80s and early 90s, I instinctively would cross the road/move away from anywhere or anyone sporting the flag; the connotations of the flag were out and out racism. Fortunately, its now more socially acceptable, and the Cross of St George has been reclaimed from the racists and white supremacists, but for the older Asian/Muslim generation, it does still stir up some uneasiness. [/QUOTE] Yup … I’m not a great football fan, myself (and I don’t like the way it sprawls all over the TV schedules, to the detriment of stuff I _do_ want to watch), but credit where credit is due; it’s the publicity campaigns for the England football team over the past few years that have gone a long way to reclaiming this national symbol from the racists and neo-fascists … ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2006, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/england-my-england/361257/25 "2006-06-19T18:38:15Z")
[QUOTE=chowder] I only posted what I had been told [/QUOTE] Last week a co-worker told me that the gas chambers at Auschwitz had been built by the Russians years after the end of World War II, and that anybody caught talking about it in the United States or Canada would be deported. Naturally, I immediately posted it everywhere as if it were true. After all, somebody told me it was. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2006, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/england-my-england/361257/26 "2006-06-19T18:39:16Z")
[QUOTE=Cervaise] Last week a co-worker told me that the gas chambers at Auschwitz had been built by the Russians years after the end of World War II, and that anybody caught talking about it in the United States or Canada would be deported. [/QUOTE] (This actually happened, for what it’s worth.) ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2006, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/england-my-england/361257/27 "2006-06-19T18:54:22Z")
[QUOTE=Cervaise] (This actually happened, for what it’s worth.) [/QUOTE] Someone actually told you that, or you actually believe that that’s what happened? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2006, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/england-my-england/361257/28 "2006-06-19T19:05:13Z")
[QUOTE=Angua] Cross of St George has been reclaimed from the racists and white supremacists, [/QUOTE] I don’t suppose they left an operator’s manual when they did this? There’s a flag in my location that could use this treatment. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2006, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/england-my-england/361257/29 "2006-06-19T22:28:31Z")
[QUOTE=Smeghead] Someone actually told you that, or you actually believe that that’s what happened? [/QUOTE] Obviously, because somebody told me, I have no choice but to believe it. Right? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2006, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/england-my-england/361257/30 "2006-06-19T22:36:27Z")
[QUOTE=Cervaise] Obviously, because somebody told me, I have no choice but to believe it. Right? 😉 [/QUOTE] This part of the universal “bloke said” rule. This rule is even more powerful than “they say”. In fact, only one thing tops “bloke said”, and that’s the subset “bloke down pub said”. The OP is already mostly covered by “bloke said”, but since the conversation described took place in a pub, I’m afraid it must be taken as unarguable. ---
**Author:** ![Angua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8baadc/32.png) [@Angua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angua)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2006, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/england-my-england/361257/31 "2006-06-20T07:06:30Z")
[QUOTE=Slithy Tove] I don’t suppose they left an operator’s manual when they did this? There’s a flag in my location that could use this treatment. [/QUOTE] Football, aka soccer. I think it was the 1994 European Cup that there was a huge marketing campaign, using the St George’s Cross as the basis of all merchandise and marketing. It worked really rather well. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2006, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/england-my-england/361257/32 "2006-06-20T07:26:47Z")
[QUOTE=Angua] Football, aka soccer. I think it was the 1994 European Cup that there was a huge marketing campaign, using the St George’s Cross as the basis of all merchandise and marketing. It worked really rather well. [/QUOTE] It was Euro 96, and you’re right. The match against Scotland at Wembley helped, because that’s when fans really started drowning the stadium in flags. ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2006, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/england-my-england/361257/33 "2006-06-20T15:14:30Z")
[QUOTE=Una Persson] Fierra bought me an English flag a while ago, and I didn’t fly it because a couple Americans I spoke to said it “looked like an Aryan Nations flag”. Given how jaw-droppingly stupid the average person is and the monstrous chip some people have on their shoulder over racism or suspected racism, I’d be afraid to fly a giant white flag with a red cross here, as I’d possibly come home to a smoking pile of rubble. [/QUOTE] > [@Angua](#): > > Its not all that long ago, and certainly within my living memory, that the St George’s Cross was a huge symbol of the BNP and other associated racists. As a young English-Indian girl in the late 80s and early 90s, I instinctively would cross the road/move away from anywhere or anyone sporting the flag; the connotations of the flag were out and out racism. > > Fortunately, its now more socially acceptable, and the Cross of St George has been reclaimed from the racists and white supremacists, but for the older Asian/Muslim generation, it does still stir up some uneasiness. So are these two things connected? Did American white supremacists borrow the St. George flag from the BNP folks, or use something similar? ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2006, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/england-my-england/361257/34 "2006-06-20T15:22:36Z")
[QUOTE=Cervaise] Obviously, because somebody told me, I have no choice but to believe it. Right? 😉 [/QUOTE] Whoa! There is, in my mind at least, a distinct difference between bringing an Urban Legend to the attention of Assembled Doperdom for review and if appropriate debunking, and the credulous perasseveration of patent glurge. **Chowder** was told something that sounded weird. He inquired about it in IMHO; things got a little nasty, and **Czarcasm** empittified it. Don’t repeat that story too often, though. Paul Verhoeven will buy the rights to _The Raoul Wallenburg Story_ and use that for the plot. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2006, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/england-my-england/361257/35 "2006-06-20T16:41:48Z")
[QUOTE=dangermom] So are these two things connected? Did American white supremacists borrow the St. George flag from the BNP folks, or use something similar? [/QUOTE] No, I’m pretty sure he’s describing the Confederate Navy Jack, sometimes called the “Confederate Flag”. Many southerners maintain that its use has no racist intent but instead symbolizes the South - a point tough to argue with given that it was flown on Confederate battle ships for two whole years, and thus is obviously the logical choice of a symbol for the South. But it has been used for quite a long time by racist groups. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2006, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/england-my-england/361257/36 "2006-06-20T17:06:01Z")
[QUOTE=Excalibre] No, I’m pretty sure he’s describing the Confederate Navy Jack, sometimes called the “Confederate Flag”. Many southerners maintain that its use has no racist intent but instead symbolizes the South - a point tough to argue with given that it was flown on Confederate battle ships for two whole years, and thus is obviously the logical choice of a symbol for the South. But it has been used for quite a long time by racist groups. [/QUOTE] Actually, there is an [Aryan Nations flag](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan_Nation), but it doesn’t look anything like the St. George’s Cross. Anyone confusing the two is just as likely to mistake anything for an Aryan Nation’s flag, like mailboxes, or small dogs. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2006, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/england-my-england/361257/37 "2006-06-20T17:17:20Z")
[QUOTE=Miller] Actually, there is an [Aryan Nations flag](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan_Nation), but it doesn’t look anything like the St. George’s Cross. Anyone confusing the two is just as likely to mistake anything for an Aryan Nation’s flag, like mailboxes, or small dogs. [/QUOTE] I found that burnt onto a tortilla once. The other side had St. Englebert of Cologne. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2006, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/england-my-england/361257/38 "2006-06-20T17:46:49Z")
[QUOTE=Excalibre] No, I’m pretty sure he’s describing the Confederate Navy Jack, sometimes called the “Confederate Flag”. [/QUOTE] Una and Angua (neither of whom are ‘he’) were talking about the [English flag](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_England), not the [Confederate Jack](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_Naval_Jack#The_Navy_Jack_.28colloquially_called_the_.22Rebel_Flag.22.29). As Miller said, the former doesn’t look like the only Aryan Nation flag I can find. I did find a KKK flag that’s a white cross on a red circle on a red field, which I suppose could be what Una’s associates are confusing it with. Or they could just think ‘large fields of white? Must be racist!’ ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2006, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/england-my-england/361257/39 "2006-06-20T17:56:40Z")
[QUOTE=Tengu] Una and Angua (neither of whom are ‘he’) were talking about the [English flag](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_England), not the [Confederate Jack](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_Naval_Jack#The_Navy_Jack_.28colloquially_called_the_.22Rebel_Flag.22.29). As Miller said, the former doesn’t look like the only Aryan Nation flag I can find. I did find a KKK flag that’s a white cross on a red circle on a red field, which I suppose could be what Una’s associates are confusing it with. Or they could just think ‘large fields of white? Must be racist!’ [/QUOTE] I was talking about **Slithy Tove** ’s reference to the Confederate flag. It seems that I got confused and misinterpreted **dangermom** ’s post as responding to that. So yeah, you might wanna ignore my post - it appears that it made no sense whatsoever. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Clam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3bc359/32.png) [@Happy\_Clam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Clam)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2006, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/england-my-england/361257/40 "2006-06-20T18:24:41Z")
[QUOTE=Tengu] Una and Angua (neither of whom are ‘he’) were talking about the [English flag](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_England), not the [Confederate Jack](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_Naval_Jack#The_Navy_Jack_.28colloquially_called_the_.22Rebel_Flag.22.29). As Miller said, the former doesn’t look like the only Aryan Nation flag I can find. I did find a KKK flag that’s a white cross on a red circle on a red field, which I suppose could be what Una’s associates are confusing it with. Or they could just think ‘large fields of white? Must be racist!’ [/QUOTE] Well, in all fairness, it does have a red cross, is an explicitly Christian symbol, and was used in the Crusades (or a varient was used, anyway). But I agree that what the OP is describing sounds like rubbish. No offence, but I know lots of patriotic Muslims, and even the most vitriolic extremists aren’t stupid enough to mistake a St. George’s flag for a sign saying “Death to Moslem Pigs”. So many of these “PC madness” stories are concealed left-, black-, brown- or queer-bashing that I simply ignore them these days. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/england-my-england/361257.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/england-my-england/361257.md?page=3)