I have lived in the US for 40 something years and have never seen anyone with a pledge or flag fetish.
But we do go somewhat overboard w/ our outdoor kitsch, and in the summer you may see lawn ornaments from dressed ducks to villages of gnomes with all other kinds of tacky colorful yard accessories that include, flags (prayer flags, seasonal flags, buntings, flag flags), banners, streamers, windsocks, windvanes, windchimes, statues, fountains. And don’t forget our sports team flags and state flags that fly more than the US flag imo.
I hope by simply displaying my countries flag I haven’t fallen into this group. What the hell is this country coming to anyway, displaying you’re nations flag in a proper manner gets labeled as someone who has a “fleg fetish”?
I’m going to have to just go ahead and say KISS MY ASS! Pointy headed mother fuckers. I’ll fly my countries flag with pride and you all can pound sand.
I don’t think anyone has a Forest Law Enforcement and Governance fetish.
Anyway, if you read the whole thread you’d see that we’re using “flag fetish” as a shorthand for “liking flags”. Nobody is suggesting that the American practice of flying a flag from one’s home is bizarre or scary - just that it’s a little weird, especially to foreigners.
The OP never actually really embellished on what she actually meant by Flag fetish.
I would assume it would be a lot more that just some people flying them outside their house.
I would think it’s the totality of the whole thing. From an Irish and British POV all of the below seem quite strange
Flying a flag outside your house as a general practice(no just on event days eg paddy’s day
Knowing what the proper manner actually even means
Flags in the background of a lot of news programs etc.
People* debating about the importance of the flag
People* wanting it to be illegal to desecrate the flag
People* caring if someone wears a flag pin
Wearing a flag pin
The flag seeming more important in general to the general population that at home
People over reacting to small comments about the flag
People = some people, even a small minority. These people/debates/concerns simply do not exist over here.
There are many other things that I could mention but I think you get the idea. From a foreign perspective it all just seems strange. The OP just said that she felt slightly uncomfortable with it all. Not that you should stop what you’re doing or that it is inherently wrong. Just that it was strange to her. That’s the sum total of it.
The rest is just people projecting their own bullshit on it or simply arguing for argument sake.
Now you(plural) can go and take my post and turn it into something that it’s not if you want but it won’t change the fact that we do see some cultural differences as strange. The same way that if you lived her you’d find some things strange e.g. Our cultural attitude to alcohol.
I find your insistence on lying about my positions, in the face of things I’ve said like this:
to be repugnant and a sign that you are an untrustworthy person.
You either have a personal problem with me that transcends what you’re letting on to, or you’re fucking psychotic. If there’s a third option that I’m not seeing, please try to convince me of it, but don’t keep reiterating your same bullshit, because right now you’re lying. And while loudly accusing me of being a liar. How disgusting.
OK so taking the millions of variables out of the mess. The OP gave a specific example.
Is telling your foreign friends a few issues you have with their country, a country you have lived in for a year, when they ask you for your opinion rude?
In my opinion, it can be, especially in public. It depends on exactly what you say and how you say it. Accusing the whole country of having any kind of fetish is definitely going down the wrong road. Your opinion may be different. We’re allowed to disagree, you know.
Boy scouts? Yep. I was in them. Flag care? No. Fires, camping etc. It’s not part of our culture whatsoever.
I was listening to the most popular radio show in the morning a few weeks ago and he actually got a mail from an American(internet) listener asking the proper way to dispose of a tattered Irish flag that he flew. Nobody knew the answer until a guy from the army phoned in and gave the answer as he had to do it as part of his job.
… how many pages/posts into this thread? That is certainly NOT how you started your part of the discussion and it reeks of backpedaling.
I also think that a forum such as this is every bit as much a public place as a bar - yet you have absolutely no inhibitions at being a screeching harpy here, which makes me wonder just how polite you really are in real life.
It is not “psychotic” to distrust people who openly say they’d lie rather than give an honest opinion because they feel it’s more important to be false and polite than tell the truth. It’s common sense.
You’re right, I was very insulting towards pdts at first because s/he made an annoying OP and told me “fuck you” when I called him/her out on it. If you had bothered to read the thread, though, that’s been maybe 10-20% of my posts here.
Online interactions are completely different than personal ones. If you haven’t grasped that by now you need to log off more often.
See, this is where you’re being obtuse. You accuse me of “openly saying I’d rather lie”? Fuck you. You’re still out of line.
I am conscious of the fact that the text I am responding to represents a real human being sitting at a keyboard. While there are fewer non-verbal nuances than face-to-face communication, the idea that the internet is some sort of “special” place with radically different standards of acceptable conduct is skewed.
Of course, unlike people who insist on lying to others in order to be “polite” I am certain my face-to-face interactions are actually occurring on an honest playing field - something, apparently, I could never be sure of with you. You have stated that you would rather lie than than tell me the truth if I ask your opinion. Why in the hell would I want anything to do with such a deceitful person, either face to face or on line?
Yes - you’ve stated that you would not render an honest opinion even if you were directly asked for one. How is that NOT lying?
If “being in line” means being a liar then I am happy to be out of line and I will remain so.
My friends got pretty uncomfortable when they invited me over after having freshly painted the living room in a really god-awful shade of purple. But hey, I gotta figure it’s their own damned fault when they ask me what I think of it considering the look on my face should have been sufficient. And all I said was “I’m sorry, I don’t like it. All I can think of is Grape Ape! Grape Ape!”
I can’t express how stunned I was to discover that not only was there a correct way to care and store for an American flag, but that people who didn’t do it for a living (soldiers with ceremonial duties, etc.) actually knew what that way was.
“This living room has been graped by the grapist!”
You’re really still whistling this tune? Goddamn you’re a dishonest, full-of-shit, psychotic bitch. I hope to god I never meet your crazy ass in real life. You will get get to see exactly how fast I can run. Now go shove your namesake up your ass and don’t ever again address me on this board with the expectation of getting a response.
Speaking of ignorant children or trolls with an agenda (is there any other kind?), hows about you admit you were pulling assertions out of your lower colon when you said that flag use at Irish post offices was analogous to that at U.S. post offices? Both myself and yojimbo have corrected your baldfaced mendacity on this matter, and yet rather than having the class to admit you were in error, you’d prefer to take a niggling little shot at the departing OP.
We had a flag in my scout group. “Flown” indoors, put up at the start of each meeting and taken down at the end. No proper flag care or anything like that. I do vaguely remember being told how to tell which way up it was, but thats it.
