Agreed.
The headline of the OP and the article is extremely misleading.
Basically just another case of dumb college kids doing the dumb things kids do in college and inspiring recreational outrage.
Give them 6 to 10 years and these college kids students be homeowners. They’ll join the HOA board and make life miserable for everybody with their stupid proclamations. Idiots like this never change.
You mean like Ronald Reagan?
Do you actually think that a small group of ignorant kids on one college campus represents the views of this incredibly diverse State? You are one dumbass mother fucker.
Well said.
Especially amazing is how many conservatives, even those who actually live in California and should therefore know better, seem to think that the whole state consists of Marin County, Berkeley, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, the campus of UC Santa Barbara, and some areas of West LA.
UC Irvine is ranked 42 in US News’ list of national universities, which isn’t bad. But if I’m reading this properly, this latest conservative outrage was decided by a committee of the student council. Not the student council itself. It doesn’t seem to reflect any sort of upswell among the student body. And as tomndebb referenced this allegedly tyrannous mandate applied to an office lobby.
New Hampshire is number 42 in population. I suspect that their subcommittee in charge of office decoration has not received this level of scrutiny.
Perhaps it’s because I’m not American. But I find the student’s decision to be pretty reasonable, in all honesty.
And, by and large, were I asked to look on this situation and asked to decide who the jackasses were…
… I believe the (in theory) adult writer who decided the best reaction to all this would be to cast aspersions on the patriotism of those he’d disagree with, invite them to leave the country over the matter, and lightheartedly joke about physical repercussions for taking down a flag, would rate rather higher.
Sounds to me like we have a troll in student government. He makes a stupid argument for flag removal, and actually gets a majority to sign on.
The colonialism thing? Okay, I know people who say that. But the idea that freedom of speech (in the form of flags) could be seen as hate speech? Dude is making fun of anti-hate-speech legislation.
Please allow me to prep my next statement by saying I’m not comparing the US flag to what I’m about to bring up.
I could imagine that freedom of speech in the form of a flag of a big black swastika on white on a red field could be seen as hate speech.
I think your point is a little too general.
BTW, removal vetoed by the Executive Committee 4-1. Flag may go back up.
Yeah, really. Now, ideally this should be a learning moment as to how half-understood concepts about how things should be have a hard time standing up to how things are if you back them up with the sort of justification that people will shake their heads at. However…
… this is nearly inevitable if the only lesson learned is “try to get into a position where there’s nobody who can veto me”.
But, but… you don’t understand, it’s the flag! It should be just unimaginable to do such a thing! There must be something horribly wrong for even the thought to cross someone’s mind, and even more horribly wrong that the first person to propose it was not rode out of town on a rail and that it was even brought to a vote! Did you get that? They brought it up to a vote instead of tarring and feathering the proponent! That alone should bring condemnation!
…Or something like that. Now the Republicans in the California legislature are proposing a &^%$#@ State Constitutional Amendment to ensure the US flag may not be excluded from any part of any school that gets state funds (*). Great job, kid.
(*OT: C’mon California, enough with making every pet cause a matter for constitutional amendment. You’ve made the ballot question system a bloody joke.)
Good news for creative graffiti artists. Scrawl what you want on a photocopy of an American flag and wheatpaste it everywhere on campus. No university employee may remove it.
Here’s a fun take on that story, that I recall seeing in the news some 20 or 30 years ago:
Y’know how used car lots are often decorated with strings of little colored flags, like this? (Okay, so that photo is black-and-white, but it’s the best I could find.)
Well, it seems that some cities prefer to pass local ordinances banning “festive” displays like that, because, uh, “festive” I guess. So one clever used car dealer replaced all the strings of little colored flags with strings of little U.S. flags! What city would want to be the one to tell its used car dealers that they can’t proudly display the American Flag?
Update on the story: http://www.chancellor.uci.edu/about/writings-and-remarks/2015/150308-statement-on-asuci-actions.html
I’ve already said that i think that the original resolution was stupid, and i thought it should be overturned, but i’m interested in the Chancellor’s understanding of the principle of representative government:
So, the resolution was passed by a 6-4 vote, and this was therefore an unrepresentative “small sub-set” of student government.
But then the resolution was vetoed. He doesn’t say how many people it took to veto the resolution, but according to this story, it was a 4-1 vote in favor of the veto.
I’m curious about a theory of representation that is willing to condemn an action as unrepresentative on the grounds that it was undertaken by 6 people, but will then, in the next breath, praise a decision by 4 people as speaking for the whole campus community.
The real tragedy here is not that a few students didn’t something idealistic but stupid. It’s that it’s yet more fodder for those who actually believe the exaggerated stereotypes about liberals, universities, and so forth.
Conversely, the fact that these imbeciles will be reined in may indicate that California may finally be coming around to sanity. 
That was pretty much my reaction. Plus, it’s UC. You sort of expect this from UC. Doesn’t have to be Berkeley all the time.
I guess, if you interpret it that way, but it’s not what I meant. I’m referring to the claim that the freedom of speech can itself be considered a form of hate speech. That was actually what he said. He didn’t say “some flags might be seen as hate speech.”
I mean, what you say is true, just based on what said flags represent. But we were talking about the flags of countries here. And saying the flag of a country is hate speech is saying that the country (or at least its government) is bigoted.
Though, while you might be able to get by with a North Korean flag if you also have every other country represented, having a flag for ISIS might be a problem. Still isn’t hate speech, though.
BTW, thanks for not just calling my post stupid and actually giving me a chance to explain what I meant.
There are more sea lion attacks in California than attacks by the California Grizzly, the bear depicted on the flag. Grizzlies are extinct in California. Sea lions are ubiquitous and quite territorial.
As for the pearl clutching of the OP, I have to say I’m shocked, just shocked, that college students smoking weed on a committee would do such a thing. I hoped someone explained to them that this committee vote would go on their permanent records before they did it. I’m glad it was “vetoed” or otherwise overruled.
The problem I have with this idea is that it seems to me as though connecting negative matters with a country’s flag is at least as reasonable as connecting positive ones. The original article’s writer invokes the US military’s noble actions as being part and parcel of what the US flag represents, but if that’s so, then we also have to accept that it represents those actions undertaken by criminal or unethical US soldiers. If it represents the men and women who died fighting for freedom, it also represents My Lai. Saying the flag of a country is hate speech depends on the interpretation and context of that symbol, but so too does veneration, and* that *side of things seems to be well-accepted by many.
In other news, fraternity brothers at the University of Oklahoma have been kicked out of their fraternity house for doing stupid shit!