My husband bought a couple of Ravens Superbowl Champion car flags a few years ago and I had mine on for exactly one day. The constant flap-flap-flapping drove me nuts. When I see people with several car flags (American flags and various sports team flags), I don’t know how they stand the noise.
I’ve seen people in pick-up trucks with huge flags mounted in the truck bed and wondered if it was even legal. It looks dangerous, and it seems like a distraction. They’re usually at a bit of an angle, and trailing out of the back of the truck bed. It seems like that would violate the flag code as well.
Actually I believe there is a memorial of sorts, or at the veyr least a plaque listing the names of the flight crew and passengers and telling what happened. People have also left flowers, messages etc.
Super-tacky. I live near NYC, and I see a lot of WTC stuff… people still sell postcards of it, and they still sell ballcaps and sweatshirts and things. It was one thing shortly after the event. Not that it was un-tacky, just that you could understand the emotion. Two years after the fact, it’s morbid and tacky profiteering. I sure hope tourists aren’t coming to New York and buying that junk.
Thank you for pointing this out, DesertDog. I hadn’t even thought about that. My grandfather, a World War Two veteran, would be shocked and angered by this were he still with us.
It may have been a pointless gesture, but I decided to email the company selling that flag. I’ll post their reply if they do reply. This is what I wrote in my email:
I was born and raised in Cuba, and finally made it to this country in 1976, and the bicentennial madness of that year probably colored my perception of American patriotism.
bayonet1976, good to have people like you here. Thanks for your sentiments; I agree with all of them.
I can’t say if its tacky or not but it is a kick in the stomach to me. It is on par with war profiteering in my book. There is a horror in 9/11 that does NOT deserve to be commercialized and mass produced.
And we all know how empty gestures of patriotism ALWAYS win wars and made the bad guys go away crying…
shakes head sadly
That site looks like a kitchen table operation. One page poorly done and then they want your credit card number on a non-secure connection. Yeah, sure I’m going to give you my credit card number. It looks like a scam more than anything else. if you do get a flag it’s probably made in China by political prisoners.
Maybe three months ago, in stop-and-go freeway traffic, I saw a truck towing a horse trailer, with a giant flag hanging off the back of the trailer. When I say “giant,” I mean it was attached at the top edge of the trailer, and the bottom corner was a foot off the ground. And when I say “hanging off the back,” I mean there wasn’t a flagpole; they’d attached one corner to the top edge and the other corner maybe halfway down the rear door somewhere, so the whole thing was a limp, soggy mass against the back of the trailer. The bottom edge was tattered and frayed, and the whole lower half was stained and discolored with muddy road spray. It was absolutely one of the most disgraceful things I’d ever seen, and is, to me, the quintessential example of the person who is unclear on the concept of patriotism.
I don’t have a problem with stores that sell patriotic stuff, or with (most) of the people who manufacture them. The “flag” linked to in the OP would be one of the exceptions: it’s ghoulish in the way that the knives and cigarette lighters depicting the towers aflame were. Apart from that, though, the aggregate may seem a bit overwhelming, but taken individually, most of the products are tasteful.
My problem is with some of the consumers. Here’s a hint, folks: just because your local Sav-On or whatever has twenty different stars-and-stripes tchotchkes on display, that doesn’t mean you have to buy each and every one of them! It’s not gonna make Binny go away; it’s not gonna bring back any of the 9/11 victims, and it’s not gonna make our government or military more powerful. Just get one, preferably something simple and to the point. Like one t-shirt or bumper sticker with a picture of the flag and the slogan “These Colors Don’t Run”.
But if your vehicle is plastered with red, white and blue, and pro-American-anti-everyone-else propaganda, and a (or more than one) tattered flag, plus if you have a “#3” sticker in there somewhere, that negates the power of the message.
MidnightRadio, I’m glad you informed them of that! You may not have been the only one, either! Wonder what’ll happen to their “enterprise”?
I actually found the site through a piece of email spam, so yeah…
#3 sticker? What’s that?
Honestly, I doubt anything will happen. I can’t really see them reading my email and saying, “By golly, he’s right! We’d better take this site down right away and refund money to those who’ve placed orders that haven’t shipped yet!”
As of 3:00 in the morning, Central Time, they still haven’t written back to me. Of course, I didn’t specifically mention in my email that I wanted them to reply – which I realize now was a mistake – so they may not feel the need to.
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Honoring Dale Earnhardt, whose racing number was 3. Again, not something I have a problem with in and of itself, but last year, someone pitted an anonymous driver whose vehicle had bumper stickers commemorating 9/11 and Earnhardt, placed side by side, as if the two losses were analogous.
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Well, I didn’t mean I thought anything would happen because of your, or any random consumer’s, e-mail. But perhaps the site will come to the attention, if it hasn’t already, of someone who has the power to shut down their enterprise.
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Again, I’d be surprised if they did. They’re probably not in it for the long haul, but knew going in that their product is in violation of the flag code, and just hoped to get as many orders as possible before cease-and-desist. No need to reply to e-mails when the site probably won’t be there on Monday.
It’ll only have to be taken down if it’s based in a state whose flag law it violates. The Flag Code imposes no civil or criminal penalties for those who flout its guidelines. Although the Code is indeed a Public Law, its essential function is that of an etiquette primer.
There was recently a fight around here over whether or not county prison guards should be allowed to wear American flag pins. Eventually it was ruled that they could.
I don’t understand the fight, since one newspaper story reported that their uniforms have had an American flag shoulder patch for almost 20 years now.
I really didn’t think I’d ever have anything else to add to this thread, but I checked my email today was surprised to find a response to the email I wrote two months ago to the company selling the flag.
“Great gift idea”
Isn’t that just a really bad idea? You know the greatest disaster your country ever faced? Well, here’s a representation of it defacing your country’s proudest symbol. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
*Well, I got my window shield so filled
With flags I couldn’t see.
So, I ran the car upside a curb
And right into a tree.
By the time they got a doctor down
I was already dead.
And I’ll never understand why the man
Standing in the Pearly Gates said…
But yer flag decal won’t get you
Into Heaven anymore
They’re already overcrowded from
Your dirty little war,
Now Jesus don’t like killin’
No matter what the reasons for
And yer flag decal won’t get you
Into Hea-veeeen anymore…*
—John Prine, Flag Decal