That’s a rather uncharitable and ill-mannered comment. And short-sighted.
If a society is produced by revolution, by definition the revolters were not good citizens of the former society. In relation to that society, they were indeed “criminals, traitors, and maybe (depending on your definition) domestic terrorists”, as PatriotGrrrl has said.
If the revolutionaries win, they write their own history. If they lose, they remain “criminals, traitors, and maybe (depending on your definition) domestic terrorists”.
Modern Irish historians are very aware that Irish founding myths have little relation to the reality of the Irish war of independence. However, it is almost impossible to persuade many people that this is so, because they have grown up with those myths.
Today, I know that much of the “history” that I learned as a child was blatant propaganda. It was heavily biased to remove all negative tones from its depiction of the revolutionaries. There were no atrocities committed by them, and everyone in Ireland supported them. There were almost no Irishmen in the British army. And so on and on and on. . .
I’m sure the same applies to the history of the American revolution.
Hmmmm…doesn’t look too complicated. Find a seamstress. Fabric those colors shouldn’t be hard to find, and the center logo is simple. You could probably get one made for not much money.
To the OP - “Patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings.” Sam Johnson
Too bad, my lad, it’s a cultural thing and the folks you mention have made it their own.
Being kind of a cultural recluse myself, I would have thought (before your post) that it was a cool shirt with 9/11 overtones which, given my CT frame of mind, would make you simply uninformed.
I wonder if you might have rephrased your original comment as, “Excuse me, I think that comment is off topic, and I wonder if it might be posted elsewhere.”
That would not give the (mistaken) impression that you are being incredibly ill-mannered.
The same reason tea bags have become a symbol of right extremism.
Because they love to pretend that they’re fighting the same battle as the founding fathers.
This cannot be remedied, so there’s little you can do to avoid it.
I happen to like the “don’t tread on me” flag. I liked that Sam Seaborn on West Wing had one in his office. Now, though, it’d be about the same as a confederate flag. Even if you only like the historical nature of it, people will see it and think things.
More on the topic as it evolved than the OP itself. Whenever you see a politician metaphorically wrapping themselves in the national symbol, you can bet that they are trying to put something over on you.
Do you have a cite for that? I’ve been sort of deliberately avoiding the mess that politics and the newscycle has been in the last few months, but while reading up on the tea parties the other day, I read that the term was coined by the Right. As in, “let’s teabag those liberal pussies.”
No, not really. Not in this context.
Edit: thanks, silenus.
I think there’s a more general issue here, which is that conservatives are more attracted to the current and past society than liberals are. (Liberals, after all, are trying to enact new changes, which means they don’t like some aspects of current society.) This means that all things being equal, you can expect conservatives to have more affinity for symbols that are representative of historical or current society, while liberals will have logos of newer vintage (such as the “O”).
Scoundrels perform scurrilous acts, and they perform them for their own selfish reasons. When they are found out, they may take refuge in any number of tactics to dodge the righteous consequences of those acts; tactics such as denial, obfuscation, misdirection and pettifogging nitpickery, to name a few. Should all other refuges fail, the resourceful scoundrel finds a way to paint his scurrilous deeds as having been performed for the benefit of his country and countrymen.
Mr. Johnson seems to have been remarking on how frequently such a tactic bears fruit.
Just that you’re stuck with the cultural context as it exists. If you’re concerned that this flag implies politics that you disagree with, then at least some other people who see it on you are probably going to wonder whether you mean to associate yourself with those politics too.
More seriously, I’m currently reading a scathing social history of the Confederacy. I can’t take it with me on the subway, though, because the cover is a big Stars and Bars. Its purpose is different form that which we normally associate the Confederate flag in our culture, since it’s being used on the cover purely as a historical relic, but other people who saw me reading it are likely to think that it denotes a book of racial hatred.
