Senator introduces legislation to ban non US flags from government buildings following pride flag being flown at the White House
marshall.senate.gov
Some people are so fragile. Fox News of course is saying feds have banned non US flags, of course lying to their viewers about what is actually happening.
They do this kind of thing to distract from their total lack of solutions to any real problems.
That's the only reason they do it. Continue the culture war over here so you don't see me doing nothing over here.
Exactly.
Conservatives around the world have figured out that you can win elections by focusing entirely on socially conservative wedge issues, then do whatever the hell you want once you're in power.
Biden's allegedly not a conservative though.
Maybe I'm confused because I'm not an American, but I have no idea what point you're trying to make.
Obviously, from the perspective of most Western democracies, he's very conservative, but in the context of American politics, he's not.
Pointless culture wars are all they have left because without those, some of their voters might calm down long enough to notice they haven't delivered on a single promise to make the lives of regular Americans better when they are in power for decades.
Relevant
Wow the description of the flag in the flag code is amusingly vague: "The flag of the United States shall be thirteen horizontal stripes, alternate red and white; and the union of the flag shall be forty-eight stars, white in a blue field."
According to the wikipedia page, the exact specification is given in "Executive Order 10834," but strictly it only applies to flags made for and by the federal government.
Well I'm not the federal government, so this is my flag now!
Also I'm Canadian... don't ask why I need an American flag
Problem: that flag has two blue fields.
Perhaps it’s a 2D projection of a 3D tube?
A tubular flag? 🤯
"With certain exceptions" = A blanket ban, except for anything that isn't the thing I'm trying to single out.
I gebuinenly would not be surprised if they wrote in an exception for the confederate
dishtowelflagimagine this guy will weasel in some kind exception for the Confederate flag and the swastika flag. Republican has become just another word for traitor.
These are the same people desecrating the American flag, with the theme of factionalism, like that stupid thin blue line. So much for e pluribus union.
Sounds like it!
E pluribus unum hasn't been the US motto in a long time, unfortunately. Some knuckledraggers replaced it with “in God we trust” a while back. We ought to fix that.
I used to believe that the state of US politics is down to a shoddy education system. But by now I believe it's down to so many politicians and their followers over there being on a pure chaotic evil alignment.
They are just out to screw over the country and the people on purpose.
The name of the game is to keep the masses fighting over and focused on ephemeral shit that doesn't matter. Books, gays, lesbians, queers, trans, wokeness, CRT, religious tolerance, etc., This way the vast majority of the minority in this country are up in arms over what they see as threats to their way of life, as good god fearing christians. The real intent though is to keep them blind to how they're being used, abused, sold out, turned into a product, stripped of their rights, and incrementally silenced, all so the people they put in power can make a few extra bucks while rat fucking a system that is engineered from the ground up to reward lying, cheating, demogoguery, and inciting division. The worst part is that this busted ass system is so entwined in the essence of what it is to be "'Murican" that questioning it, looking for logic, or even commenting on the hypocrisy in the design is enough to get violently assaulted in some parts.
Rome 2.0 is burning, and our leaders have convinced us that all of us fiddling is best way to deal with it
You've basically summarized my thoughts on alk the culture war bullshit lately. None of it truly matters (besides the obvious "being queer should not be a death sentence"). Its all aa distraction while our rulers grab even more power for themselves.
I think I agree but from a different perspective.
The LGBTQ community and trans people in particular(among other minorities) are being targeted because they need something to rile people up in order to manipulate voters. Same goes for abortion. But this doesn't mean these issues don't matter. In small, big or very big ways, these issues still can affect people.
I think it's possible to do both: defend our rights while not losing sight from the other issues, like proper taxation, delaying global climate change, reducing poverty, achieving free health insurance, etc. And besides, this is anecdotal evidence but the people in favor of LGBT rights, IME, tend to also favor the other issues mentioned.
In no way did i mean to suggest, imply, or otherwise push the stance that the LGBTQ/Trans issues don't matter. They absolutely do. I fully recognize and complete support equality for all. Those communities are absolutely under attack by these closed minded conservative bigots. My phrasing was intended to convey that these communities pose no direct threat, of any kind, to the folks frothing at the mouth for their continued marginalization.
As you pointed out, they make easy targets to be lambasted in order to distract from the real issues of the day and conflating their cause with anything having to do with social, environmental, or economic responsibility or reform is an easy way to get the electorate to vote against their own self interest. So long as we're made at each other for things we can't change and the majority of us don't understand, we don't have time or resources to be mad at those actually making life hard for the rest of us.
To put your point slightly different: These issues don't matter to those who aren't affected by them.
The ones opposing these issues are almost exclusively not people who have any first-hand (or second-hand) experience with the topic at hand.
It's a pure moral panic that is used to distract, at the expense of people who are seriously affected by these moral panic attacks. So of course these people fight back, because it's their existance that is threatened. And that gives a really nice distraction about the issues that really should be changed (power structures, corruption, screwed election systems, ...)
Ok. They going to remove the thin blue line flag from all the police cruisers as well? Yes that is state vs fed. Im just taking this to its logical (unlikely) conclusion. Rule for thee not for me and all that.
Some towns were pissed off that the blue lines they painted on their Main Streets weren't MUTCD compliant.
Southern Confederacy flag fans don't know the Leopards coming for there faces...
For some reason I think those will be included under "certain exceptions"
First Amendment coming in on a strafing run in 3...2...1...
I suppose this would also mean removing any religious banners from government-owned buildings and spaces being rented by religious groups.
of course that will be their exception. crosses, bible verses, depictions of jesus, are all okay lest it be an attack on christianity 🙄
"Religion is exempt!"
"That's great, let me just display this copy of the Qur'an over here"
"Not that one, just our religion!"
for 👏 real 👏 thank you xD imo, that's even worse. i'll never understand zealous "christians" who invalidate other religions. throwing stones with glass skulls, really
The Satanic temple is on the case!
I'm glad that he's spending his time on solving this very urgent and extremely important matter instead of trivial legislation such as budgets, federal investment in his state, etc.
then:
because obviously to virtue signal about the American military isn't about scoring political points
Did you know that in 2019 the National POW/MIA Flag Act was signed into law, requiring the POW/MIA flag to be flown on certain federal properties, including the U.S. Capitol Building, on all days the U.S. flag is flown?
Clearly nothing better to work on, what with all the other problems being solved.
Lol, what an asshole.
Getting the important work done for positive progress in this country. Or, just typical Republican being-an-asshole behavior again.
Well then have the white house proclaim the pride flag as an officially recognized american flag or something. Make it as official as possible.
I really don't have a problem with this. No government should support any private causes, no matter their nature, with the exception of international treaties and the like, such as NATO or the UN. I think it makes sense to ban flags representing personal opinions from federal buildings. LGBTQ+ rights must be protected by every rational humanitarian government, but it's rather unprofessional for a government entity to fly a flag of solidarity next to a national flag in my opinion.
What is a 'private cause' though? Because to me this feels like a very public issue. While it may seem like LGBT rights have only strengthened each year, there is currently an unprecedented level of effort being put towards disenfranchising and stifling queer and trans communities. Even if you're not part of those communities yourself, it's a near certainty that somebody you know and care about is. There's a very large and diverse subset of the American populace who is being targeted by these anti-lgbt actions.
During the civil rights movement I would have had no problem with the white house flying a flag in solidarity with black Americans, and I don't have a problem with them flying the pride flag now.
It drives me crazy that LGBT people existing is considered some kind of "political agenda" by some people.
Private is probably not the correct word, but flying the LGBTQ+ flag is probably a for of capital 'S' Speech, i.e. the thing the 1st amendement of the US Bill of rights is supposed to protect.
To what extent should government institutions engage is Speech is a question without an easy answer.
In this case the LGBTQ+ flag represents, in part, common sense civil liberties and protections for a community. Unequivocally a good thing, and to say otherwise is bigotry.
However the undeniable goodness of the Speech does not necessarily mean it is a type of speech we want government institutions to engage in. One method to illustrate this is to replace the clearly positive flag with a clearly negative one, say a nazi flag.
I'd expect most people here would have a problem with the dmv flying a nazi flag.
So we simply say that government institutions can only fly good flags. The problem is someone has to decide which flags are good. It may seem obvious which is which, but unless we put it to a vote, we'll need a committee or a single person to make the call. And some people are evil, and would falsely claim the Nazi flag is the good one, and now we're in a bad spot again.
So like all things there's a lot of annoying nuance to be dealt with and sucks when it should be easy to just allow good supportive speech.
I think that you're somewhat asking the government to be apolitical when you do that. Every flag is speech, even the American flag is speech. The government constantly speaks to us.
I'd argue that the government should be allowed it's speech. Every time the government stops speaking to you is when bad things happen.
I wonder if we could use this to get rid of this awful POW MIA flags.
I’ve always felt like an asshole for having this thought, but they look a lot like isis flags