Do you get angry/annoyed when people disrespect your country's flag?

[twistedmic]

I've mulled on this question off and on for the past few years, usually when I see a badly worn or tattered flag being flown, either from a flag pole or from a home/car/whatever. The question is this; Do you get angry/annoyed when you see someone disrespecting the flag of your home country?
Anytime I see an American flag that has tears, holes or rips in it and is still being flown I get annoyed. And I got angry one time when I saw a firefighter carrying the flag back inside, wadded up and part of it dragging on the ground.


While I have never served in the U.S. military, nor do I have memory of anyone in my family serving, I did grow up near a naval base ( Naval Station Norfolk to be specific) so maybe that's where my respect for the flag comes from. Back home, being in what is essentially a Navy Town, I never saw a flag that had even a tiny flaw, or that was improperly illuminated.
But out here, in the middle of the country, I've seen flags that have had huge rips in the seams, one flag had a torn seam that an from the front edge nearly to the field, and I've seen them left out in heavy storms (which had been predicted for several hours).

 

[CthulhuMessiah]

Not really. Then again, I'm from Canada.

 

[MortisLegio]

American, grew up in a military family, and yes I get upset when I see people show no respect for the U.S. flag

 

[Booze Zombie]

No flag is worth any amount of blood, sweat or stress.

 

[King of the Sandbox]

Not really. I mean, it's just some cloth. Now, if we had a cool looking flag, like, say, Wales, I'd probably be more inclined to say yes, but only for art appreciation reasons.

 

[Phlakes]

...No, it's a big piece of fabric. You could print out a picture of a flag and tear it in half and it would be the same.

 

[King Toasty]

Canada? Fuck no, our flag falls from trees every goddamn autumn. I step on maple leafs all the fucking time.

Flags aren't representative of a country's ideals. It doesn't show their people, their attitudes or their leaders. A flag has very little meaning, except what people assign to it. And I think people put waayyyyy too much meaning into them.

[Edit] Example: My friend is from 'Merica. I was joking around with some people about how boring the States flag is. She just flipped the fuck out, yelling at me to show some respect for the Stars and Stripes. Then she yelled at me for disrespecting the Canadian flag, saying, "A flag is your country, If your flag breaks your country breaks."

I find this view unacceptable. A country should not be seen by it's symbol, but by it's actions.

 

[Berethond]

It's some colored cloth. I can't see the big deal.

 

[Ham_authority95]

Not really. I can't find myself getting very annoyed about things like that.

I'm not a very patriotic person to begin with, but everyone in the US has a flag, so if one gets ruined another one will replace it.

 

[Laser Priest]

Nope.

It's a symbol of a concept that I couldn't care less about.

I just live here.

 

[Ham_authority95]

Flags aren't representative of a country's ideals. It doesn't show their people, their attitudes or their leaders. A flag has very little meaning, except what people assign to it.

Wow, you summed up my opinion better than I could.

 

[King Toasty]

Flags aren't representative of a country's ideals. It doesn't show their people, their attitudes or their leaders. A flag has very little meaning, except what people assign to it.

Wow, you summed up my opinion better than I could.

The second we get a flag with the Bill of Rights on it, I'll get more passionate about it.

Exactly. A flag is basically to show that Canada owns this bit of land, or that they're in this meeting. It shouldn't be seen as the one symbol of your country.

 

[Mr Thin]

A surprising number of Escapists are failing to grasp the simple notion of symbolism. Strange, you're usually a pretty smart bunch.

OT: I'm Australian, and I've never seen anyone disrespect the Australian flag; I suppose it would depend on the reason and how it happened. I know a few years ago some woman burned the New Zealand flag during an ANZAC day dawn service, and reading about that pissed me off; but that was more because of her stupidity than because of the New Zealand blood in me.

 

[Crystalite]

For my own flag: No, I could not care less. I am no patriot, and I consider the patch of dirt I was born on to be a complete coincidence, and not better or worse than any other place.
I do however think its rather disrespectfull to treat other countries flags badly, because its always better to treat other people with respect, I guess.

And I never would trail a flag on the ground, thats just something you don´t do, regardless of personal attachment to the flag.

I don´t respect a flag, but I respect people, and I don´t go about disrespecting the symbols of peoples faith, neither secular nor religious.


But what I would like to know of those who do get annoyed:
Does that count for your countrymen, or for anyone. Do you expect everyone all over the world to treat your flag with respect?
I do think that would be to much to ask, somehow...

 

[theevilgenius60]

Yes, it does bother me. Then again my whole family consists of teachers and servicemen(sometimes a little of both). We're pretty patriotic and the flag is a representation of my country. That's my reason for never desecrating Old Glory, it would be kind of like burning the Constitution to me.

 

[BonsaiK]

A flag is just a symbol that a government thought up to represent their territory. As such, I find it a little bit difficult to get emotional about one. Maybe if I designed it myself I might care, but I can't say that I love my old government's graphic design skills that much.

 

['The Eel']

its just a piece of cloth. I get annoyed when people start treating a symbol like it is a big deal rather than what the symbol represents. So if someone sets an American flag on fire, who cares? Now if they start setting actual Americans on fire (or anyone else for that matter), then we'd have a problem.

 

[LordOmnit]

Even though I come from a military family I also come from America, so seeing the flag put to torch or otherwise disrespected isn't that surprising anymore. I may not like it, but I also know that many people have lots of hate for the USA since we are the current poster child for imperialism, ignorance, bigotry, and egoism. Whether or not it's true, plenty of people believe it, so our flag gets a lot of flak in symbolic gestures.

 

[Avatar Roku]

Not at all. You know what, this reminds me of a story. At the summer camp I went to for a few years, roughly half of the counselors are always English, usually with a couple people of other nationalities (North Ireland, Germany, Austria) thrown in as well. Every day after dinner, one counselor (chosen by a rotation, I'm told) talk to the entire camp about something, it can really be whatever they want, but it has to be taken seriously. They called it Vespers. This one English counselor, I'll never forget this, began his Vespers by saying he'd actually start in a second. Then, he pulled a crumpled English flag (white background with a red cross, for those who don't know) out of his pocket and told us all that THAT, not the Union Jack, is the English flag. He then continued to actually give his Vespers. Later on, I was discussing that with him and a few other people, and he and the other present English counselors just started to lightly make fun of the fact that we Americans feel we need to have a special way to fold our flag and that we put it on such a pedestal. Really got me thinking.