Originally published at: MAGA man wearing a desecrated flag shirt tells Good Liars he would never dis the flag (video) | Boing Boing
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Now question those who keep their nasty tattered flag up 24x7 with no lighting.
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Where did this take place? I’m not a lawyer but if it happened in Washington D.C. then by section 3 of Title 4 Chapter 1 of the US Code, shouldn’t he “be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be punished by a fine not exceeding $100 or by imprisonment for not more than thirty days, or both, in the discretion of the court.”?
I wonder if there’s a market for something like a pad of cards that superficially resembles a citation that has the items in section 8 (“Respect for flag”) listed with checkboxes. If you see someone violating one or more of those rules, tick the appropriate boxes and hand it to that person. Arguably this person would be in violation of d, g, and j and perhaps e and i.
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Thank you for posting this.
And… glad someone besides me felt compelled to mention the U.S. Flag Code.
It’s not hard, peeps.
How ironic that MAGA man has such interesting bedfellows:
(source)
Abbie Hoffman was arrested in 1968 for wearing a… flag… shirt. This event is more than it sounds:
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General Richard Myers, joined the parade, which rumbled toward the national mall for a wreath-laying ceremony at the Vietnam War Memorial. He was wearing a shirt emblazoned with the American flag.
Ah, if only Abbie Hoffman could have witnessed that.
In October 1968, he was arrested in Washington for wearing a shirt that resembled the design of an American flag. Authorities at the maximum security penitentiary did their worst to harass and humiliate him. They gave him a preventive de-lousing. They took a blood sample against his will, without affording him the sterile courtesy of a disposable syringe.
Two months later, Abbie was hospitalized in New York City for serum hepatitis. The recuperative process didn’t prevent him from helping doctors to organize themselves against some of the oppressive tactics of the medical profession.
When the flag-shirt case came to court, defense attorney Gerald Lefcourt asked, “Is wearing a shirt dishonoring the flag? Does Uncle Sam, when he marches in the parade on July 4th, dishonor?”
Prosecutor Benton Becker argued, “Uncle Sam himself is a national symbol, just as the the flag is a national symbol, and one national symbol, recognized as such, cannot deface and defile and cast contempt upon another national symbol…the Government has a legitimate interest in maiantaining the sanctity of its symbols.”
Hoffman testified, “I was playing with a Yo-Yo, and I had on a shirt that resembled the American flag. I wore the shirt because I was going before the un-American Activities Committee of the House of Representatives, and I don’t particularly consider that committee American, and I don’t consider that House of Representatives particularly representative. And I wore the shirt to show that we were in the tradition of the founding fathers of this country.”
“And were you subsequently arrested?”
“Well, the police approached me, and proceeded to rip the shirt. There was a struggle. I was trying to get the Yo-Yo off my finger. They got the Yo-Yo, see, and it was pulling my finger. It hurt. My wife saw that I was struggling and tried to come to my aid a little, and then a whole fracas broke out, in which the police ripped the shirt off my back.”
On his back, incidentally, was a painted Viet Cong flag.
When the judge declared him guilty, Abbie uttered the immortal words, “I only regret that I have but one shirt to give for my country.”
[emphasis added]
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That section is all advisory, and no one can legally be penalized for not adhering. It’s insane to think that Texas v. Johnson and Eichman were both 5-4 decisions, though.
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The people who care more about the treatment of a piece of fabric than the treatment of their fellow humans never hesitate to alter it how THEY see fit, like the tasteless monstrosity that guy is wearing, or the thin blue line version, or plastering a big Punisher skull over it. Personally, I find the version with the stripes replaced with assault rifles far more offensive than actually burning the flag would be.
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The Good Liars really missed an opportunity there.
The US Flag Code is a pretty entertaining read. I don’t know why this Canadian found it interesting, but I did. This interviewer could have started asking questions like
“Do you fold the shirt into triangles when you remove it?”
“Do you light up the shirt at night?”
…and end by asking how much of the US Flag Code he’s read, and maybe “did you get to the part about adorning garments with it?”
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Yup.
It’s pretty bananas to watch which code violations do and don’t trigger the so-called “flag-loving” right-wingers though. Kid Rock once cut a hole in an actual flag to wear it like a poncho during a superbowl concert but hardly anyone seemed to notice because they were all obsessing over Janet Jackson’s briefly exposed boob.
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Now wait until you see a brown streak on that pant flag and ask who desecrates what here.
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I live in the Eastern part of Washington state. Around here I see guys in lifted Ford( always Fords) F250- 350s with 2-3 flags on poles waving from the bed of the truck on the highway. Now correct we if I’m wrong, but isn’t it disrespectful to the flag to attach it to a vehicle that moves over a certain speed( 25-35 mph)?
Only if you’re not “rolling coal”, because “rolling coal” is what true 'mericans do!
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