flag-burning

[danohu]

palmer1984 just posted a meme that touches on flag-burning. I've always been bewildered by the (mainly American?) objection to burning flags. But if you accept that flag-burning is Bad and Wrong...

How do True Patriots care for their ageing flags? Are they stored indefinitely? Given heroic burial (cremation presumably isn't an option)? Is there a patch of desert somewhere, where old flags fly until they disintegrate completely?

The military are big on flags and big on rules; they must have some baroque procedure for getting rid of the old ones.

Also: I've only come across the obsession with flag-burning in an American context. Are there equally small-minded patriots in the UK and elsewhere?

Comments

[atreic.livejournal.com]

In comments on this elsewhere, a friend wrote:

"* Does it make difference to your price whether you burn the flag during the federally-recommended flag honourable disposal ritual, or as an insult to America, or neither?

(Notice: people actually are paid to do the first. I wonder what the breakdown of flags burnt are, in categories of "official", "anti-America", "protest breaking of the constitution", "annoyingly ironic/artistic", "other" and "whoopsie" :)


So apparently the right way to get rid of flags is to burn them. But it's OK when the good guys do it.

[gerald_duck]

The "The United States Flag Code" Wikipedia article reaches this apparently authoritative page in Cornell University's Law School which says "The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning."

The flag has a symbolism in the USA that's extremely rare elsewhere. I only realised the full extent of the problem (and yes, I think it's a problem) when I read the first chapter of Almost Heaven — a book which I recommend as fascinating in many respects.

[palmer1984.livejournal.com]

There are some situations in which flag burning would be inappropriate. For instance, burning the flags of newly independent African countries in the 60s would have been appropriate :). And I wouldn't burn an Iraqi flag now. However, I think British and American flags are fair game :).

[bloodofareptile.livejournal.com]

We still burn them. :-p

It is 'disrespectful' to fly a worn flag, so you are supposed to take it down, fold and store it properly, then have it burned in a ceremony (generally on labor/memorial day and done by American Legion/vets associations though I am sure there are others).

Other bit of interesting flag trivia, you are not supposed to fly it at night unless it is lit! Supposed to take it in every dusk and raise it at dawn (or, more accurately, when you get around to it).

[lavendersparkle.livejournal.com]

Your post gave me the image on Americans having flag geniza.

[l-j-b.livejournal.com]

I think the British attitude to flag-burning is generally more along the lines of:

"HAHAHA, I AM BURNING YOUR FLAG!"

"...well, no. That's not my flag, is it? My flag is a pair of pants I got for during the football. That's your flag. On fire. Was it expensive?"


There was a recent conversation about flag-burning, where we came to the conculsion that people who like burning flags in outrage have got filing cabinets of different ones, in case a country upsets them, so they have an appropriate one to hand. Apparently during the whole cartoons and demark think, a lot of not!danish flags got burnt because the danish flag looks like quite a few others :P