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

[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.