National pride, or at least national identification is very strong in the US.
The flag is - contrary to what this thread might suggest - very well beloved by the vast majority.
It's been one of the first things I've noticed when I came to the US. That abundant display of it. You see the flag everywhere. When I get out of the house, just looking up and down the street, I see a flag on every third home, throughout the year.
With that background, Americans burning said flag, has quite some magnitude attached to it.
"The pen is mightier than the sword.. and considerably easier to write with."
As a Dane, I have plenty of experience with having my flag burned, and honestly I don't give a fuck.
You can't say its just a cloth and they wouldn't do it.... because they wouldn't go out of their way to do so if it were a meaningless act.
Well like I said, there are better ways to represent political dissatisfaction rather than burning the very symbol of ones nation. The nations flag is meant to represent the nation as a whole and not a single political ideology. Burning the flag is disrespectful to the nation in general and says to me that "I hate America" rather than "I hate party X".
To answer your question, no, I don't need the "indoctrination of the military to have pride". A lot of my family is military, yes, we have gone to fight for our country, and a few of my family did not survive.
To touch on your statement of "It borders on the religious, its creepy as hell and it serves no purpose what so ever (the misplaced national pride), of course it borders on the religious. Who the hell do you think founded our country and why? I don't understand how the flag is "creepy as hell", and yes, it does serve a purpose.
Sorry, your statement is beyond ignorant. If you aren't from the states, then maybe you shouldn't even comment. How about you go get a history book and read about our flag, how it came to be, and why. My "pride" isn't misplaced. When my family serves, then dies, then comes home under the flag, understand how heartbreaking that is. So yes, it fucking pisses me off when I see ignorant people stomp on the flag.
Yes, I draw my own avatars.
I used to give a fuck about flags sometime ago, not anymore. People are free to burn whatever the fuck they want.
So you just have alot of family in the military but you don't need that indoctrination... right... /facepalm
Then you have a severe lack of reading comprehension, how on earth can you even type out what was creepy, and yet you seem to totally ignore that and start beating a strawman, /slowclap but 1/10
So right now we have figured out that you are ignorant and cant read, so excuse me if your opinion doesn't mean shit to me. How about you just get a grip of your self and stop with the whole nationalism crap.
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Things you do not understand often seem like a black hole, maybe you will get it in a year or two.
It delights me to think that someone makes money off of selling idiots a flag that they're going to burn.
Burn it, don’t burn it. I don’t care one way or the other. If it makes you feel special or to get a point across, go for it. When nutjobs start bombing and what not, that’s another story. Americans, yes I am one as well, tend to forget that we aren’t squeaky clean when it comes to terror attacks or uninvited violence. Our government just manages to hide it better than other countries most of the time. So if folks want to burn some cloth to help them deal with whatever issues they are facing, more power to them. I would lend them a lighter. I don’t burn them as I’ve had no reason, nor do I intend to go pay the $$ just to do so.
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Wow, that was shit, what a piss poor flag burning.
Ultimately it is just a symbolic gesture to provoke a reaction, both from allies and enemies of your cause. I don't think the actual act of setting fire to an object (without risk to anyone/thing else, obviously) should be of major concern or be a justification for violence.
Including any books that may or may not start with a Q.
As a boy scout, I burned flags several times as a teenager.
'Twas a cutlass swipe or an ounce of lead
Or a yawing hole in a battered head
And the scuppers clogged with rotting red
And there they lay I damn me eyes
All lookouts clapped on Paradise
All souls bound just contrarywise, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
It's something wankers do; their right to be wankers, my right to name them as such.
I refer to the 3rd verse of the National Anthem. 2:30 into the video
People who burn the flag are scumbag traitors who need to be locked or exiled to another country since they dont like ours