Fair warning – Don’t click through if you don’t want to read something political in nature.
I’m sensitive to those that don’t want to read that sort of thing, hence the fair warning. Nothing bad here, just a curiosity and I’m wondering if other people in the USA are doing the same thing, so testing it on WUWT’s wide readership will likely help answer it.
I have seen upside down US flags twice now in my town. The first time I just thought it was self commentary, now seeing it a second time in a different part of town, I stopped along E. 5th Avenue to get this shot. I wonder, how many people across the United States are doing the same thing after November 6th? In case you don’t know, flying the flag upside down is a sign of distress or emergency. Flying at half staff is respect for the fallen in service of our country. Combined it makes quite a commentary on the Benghazi incident, the fallen soldiers and ambassador, and the election. Checking the Internet I find there are others doing the same thing now, such as this fellow in South Bend, Indiana. Then there’s the story about an upside down half-staff flag at McDonald’s which has angered a lot of veterans even though it was claimed to be a mistake.
The U.S. Flag code says in section 8:
The flag should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.
Some people consider it flag desecration such as is on par with burning it as political commentary.
I wonder though, if this sort of visual political commentary I’ve seen in my town is being quietly repeated elsewhere since many people now see the USA as being in distress?
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SamG says:
November 9, 2012 at 3:05 pm
“Flying the flag upside down, at full mast, or at half mast, really confines all three acts to the sphere of nationalism. If the flag is symbolic to you in some way other than state propaganda,”
Generally speaking you would be correct. However in the US the flag is not really the government/state. It is supposed to be of the sovereign citizen. Its one of the reasons democrats don’t normally fly US flags because they don’t represent “the state”. Socialists want things that represent “the state” not the people, most of all not a sovereign people since since sovereign citizens are above the state in power.
Gunga Din,
I have lots of quotes saved, but this one is a real favorite:
“””””…..jeremyp99 says:
November 9, 2012 at 1:51 pm
@george e. smith says…
“Union Flag” on land
“Union Jack” at sea!…..”””””
Sorry jeremyp99. I said no such thing.
Please don’t cite things I never said, in quotes as if you were quoting me.
Never heard of ‘Union Flag’; must be some new civics lesson stuff.
I grew up with a real ‘Union Jack’; No not just ANY Union Jack; but that very special Union Jack, that was Colonel Robert Baden Powell’s battle flag flown over the town on week days during the Siege of Mafeking in the Boer War.
On Sundays, the Boers put down their guns, so Baden Powell put up a really big Union Jack on Sundays, knowing the Boers would not shoot at it. And on Monday, the regular size battle flag went back up, and got a few bullet holes in it, with powder burns around the edges.
The Sunday Flag, went back to Britain and became a ‘Boy Scout’ flag, being flown over Jamborees, and the like; but the battle flag ‘disappeared’.
It was actually ‘disappeared’ by a New Zealander, who was among the volunteer New Zealand Army contingent, who were in Mafeking during the siege; and who no doubt ‘came upon’ the flag, in the manner soldiers often do.
So the flag is somewhere in New Zealand, and I lived with it from 1941 to 1950, and I know for sure it was still there in 1976, and very likely till 1989. I’ve looked for it; but so far no luck; despite some great effort, by a now retired University of Auckland Business Finance Professor. 2006/7 was the last time I visited the place where it was hanging over a doorway, but that is now the wall of somebody’s apartment.
If found, it would be THE real Boy Scout flag, and belongs in the Imperial War Museum .
In one of those ironic twist of logic Tom thumb is unintentionally correct (law of unintended consequences):
“Then why are you being disingenuous with your income tax argument? All working Americans pay taxes. And ALL Americans are takers, since the benefits they receive far, far outweigh the taxes that they pay.”
You have a 1.3trillion dollar deficit. Benefits rec’d far outweigh the taxes collected….
temp
I think that definition became antiquated long ago. The U.S. clearly does not honour individual sovereignty. Perhaps flag flyers have this intention but I’m speculating that they too appeal to the welfare state, the welfare state of credit, the welfare state abroad and the warfare state.
Someone commented earlier that these are probably Republicans having a cry. I’m probably looking into it too much.
“””””…..ColdOldMan says:
November 9, 2012 at 1:33 pm
george e. smith says:
November 9, 2012 at 1:01 pm
And I guess neither you or the other “British chap” bothered to mention, which way up is correct, thereby indicating by default, that you don’t know either.
Listen, you patronising …., I know full well how to hang the Union Flag. I did it often enough during my spell in the Royal Corps of Signals……”””””
Well Cold OldMan, you could have saved us all some grief, and made it a teaching moment yourself; and then I wouldn’t have had to take time out from work to comment.
You after all, were the one that said it isn’t that important to you.
But in any case; you do have MY apology; for jumping to conclusions; when YOU get to be as old as I am; hopefully there will still be a Britain to even call Great.
D Böehm says:November 9, 2012 at 3:19 pm
[…]
Actually, liberals do not believe in much of anything, except maybe taxing success.
Perhaps for liberals success is taxing. 🙂
‘ell I’ve been flying my flag upside down since I long ago talked politics with Sam Walton and figured out he was a commie… the quail huntin buddy of Nixon & Reagan (alpha kappa psi) Bush 1&2 and Cheney… etc…
I’m going to borrow a little something from Pat Buchanan to save a little typing here…
In ascertaining the cause of the GOP’s critical condition, let us use Occam’s razor — the principle that the simplest explanation is often the right one.
Would the GOP wipeout in those heavily Catholic, ethnic, socially conservative, blue-collar bastions of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio and Illinois, which Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan swept, have anything to do with the fact that the United States since 2000 has lost 6 million manufacturing jobs and 55,000 factories?
Where did all those jobs and factories go? We know where.
They were outsourced. And in the deindustrialization of America, the Republican Party has been a culpable co-conspirator.
Unlike family patriarch Sen. Prescott Bush, who voted with Barry Goldwater and Strom Thurmond against JFK’s free-trade deal, Bush I and II pumped for NAFTA, GATT, the WTO and opening America’s borders to all goods made by our new friends in the People’s Republic of China.
Swiftly, U.S. multinationals shut factories here, laid off workers, outsourced production to Asia and China, and brought their finished goods back, tax-free, to sell in the U.S.A.
Profits soared, as did the salaries of the outsourcing executives.
And their former workers? They headed for the service sector, along with their wives, to keep up on the mortgage payment, keep the kids in Catholic school and pay for the health insurance the family had lost.
Tuesday, these ex-Reagan Democrats came out to vote against some guy from Bain Capital they had been told in ads all summer was a big-time outsourcer who wrote in 2008, “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt!”
Yes, the simplest explanation is often the right one.
It may be all over for elephants… people have figured a lot out
Brings to mind the movie “In the Valley of Elah” in which the movie ends with Tommy Lee Jones putting the American flag upside down.
You are missing the point. We all pay sales tax and from that accrue certain government services, yes that is correct. Property owners pay property taxes from which certain government services are paid for.
The point of the comment about paying no federal income tax, is not that they pay “no taxes” it is that they “pay no Federal income taxes”.
Those who have no skin in the game have absolutely no reason not to vote for every single possible benefit that might be funded by the Federal Income tax. In fact they have a very good reason to vote for extravagant benefits since they do not contribute in any way to their funding.
In that case you create a “tragedy of the commons” with regard to Federal taxation. They are getting benefits which are completely unconnected from their taxation — hence they are stealing from those who are paying for those benefits.
We who believe in small government and reasonable taxation have considerable empathy with the person on a fixed income or operating near poverty. We understand and agree that the person living at the poverty line has less means to pay taxes and should pay at a lower rate than someone who has more disposable income — but they “should” pay something even if it is a levy of only $10.00 per year. That way if they vote for some new benefit funded by Federal Income taxes they must consider the cost benefit of their tax levy going up as a consequence of their vote. Is the new benefit worth the increase in their Federal taxes?
Without some skin in the game they have no reason to limit their “please gimme” requests from the government. They (human nature being what it is) will gradually inevitably increase their benefits because they have no cost to them. Few of them will be economically literate enough to realize that that cost does not come from trees but is being pulled out of some one else’s pocket and that pocket is not bottomless.
This scenario is being played out as we speak in Greece, as the public is clamoring for benefits that are simply beyond the means of the government to provide, but they have become so accustomed and habituated to those benefits that in spite of the fact that without the austerity measures their government will surely collapse, they are insisting that the government stop the only rational action which will stave off the collapse. They are like drug addicts who want their fix regardless of the cost.
Even if the Federal government took 100% of the income of the wealthy in this country in taxes it would hardly make a dent in the current debt. The only way to pay the bills and reduce the debt is to broaden the base of the tax. Even nominal taxation of a very large tax base will raise lots of money, and it will cause the users of the Federal Government services to consider the true value received because “ALL” of them will have a vested interest in the tax bill.
More importantly is most do not realize the interest rate time bomb that is ticking out there right now. At the moment the only reason we can afford to cover the cost of financing our current debt is due to artificially low interest rates. If the debt remains as it currently is or worse yet increases, some day in the not so distant future when interest rates return to more typical rates (the Fed cannot hold them down for ever), the cost of debt service will balloon like a loan from an inner city loan shark. Geometric growth due to compounding interest is a relentless and unforgiving foe if you are on the wrong end of the deal. I remember when in the late 1970’s early 1980’s typical home loan interest rates were over 15% and some conventional collateralize loans went above 20% interest.
For the Federal Government, if the interest on the national debt climbs to something like 4% -5% interest rate instead of the current low rates, the debt becomes unserviceable at any tax rate.
The only option then is to either default on the debt or inflate the currency enough to make it manageable (which will in turn drive up interest rates). At that point it becomes a race between interest rates and inflation to see which part of the system collapses first, the economy due to inflation or the service on the debt due to interest rates. One or the other will be the logistic limit and put a hard stop on the countries economy and a severe crash will follow.
Larry
Here in Australia to show patriotism by flying the flag is taken as a sign of “racism”
The liberal narrative is that only white supremacists would fly the flag in their yard.
“Somehow, the progressive wisdom has decided that those who fly Australian flags are “racists” rather than “nationalists”. So the word nationalism is now, in informed circles, code for the word racism. To add insult to injury, it seems those who fly Australian flags are less intelligent than those who don’t. Intelligent people are “global citizens” who do not fly flags or admit to being Australian when travelling overseas in case they should be accused of being “racist”. If caught out in a social situation in Europe or the United Kingdom, with regard to our treatment of refugees or Aborigines the progressives can claim to be “ashamed to be Australian” and thus maintain their global integrity.”
http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2012/3/beware-the-global-citizen
Patrick McCauley
“Meanwhile, Republicans retained their grip on the House, which has voted more than 30 times to repeal the ACA, Obama’s signature legislation.”
ericgrimsrud writes of “sunshine patriots”. I suspect that is projection. What branch of the military did you serve in, G?
Ah lemonade, which children are no longer free to make and to sell.
But as John Perna says “The battle for freedom is never won–and never lost.”
Even after we won the American Revolution, we had to cope with the Alien and Sedition Act.
And even after this electoral disaster, TSA fondling children, and so many other losses of freedom, and threat to life via Obamacare–the battle for freedom continues.
Go to http://www.constitution.org/col/one_room_schoolhouse.htm and print it out. There you will see that loss of freedom and an infantile electorate were predicted decades ago as a result of a change to USA’s educational system. The last one-room schoolhouse was in Tennessee in 1962. A PUBLIC school produced 80% National Merit Scholars. Beginning with private schools, we can put that system back. And our freedoms will return along with it–because we will be worthy of them.
Jeff in Calgary says:
November 9, 2012 at 11:55 am
Up here in Canada, I am cheesed off with our $5 Billion deficit. We need to fix that. I hate the fact that voters are stealing from my kids and grandkids. It is imoral!
I can not even comprehend 1.5 trillion. But you know what is really crazy? Most Euopean countries are even worse off.
It’s 16 trillion and counting
Meistersinger says:
November 9, 2012 at 8:30 am
A M Priestas is probably right. The people who don’t take what “they” say about climate or nutrition as gospel are probably likely to be generally s[ck]eptical about everything. A healthy attitude, if not taken to extremes.
_________________________________
Agreed.
The beauty of the internet is you can check out what someone has told you and read all sides of the issue. IMHO anyone who takes what is said on radio, TV or in a newspaper as gospel is an idiot. Now thanks to the internet we actually have a chance of getting closer to the truth.
“Election is over. Get over it. Move on. Learn to make lemonade.”
………….
That remark comes across as akin to, “Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.”
My reply is, Think so? You have much to learn.
D Böehm says:
November 9, 2012 at 3:09 pm
After Reagan was elected the country enjoyed twenty five years of prosperity. He slashed income taxes, which in turn generated much more government income, not less. He cut corporate tax rates, too.
If the same thing were done today, the result would be the same.
You’re a believer in the Laffer curve I see.
Reagan inherited a budget deficit of 2.7% of GDP, during his administration the deficit averaged 4.2% of GDP. While he reduced the top rates of income tax he increased taxes at the lower end, he also greatly increased public spending with the result that the National debt increased from $997 billion to $2.85 trillion. Thus the Us went from being the world’s largest creditor to the world’s largest debtor! Reagan actually raised taxes more times than he cut them.
Perhaps we’d do better to follow Clinton’s policies which reduced the deficit so much it became a surplus and he reduced federal spending?
Phil. says:
November 9, 2012 at 5:23 pm
###
Maybe you [ought] to not get your facts to Rachel madcow and learn some real history.
[“from” Maddow? Mod]
Someone called ugagoff up above said he’s reconsidering his position on climate issues because of the political opinions held by some WUWTers!!!
Now as they say ‘there’s’ your problem.
One’s opinion on the Global Warming issue should be based entirely on careful consideration of the mountains of reliable scientific and historical evidence demonstrating its speciousness…not on any commonly shared or communal beliefs.
Makes me think that maybe ugagoff is actually a Warmist here pretending to be ‘disappointed’ at WUWTers who, in my experience, seem quite capable of thinking for themselves!
“except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property”
That sounds like the situation we are in now here in the USA – in the next 4 years and much longer as you won;t be able to git rid of these progressive laws, regulations, directives & court orders, etc.
A fine strawman there, Phil. Let me explain:
When income tax rates decline, federal revenue increases, and vice-versa. Laffer was proven to be right, because that is exactly what happened then, and what is happening now.
If you believe the economy didn’t prosper for a couple of decades following 1980, then I can’t help you.
Looking at the bigger picture, the Depression of 1919 started out every bit as severe as the Great Depression of the 1930’s. But President Harding took the right measures [as Volcker did under Reagan]. Unemployment was over 12% going into 1920. Harding promptly laid off 60% of the federal work force and slashed federal spending by 60%. Within 18 months unemployment was under 3%, and the country headed into its most prosperous decade ever: the Roaring Twenties.
Those lessons were forgotten under Hoover and FDR, who both handled it badly — just like the Administration is handling this economy badly. Japan has been making the same blunders, and has remained in painful deflation since 1989.
The current U.S. Great Recession has already lasted far longer than any other postwar recession. QE-1, QE-2 and QE-3 have all been miserable failures. What have we got to show for many more $Trillions in debt? Actual [U-6] unemployment is close to 25%, going by the way unemployment used to be figured before the BLS “adjusted” it’s methodology.
The correct fixes are available. But the country has taken the wrong direction, and as a direct result we will have a sick economy for a long time.
Thomas T wrote;
“Going John Galt is a quaint high school level notion, embraced by disenfranchised adults.”
No, not at all. I was planning on working for many more years, I love my craft (designing satellites that keep an eye on our enemies, YES we have enemies, no matter how many times you apologize to them some people will always hate the USA), it’s important and contributes to the safety of this nation and our allies. I don’t have to work, I’m one of those that made good choices and could end a many decade career tomorrow. I’ll be going John Galt soon, I refuse to work hard and give the proceeds to those that will not. Early Retirement Here I Come………….
That’s the fatal flaw in the Marxist theory, they assume that we will all just keep working and handing over the money. It’s not going to work out that way. We will see continued shrinkage of the “maker” class, and the “takers” will wonder what happened to all the “free” stuff they were promised.
“from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs”…………… My abilities can go to zero faster than anybody else’s needs can grow.
Cheers, Kevin
Apologies to Anthony, but you did open this barn door at your otherwise fine website.
I may not agree with what some do in this country, but I am happy to have the freedom to agree or disagree with the effort they put forth as long as they don’t break the law.
Just sayin, those who don’t have that privilege truly understand what the word freedom means.
Perhaps it would be useful to look at the real numbers, the budget surplus that Clinton alledgedly left Bush is an accounting trick the national debt never went to zero during his term, it only changed from money borrowed from public debt instruments to money borrowed from social security fund.
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/craigsteiner/2011/08/22/the_clinton_surplus_myth/page/full/
Larry