We can't keep giving up historical symbols and flags each time some assholes decide to adopt them. The pine tree flag is objectively cool and a part of Americans' shared history. It should not be allowed to become an exclusively right-wing nationalist symbol.
You know how many houses in Japan fly the Japanese flag? Zero!
Outside of government buildings and the largest train stations, I almost never see the Japanese flag in public.
In fact, because of curry restaurants and fly-by-night English schools, I see the Union Jack and the Nepalese flag more often than I do the Japanese flag.
So, yeah, anyone who stabs their front lawn with tiny American flags like Uncle Sam went minesweeping is a weirdo.
But what if a space alien lands on the planet but forgot to bring a geopolitical map with them and needed to find out what country they are in so they can ask to see our leader but they have to inefficiently resort to trying out different languages on people instead of looking up and seeing a national flag which would give them the data they need to proceed to ask to see our leader in the correct language?
to be fair it's a pretty flag and represents the entire nation of people, not just the shitty government and fucked up history
i think of all the good people i love in my country when i see my flag. it makes me sad to think it's also a symbol of so much bad shit :( but i also understand. :(
I think normal depends entirely on where you were raised. Most of the homes in my neighborhood displayed a single American flag when I was a kid. I do the same as an adult, and I'm glad the sick magalunatics make it easy for us to pick them out with their desperate cries for attention, and their fuck your feelings flags.
I agree with you, but I grew up in a place where people actually have national pride. And just to be exceedingly clear, that is different from Christofascism and white nationalism. And yes, I did vote for Obama.
Just a single flag with no mitigating signage and I assume it is a Christofascist. It's not as strong of a signal as Blue Line, Swastika, or Repub campaign yard sign but you'll be right more than half the time. Two US flags is like 99% certainty.
Unfortunately, there's no stopping them. Appropriation is part and parcel with them since they make up for their overabundance of vitriol with a tendency towards a complete lack of productive creativity.
Another example is the Gadsden Flag. It was originally an anti-colonial flag designed during the Revolutionary war, but nowadays it's mostly a libertarian "don't stop me from stepping on others" flag. Here's some parody versions, though: