Whenever Americans have a celebration, want to rally for a nationalistic cause, or are in a crisis, a popular thing to do is fly the flag.

This has certainly been evident from 9/11/2001 and through the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

At Christmas some people decorate their trees with American flags. When I was a child, my dad would hang out the flag on my birthday.

Some who see themselves as patriotic Americans will keep those flags hanging out at night, and leave them out for the wind and rain to rip into shreds. Ironically, some of these are the very ones who pushed the idea of making the desecration (i.e., burning) of our flag illegal.

As July 4th approaches, what do you think about the flag waving frenzy? Is it patriotism, a form of idolatry, or do red, white and blue just look nifty with your lawn ornaments in the front yard?

I think it depends on the person.

Wow, good answer.

My contention is that the flag waving kind of patriotism is cheap. Buy yourself a little flag made in China and attach it to your car's antenna.

Listen to Toby Keith, diss the Dixie Chicks and voila!, you're patriotic.

Don't fly your flag because you are against U.S. military aggression because you think 1) the flag actually means something better and higher than that, or 2) because you think that militarism does not constitute true patriotism, and that the flag symbolizes militarism. Are you patriotic? In which instance?


(Last paragraph edited to make sense)

The flag is one very small part of American culture. There's also pizza, cheeseburgers, baseball, football, thanksgiving, blues, barbeque, apple pie, basketball… The flag isn't that big compared to something like the super bowl or thanksgiving. Waving the flag isn't patriotism. Being patriotic doesn't mean you love everything your country does. That would mean the founding fathers weren't patriotic. Patriotism is a love for one's country; the definition of what your country is varies. For example, my desire for the Bush not to be elected again is incredibly patriotic. I can't think of anything more patriotic than that. The flag is just a symbol and it isn't the centerpiece of patriotism.

LOL! I was thinking the same thing. But, he's right...

For some, it is a cheap way to feign patriotism. For others, it is a significant gesture. We have a lot of patriotic paraphernalia in the house. This is entirely new (before this year, we had none). I think it's a nice gesture, in general, meaning ultimately very little.

In Tuscany, many houses and apartments brandished a communist flag. That was a way of asserting the personal political choice of the household, and hoping others would follow suit. Here, I don't know... I think it is only (personally) significant to the flag waver.

There was a lot of that in the months following the WTC attacks. It seemed everyone had flags on everything as they ran along with the pack saying "yeah, see, I'm patriotic too! USA! USA!"

How many of those flags are still flying today, even by the same people who still like to pass themselves off as die-hard patriots? Not too many.

If you're going to fly the flag (or any flag) either have some real feeling to back it up or at least admit you're only flying it because everyone else is and you don't want to look like a grump. Real patriotism is good. Fake patriotism got real old a long time ago.

Amen to that RS. I've had my USA flag up in front of my house for 5 years now, false patriotism is really horrible, love for a country can't get old.

CP

I never fly a flag, and one of my former co-workers made a remark about it. I told him that with 12.5 years active duty including a tour in Vietnam, and then 10 years in the Reserves, I feel that I have already proven my patriotism. Outward displays are nice, but hardly a requirement. One thing that proves to myself that I love my country is that I tend to tear up when patriotic music is played.

It depends on how gung-ho patriotic the person is

But sometimes, it's just because, on July 4the, the average American is proud to live in this great nation & wishes to celebrate her birthday with the hanging of the United States flag

I completely agree with this statement. There is still too much fake patriotism connected with our flag for my taste right now. I'll stick to fireworks and bar-b-que for the fourth.

For me it feels more patriotic not to because it's being misrepresented by too many people and causes at the moment. I'll wait till it's done being cheapened and hopefully hang it next year...or the year after that if I have to wait.

Well i am a very patriotic person myself and i think it depends on the person. For example i started to hang flags and other patriotic items (which now count to 40 4 3X7 Flags stickers and miniflags not including clothes). However i started to wave them ON 9/11 when i purchased about 7 american flags and placed them in my front yard. Then i believe my eyes were open and well now i am a VERY patriotic person. However it does depend on the person.

my flagolatry is bad now, in fact you could say my flagolatry is downright not there at all, i need to do something about my level of flagolatry but with the current situation in the white house i find all my flagolatry is gone

i shall try to restore my flagolatry but i dont think it will come back until the white house has people i like in it, so i hope you all dont mind my level of flagolatry now.

nileriver,
I felt sad when I read your post.

The flag is still beautiful, and it still symbolizes the best of our country.

It's the shallowness that needs to go, not patriotism.

I've had Old Glory hanging up in my home for years. Most everyone else around here had the Confederate flag hanging up on their clothes, bumper stickers, etc. Then 9/11/01 came and all of a sudden the U.S. flag became fashionable to these people. It really annoyed me that something that was taken for granted for so long was suddenly so vogue. I even took mine down because I didn't want to be mistaken for one of these fair-weather-patriots that suddenly claim to love America and wave the flag. These people are not patriots, they're populist posers. I have my flag back up now, but am immediately skeptical of anyone else I see displaying the flag, especially people who wear it on their clothes or slapped to the back of their foreign cars.

I have twice in my life spent money on a flag. The first was a sticker with a Jamaican flag, the second was a T-shirt with the Nigerian flag. I have never owned an actual flag, and somehow I doubt I ever will. It's not out of any particular lack of patriotic feeling. Well, OK, yes it is. But it's slightly more complex than simply being a "rebel" or being a "dissenter." I spent my first ten years in India, for one thing, and that left a very strong impression on me - after all these years, I still think of India as "home." On top of that, I come from a long line of Mennonites, and the Mennonite community has always kept a certain "separateness" from the "English" world - not to the extent of the Amish, but enough that I was certainly never indoctrinated by my family to be a gung-ho patriot. There are many things I love about the United States, to be sure, but I guess I have travelled enough, particularly in the so-called "third world," to have come to the conclusion that, for me at least, the primary unit in this world is the human, not the state, and that we are, across all boundaries, more similar than we are different.

I have never owned a flag of any kind. I am extremely non-patriotic (as opposed to anti-patriotic.) Although I will gladly state that the USA is one of the best nations to live in, given the miserable status of so many nations on this imperfect planet, I will not say that it is "Number One" or that its will (which doesn't exist anyway, any nation being composed of many squabling individuals) must prevail in all situations. This probably has something to do with my personality, as I have never had any "school spirit" and have never felt this kind of loyalty to any organization.

Not everyone has that loyaltly. There's nothing necessarily wrong with it, it's just a personality difference.

As far as "school spirit" goes; I was in sports, track, baseball, you name it. The school spirit thing was fun, it brought us all closer together and brought out the competitiveness in us. I don't know how we would've won any games/meets without it.

It gets far more complicated when you start to associate this personality trait to patriotism. School spirit has simple and definitive goals, ie...morale builder to win games. Patriotism is defined differently by just about every person. "I love my country unconditionally" or "My country isn't the best but it's because (enter why you don't like the current president here)". Thus, to say someone is not patriotic is flawed, unless, by their own definition, they are.