I could see the burning of a flag as expression since it is the accepted by law way to dispose of one but as a snot rag on one’s face to protect against a virus? That’s a bit far for me. I may be fairly lefty but I don’t hold with disrespecting a flag by using it as clothing. Here’s an extreme example of what I mean … and it used to be the folks to the right were flag protectors… not anymore… This is disrespect writ large…
A facemask is not a flag and I will venture to guess was not made from a former flag. The code applies to flags and nothing that is not a flag,
Us oldsters will recall that, after the United States v. Eichman decision, “flag burning” suddenly became the go-to moral crisis for the GOP to puff up and exploit, much as the dire threat of transgender girls on sports teams is now. Newt’s 104th Congress whipped up a constitutional amendment, and lots of other pols (looking at you, Terry Branstad) cynically hitched on. Same old same old.
Uncle Tim, you are a complete sleazeball. The bill to help black farmers is in response to many decades of them being screwed over by the Department of Agriculture. In Pigford V Glickford, black farmers sues the USDA for discrimination that cost thousands of black farmers irreparable damage, and they won. Yet 5 years later, they had to sue again because Payments were denied to 81,000 of the 94,000 black farmers who sought restitution, according to the EWG report.
Black farmers have been crippled by the USDA, yet you use this feeble attempt to level the playing field as a weapon to keep them down. You should be ashamed. But if you understood the concept. you wouldn’t be a tool for Donald Trump and the almost all white people’s party.
No, because that’s just also fucking stupid as rhetoric. Fucking stupid.
Lefty Left Eggheads can’t seem to get it in their thick heads that bagging on the US as a country is horribly stupid own-goal in retail politics. Hair-shirt politics is bad politics.
If you want to achieve real progress in retail politics, you split people off from the hard racists - lumping everyone in, and using rhetoric that implies most/alot of people are racists (true or not, immaterial) is bad fucking retail politics as it makes them all feel like the non-racists/anti-racists are their enemy.
One wants to “Other” the racists and that’s not what this kind of dumb egghead academic pious hair-shirt declarations do, rather the complete opposite.
Retail Politics.
Do you want to Other Yourself (the anti-racist) or do you want to Other the Racists (the hard core ones) and create the space in retail politics for “evolution”?
The Republicans are brilliant at Othering the Lefty Progressives, and worse, the modern Lefty Progressives, all caught up in academic egghead discourse (alienating to the non-university elite) help them along in that self-Othering.
Labelling the USA a Racist Country plays right into their game, right directly into. Bad horrid awful retail politics.
Reject USA as a Racist Country, use rhetorical turns to emphasize the non-racist parts and make the hard-racists the Other.
Labelling the whole USA as a Racist Country just leads your average white blue collar voter, who’s a bread-and-butter and simple-and-basic patriot to see Progressives as exactly the America haters that Fox says they are.
Fucking hell, get smart about rhetoric and stop using these dumb-fuck Lefty Academic turns of phrase that go over like lead balloons.
Yep. The only difference between Mr. Scott and ALL of his peers, is skin color.
It’s a Bernie bro, what did you expect?
Unless an article of clothing is made from an actual United States flag, there is NO breach of flag etiquette whatsoever. People are simply expressing their patriotism and love of country by wearing an article of clothing that happens to be red, white, and blue with stars and stripes. There is nothing illegal about the wearing or use of these items.
Edit…
That was a copy and paste, not a comment on the sincerity of Mr. Scott. 
I think Biden and Harris get it.
As a retired academic who taught first year medical students and did medical research I think I will watch this back and forth from the sidelines.
That was a trap? I thought you were just being stupid. My apologies.
So how exactly do you explain to the just a little racists that they are not hard racists? Especially if they really are hard racists. Are you trying to assimilate them into society or just make them feel better about being racist. If they don’t know that they are racists, how do they stop, is there a Racist Anonymous with a 12 step program they can join? Like step one, admitting they are racist then praying to god to cure them? Or would your simple acceptance of their soft racism make it all better? So many questions.
Apparently if you say “fuck” enough, then it proves you aren’t an Academic.
Hmmm… I’ll take that under advisement.
Btw I have learned to curse in English, Spanish, Arabic, French and the Celtic language my grandpa used for that purpose. But 40+ years of research and teaching are on the other side of the ledger. My grad students knew I cursed when I fucked something up. Which was fairly common.
You sound more defensive than anything else. I see this a lot in people without a degree who actually feel inferior (even though they shouldn’t) and respond by trying to make those with a degree somehow the inferior ones.
What is this retail politics of which you speak, and why does it matter in the real world?
My first Spanish sentences aren’t really repeatable. Through the years I have learned several languages (I admire anyone who learns any of the Arabic languages) but my accent is still atrocious so I confine myself to just reading and writing. My grandmother tells me that to hear a professor curse used to be quite the shocker.
The country’s history is racist, so sometimes it’s jut hair splitting. A country can have a racist history yet still contain a lot of laws and people who are not racist. You can argue degrees of racism, but you cannot say the country is totally non-racist since that is the basis of our very existence.
Apology accepted with all the sincerity it was given in.