Submitted 5 months ago by Infrapink@kbin.social to [deleted]
https://kbin.social/m/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world/t/1038958
Today, a bunch of people on my Mastodon feed are making declarations about somebody apparently flying a flag upside down, and this apparently has something to do with the New York Times being terrible.
What happened?
Flying the US flag upside down on ship is apparently a distress signal.
(Flying the UK flag upside down just makes people think you’re an idiot.)
Jan 6th insurrectionists were using it to say the country was in distress because of the “stolen election” lie.
Funny because THEY were the ones causing the country to go in distress.
And folks on the left were doing after Trump was elected to symbolize their resistence.
Misusing a flag has always been a back and forth argument in political circles.
It’s a nothingburger in my opinion.
Does the UK flag even have an “upside down”?
Oh boy, you’re possibly in for a treat. I didn’t notice this for far too long either, but the UK flag is at a complete wonk:
Image
It’s got rotational symmetry, but if you just flip it vertically, the thin red stripes will be the wrong way around.
Yes.
In the upper corner of the flag nearest the flagpole, the wider diagonal white stripe should be above the red diagonal stripe. If the red is above the wider white stripe the flag is upside-down.
www.college-of-arms.gov.uk/…/union-flag-faqs
Even our own government screws it up though telegraph.co.uk/…/union-flag-has-flying-outside-p…
very much so, just look at the corners
Some additional information on that:
Generally, depending on the country there’s laws for that.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_protocol
Violating these laws can lead to varying degrees of fines and or prosecution, depending on the country and the type of country flag desecration (burning a flag is worse than getting the height of the flag on the pole wrong).
Half mast is the more famous distress signal internationally.
That said, Alito, even if not doing something illegal, is definitely signalling something very ominous. I agree with the experts that such an extreme degree of the appearance of impropriety is definitely gonna run afoul of supreme court ethics rules.
But: no check of power means no executive power and that means a rule might as well be unwritten.
Flag code in the US has no teeth. Flag burning is legal per Texas v. Johnson. Symbolizing a stance of the nation being in distressed is definitely protected speech. Impropriety is a stretch for a statement on his private property that amounts to “our country is in turmoil”.
burning a flag is the appropriate way to dispose of a flag I don’t know what you’re talking about
Flying the national maritime ensign upside down is an internationally recognized distress signal. A UK-flagged boat wouldn’t fly the UK flag upside down (which would be rather ineffective), but rather the Red Ensign (for civilian vessels).
It’s not a good sign when a supreme court justice openly associates with violent insurrectionists, is it?
I dunno, Thomas is still there, and I’m sure he wouldn’t be with their iron clad ethics guidelines, right?
nytimes.com/…/justice-alito-upside-down-flag.html
No idea why people are blaming the NYT.
In general, any flag upside down is an insult to the flag and to whatever that flag symbolizes.
So, for example the Usa flag upside down means insulting the Usa.
In this case, Trumpeltier has managed to manipulate the meaning into something different: the Usa flag upside down is now an insult to only one political party.
You seem to talk of inside Usa only.
Flying the flag upside is a distress signal. People who use it as a political statement are misusing the flag, and that is the actual disrespect here.
In europe, farmers did it to protest european farming laws. The idea was quickly adopted by corona weirdos to forward their ideologies, so it was ultimately seen as something for the mentally unstable, except by the mentally unstable themselves (and some farmers still haven’t gotten the message)
Flying a flag upside down has been a sign of distress since forever. And it has been used politically for ages.
good luck doing that if you’re French or Italian.
It’s because they’re stupid. Deeply stupid.
I remember seeing both the Moroccan and Paleatinian flags flown upside down at times. Either people simply do not know the correct orientation (remember: star points to the top, green on bottom), don’t really care enough to fix it, or have no idea that it’s being used as an insult (does that only apply to the US flag?)
I grew up near Westboro Baptist in Topeka. We all knew where they lived because they fly the US flag upside down. They say “the US is in distress because of all the sinning”. Basically, because they hate LGBT+ people.
someguy3@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Justice Alito flew a flag upside down at his home. Flying a flag upside down was what they did
BrerChicken@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Flying the flag upside is a distress signal. People who use it as a political statement are misusing the flag, and that is the actual disrespect here.