Unpopular Opinion
Welcome to the Unpopular Opinion community!
How voting works:
Vote the opposite of the norm.
If you agree that the opinion is unpopular give it an arrow up. If it's something that's widely accepted, give it an arrow down.
Guidelines:
Tag your post, if possible (not required)
- If your post is a "General" unpopular opinion, start the subject with [GENERAL].
- If it is a Lemmy-specific unpopular opinion, start it with [LEMMY].
Rules:
1. NO POLITICS
Politics is everywhere. Let's make this about [general] and [lemmy] - specific topics, and keep politics out of it.
2. Be civil.
Disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally attack others. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Please also refrain from gatekeeping others' opinions.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Shitposts and memes are allowed but...
Only until they prove to be a problem. They can and will be removed at moderator discretion.
5. No trolling.
This shouldn't need an explanation. If your post or comment is made just to get a rise with no real value, it will be removed. You do this too often, you will get a vacation to touch grass, away from this community for 1 or more days. Repeat offenses will result in a perma-ban.
Instance-wide rules always apply. https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/
view the rest of the comments
A flag is a symbol. Words aren't just a bunch of letters, there's social meaning in the unique message conveyed.
But yes, that nitpick aside, it's absurd nationalism at play. When someone burn the flags and books of my political alignment, I couldn't care less. Sure, it's an offensive gesture to burn a symbol, it's not crazy for someone to get mad at a burned bible or national flag. But at the end of the say, I see it as no different to someone saying 'America sucks', which is pretty common.
And the weird nationalism is pretty internalized to the point where it's just normal to most Americans. They point to the nationalist displays of other countries like 'Cult of Personalities' elsewhere and don't notice their local fixation with Washington and the rest, or reciting a daily oath to their flag, or flying them everywhere constantly all the time. But from an outsider perspective, those rituals are just... concerning. It's ingrained nationalist propaganda.
This I disagree with. A flag is a symbol, it represents concepts. And some flags can represent, among other things, "I want you killed" (consider the Nazi swastika being flown today). I think it's reasonable to be offended by a flag representing an offensive idea.
But a national flag flown by the world superpower? It's a bit fragile to flip out over that, isn't it?