Flying The Flag at Half-Staff: A State of Perpetual Victimhood (VANITY)

9/16/2012 | rlmorel

[rlmorel]

It seems like everywhere I look now, the flag is at half-staff. And it seems like it has been this way for the past year, if not years.

What is going on here?

Please don't misunderstand me. I am fully onboard for the show of mourning and respect the act engenders when done for appropriate circumstances. To pay respect to this man, for example is entirely justified:

And, so is this, in my opinion:

I simply believe it is being over-used, and it is not a positive thing.

Here are the guidelines which codify when the flags are flown at half-staff:

1.) For thirty days after the death of a current or former president or president-elect (as occurred after the death of President Reagan and the death of President Ford.)

2.) For ten days after the death of a current vice president, current or retired chief justice, or current speaker of the House of Representatives.

3.) From the day of death until interment of an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, a secretary of an executive or military department, a former vice president, or the governor of a state, territory, or possession.

4.) On the day of death and the following day for a Member of Congress.

5.) On Memorial Day until noon.

These seem somewhat appropriate to me, but it is the last one that I have an issue with:
6.) Upon presidential proclamation.

This is problematic for me, because due to Presidential proclamation, we have seen the following: the interment of Frank Buckles, the death of Senator Ted Kennedy; the death of Pope John Paul II, the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003, the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, the deaths of Coretta Scott King and Rosa Parks, Virginia Tech massacre, Fort Hood massacre, the death of Libyan Ambassador Chris Stephens, and the 2012 shooting in Aurora Colorado.

The flag was even flown in one state at half-staff for Whitney Houston! A talented person whose life ended early because of her various drug abuses. A shameful example.

I hope people don't misunderstand my feelings on this. Some of those presidential proclamations listed above are legitimate (in my opinion) and it is true some I disagree with may be legitimate to others. Furthermore, It is not that I think people who die in natural disasters or killed in shootings by deranged people are trivial, they are not; nobody is trivial to themselves and the world that surrounds them.

But is it always a situation for official national mourning?

During WWII, when did we fly the flag at half-staff? After the B-17 raids on Schwienfurt? After the unexpectedly bloody conquest of Tarawa? When we had 6000 Americans killed in 30 days of fighting on Iwo Jima? After the Normandy invasion? When the USS Indianapolis was torpedoed? I don't know, perhaps another Freeper knows where to find that information, but I'll bet not all of those. But lately, I have been unable to view an American flag that has not been flying at half-staff except for perhaps, my own.

This has been nagging at me a long time now, and it came to a head with the lowering of the flag in tribute to the murdered diplomats in Libya.

We did not value those diplomats enough to provide them adequate protection in an environment where the acts of abduction and beheading are well established, but we value them enough to lower the flag for them? I guess this means that if Valerie Jarrett meets an untimely end, she will most definitely have the flag lowered to half-staff in her memory.

That is logical, right?

But my problem with this particular exercise is not the inconsistency, it is the message it sends to us as citizens, and to the world in general: That we are victims.

I personally think this is unhealthy, both from an individual moral and psychological standpoint, but also unhealthy (and dangerously so) from national and international perspectives because it makes us look weak. And if even if the pig-eyed medieval thugs inhabiting many parts of the middle east can't figure out how to use a flush toilet, they readily understand and recognize weakness.

Perhaps most of all, I hate living in an environment where people constantly have their heads bowed in mourning at the behest of the state. I believe that there are appropriate situations to do just that, but to do it constantly is corrosive and dangerous, and renders it meaningless. But a country that constantly has its eyes on the ground CANNOT do great things or be a leader, and that is where I see the current state of affairs leading to.

[rlmorel]

I would like to hear how other people feel about this. It seems like a small thing, but to me, is emblematic of a larger problem.

[Chainmail]

Not to offend you, this makes you look pompous and overly obsessed with triviality.

Flying the flag at half staff is meant to remember those who died in some way in service to their country.

If, by some misfortunate you die for our country, we will try to make a note not to lower the flag for you. Deal?

[oh8eleven]

I simply believe it is being over-used, and it is not a positive thing.
I totally agree. As I've driven around over the last 3-5 years, I see the flag at half-staff here. there and everywhere and wonder, Who the heck died now?
I do a little research and usually come up blank.

[TADSLOS]

You are reading my mind. Same goes with the term hero. Overused to the point of being meaningless.

[ExGeeEye]

I know at least one person who has been flying the flag at half-staff for years. He is in mourning for his country.

Others, like me, decline to fly Old Glory at all, not as long as that JEF can sully her reputation at home and abroad. The Gadsden comes out on certain special days— the last was 9/11/12— and flies from the top or the pole.

[stocksthatgoup]

Actually, if the flag is at perpetual half mast, it loses it’s meaning. Our flag is not dipped to others. Yes, it should be only flown at half mast for people who have done something heroic for our country. Now half mast is usually nothing more than a political statement or a fond farewell to another politician.

[FlingWingFlyer]

I also agree. This is starting to bother me too. It seems as though the flag is ALWAYS flying at half mast.

[rlmorel]

If someone tells me I am pompous, I try to take into account the source. Since I don't know you at all, I will try not to be offended or take it personally, even though, with your paragraph, you seem to be trying to do make it offensive or personal with your offer to make a "deal" with me.

I am not even sure you read the vanity posting, chainmail.

You said: "...Flying the flag at half staff is meant to remember those who died in some way in service to their country...", so we are in agreement with that. If you read my vanity, where did I cast aspersions on that?

Furthermore, if you make that point, how does that invalidate my point? Where did the person(s) shot in the Sikh temple "die for their country"? Where did Whitney Houston "did for her country"?

And do we do it all the time for everything? Should we just put the flag at half-staff and leave it there?

Now that I have narrowed it down for you, would you be kind enough to comment on it in that light for me?

[rlmorel]

We are of the same mind. See my longstanding Freep page.

[CodeToad]

“Flying the flag at half staff is meant to remember those who died in some way in service to their country.”

We’ve flown the flag half staff for shooting victims, for porn actresses, and all kinds of reasons. Our flag has been abused.

[rlmorel]

I have seen a guy flying the flag at half-mast for years, and on one hand it bothers me, and on the other hand, I wonder if that is the simple reason that he is in mourning for his country?

It may be that flying the flag upside down is a valid form of distress, but as distressed as I see our country, I haven't been able to bring myself to either fully approve or disapprove of this method.

I also see your point, and I think of it every time I drive up to my house and see my flag. Funny. I used to have an American Flag tie that I wore to work for years on days that seemed to ask for it, including election day. Since Obama was elected, I have been unable to wear it. It pains me that I have even begun to consider the appropriateness of flying MY flag, as you have done.

Again, I admit to being conflicted by it.

[Tijeras_Slim]

It’s at the point that the Albuquerque Journal has a box at the bottom corner of the front page indication if the flag is to be flown at full or half staff every day.

I think it has been debased to a certain extent.

[9YearLurker]

Yes. It used to be that our heroes were those who had chosen danger for the safety of others.

Now it seems as if our ‘heroes’ are our victims—innocents who were killed needlessly. Now they are the ones we create ever greater memorials for.

[rlmorel]

Right. That was the point I was trying to make, and I think Chainmail might have misunderstood the point of my vanity posting.

I believe the flag MEANS something, it isn't just some blue, red and white cloth sewn together in a certain way. It is what that symbolizes that is important.

My dad's casket was wheeled in under the flag of the Catholic Church, and seeing it had very little effect on me. But seeing my dad buried under this flag, by these men, had a very different effect on me:

When people debase or burn a flag, that bothers me because I know that people like my father, myself and Chainmail have served under that flag, many have died and been buried under it, and it MEANS something. It isn't at all trivial to me and many others, even though it seems to be simply physical cloth.

In Vietnam, our POW's in some cells made a ritual out of saying the pledge of allegiance in front of a tattered, hand-sewn flag made from scraps of cloth. They did it every day they could, in defiance of the guards, and had to keep the flag carefully hidden lest it be discovered and rewarded with a beating, or worse. But these guys did it. They showed respect to it in circumstances I cannot even imagine.

I do feel that we are showing a form of disrespect by using the flag in this way, but worse, is the impact doing so must absolutely have on our national psyche.

[davzabigpatsfan]

You and I definitely on the same page on this issue, MY brother.

[Domandred]

Flying flags at half-staff does not make "perpetual victimhood".

The day I took this picture, April 13, 2012, Illinois was flying their flags at half-staff for two days to honor CPL Alex Martinez, of the United States Marine Corps, killed in Afghanistan the previous week. Martinez was 21.

I agree with you on the Whitney Houston thing, but in most cases it's justified.

[Jim Noble]

I feel very strongly that we should not commemorate 9/11 in this way.

Healthy nations do not celebrate defeats.

[rlmorel]

Just to be clear-I did not say that flying flags at half-staff makes perpetual victimhood...I DID say that flying flags at Half-staff DOES impart a perception of perpetual victimhood.

I have no issues with circumstances surrounding our military killed in action.

[rlmorel]

I do understand your point of view. I readily admit to a degree of conflict over circumstances, and am still working it out.

[Colonel_Flagg]

Good post. Flying the national standard at half-staff should be reserved for truly appropriate occasions. Of course, since the current administration specializes in breathtakingly inappropriate behavior, I do understand it will take time to correct this issue.

This is also as good a time as any to remind Freepers of the difference between half-staff and half-mast. Flags over land fly at half-staff. Flags over water fly at half-mast. The terms are not interchangeable as many people assume.