Flying the Flag at Half Staff for Reggie White

[Sandpiper]

http://www.startribune.com/stories/568/5157310.html

I think it's perfectly acceptable for the Green Bay Packers to have a tribute to Reggie White.

However, I think it is entirely unacceptable for them to fly the American Flag at half staff in his honor.

The occasions on which the flag is to be flown at half staff are:

Memorial day

By order of the President of the United States

By order of a Governor of a State


Flying the flag at half staff is a symbol of national mourning and a tribute to those who have served and sacrificed for their country.

Flying the flag half staff, willy nilly, every time a famous person dies sort of cheapens its meaning.

If the Packers want to salute Reggie White's contribution to their franchise, let them fly their Packers banner half staff in his honor.

[Massacure]

1. Flying the flag upside down because politics don't match their views

is also very degrading, yet I don't see anyone bitching about that...

[purduejake]

3. Actually, it is a sign of distress to fly it upside down

[LittleClarkie]

4. It's an official Navy signal, innit?

That's why I'm not offended by the New Soldier book cover either. I understand what is meant.

[RoyGBiv]

6. Flying the flag upside down ...

... means a great deal more than I do not agree with someone's political views. I've never done it in my life.

I am now because I am calling out for aid in a time of great distress to my country.

The OP was correct, imo.

[Massacure]

7. Great distress to your country? What distress?

This country has been in worse, and people didn't go around hanging flags upside down then.

Don't give me George Bush is curtailing our freedomes either. FDR did the same thing to Japanese. People seem to ignore that fact.

[RoyGBiv]

10. Okay ...

I won't give you any George Bush crap, at least not directly.

I'll give you the value of our dollar as compared to the Euro. I'll give you the fact that our currency is being propped up by nations that were hard hit by the recent natural disaster in Asia and that these nations could, at any moment, determine it is financial suicide to continue supporting American currency. And, I'll give you the notion that oil is on the verge of being traded in Euros by at least one major exporter (and how many are there now?) if things don't go quite the way they want them to, and I'll give you that our current government (here's the indirect part, in case you weren't already aware) is doing *nothing* to address this problem that promises, even if the worst case scenario is not realized, to fundamentally, and in an economic heartbeat, alter the basis of our rapidly crumbling economy for the unrecoverable-in-our-lifetime worse.

I'll also give you this. My country is murding tens of thousands of people and calling it liberation. My country is sending its men and women to kill and die for corporate profit. My country has released a man named Paul from the military after he received wounds that shattered his nervous system to the point he can no longer perform the job he was trained to do, and Paul is now filing for bankruptcy and looking at the potential of homelessness because the government that yanked him out of his life and put him into a situation that caused him to be injured (did I mention that situation was built on a lie?) refuses to recognize his injury as life-altering and will not provide him with appropriate medical, psychological, or financial care.

Need more? I got tons more.

Take your FDR analogy and play some really weird game with it.

OnEdit: Changed certain phrasing.

[purduejake]

2. He wasn't a great American anyway.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Sandpiper]

8. I guess I missed the football player exception in the U.S. Code

n/t

[Badger1]

9. I agree

And I for one am a WI fan. Fly the flag at half mast for some "football hero"? Hero's jump on hand gernades and pull people from burning buildings. Reggie was a fucking over paid football player, nothing more and nothing less. Yes we will miss him but get fucking real.

[LittleClarkie]

11. I'm not gonna be the one to tell Harlan to put the flag back up

You go do it.

I'm not such a big Reggie fanatic either. But I don't feel like telling people how they should mourn.

[Endangered Specie]

12. Locking...

Please continue the discussion in one of the already established Reggie White threads.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2872552
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2874894

Thank you
-DU Moderator.