Five myths about the American Flag

[deziloooooo]

I found this article interesting..possible a few here might find it so too.
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www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-the-american-flag/2011/06/08/AG3ZSkOH_story.html
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[Click on link to read whole artiicle, two pages ]
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Five MythsChallenging everything you think you know

Five myths about the American flag
June 10

"Americans love our flag. We display it at concerts and stadiums to celebrate, and at times of national tragedy to show our resolve. We have our schoolchildren pledge allegiance to it; we have consecrated it in our national anthem; we have a holiday to honor it — Tuesday, in fact. Yet the iconography and history of the American flag, especially its early history, are infused with myth and misrepresentation. Here are five of the most prevalent myths.
Five Myths

A semi-weekly feature, hosted by The Post’s Outlook section, aiming to dismantle myths, clarify common misconceptions and make you think again about what you thought you already knew.



.1. Betsy Ross made the first American flag.

The Betsy Ross story is the most tenacious piece of fiction involving the flag. There simply is no credible historical evidence — letters, diaries, newspaper accounts, bills of sale — that Ross (then known as Elizabeth Claypoole) either made or had a hand in designing the American flag before it made its debut in 1777.

The story cropped up in 1870, almost 100 years after the first flag was supposedly sewn, when William Canby, Ross’s grandson, told the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia that his grandmother made the flag at George Washington’s behest. Canby’s sole evidence: affidavits from family members. The iconic 1893 painting of Ross sitting in her Philadelphia parlor with the sun beaming down on the flag in her lap is a scene invented by Charles H. Weisgerber, the artist and entrepreneur who profited from the Betsy Ross legend.

While Ross did make flags in Philadelphia in the late 1770s, it is all but certain that the story about her creating the American flag is a myth.

As President Woodrow Wilson, who presided over the first official national Flag Day on June 14, 1916, is said to have replied when asked his thoughts on the story: “Would that it were true.”


2. The red, white and blue colors symbolize American sacrifice.

No federal law, resolution or executive order exists providing an official reason for the flag’s colors — or their meaning. The closest thing to an explanation are the words of Charles Thomson, the secretary of the Continental Congress, who was instrumental in the design of the Great Seal of the United States. Thomson’s report to Congress on June 20, 1782, the day the seal was approved, contained a description of the colors, the same as those in the flag: “White signifies purity and innocence. Red hardiness and valour and Blue . . . signifies vigilance, perseverance and justice.”

Various official documents and proclamations — including one by President Ronald Reagan marking 1986 as the “Year of the Flag” — have echoed that reasoning.

But the colors do not have, nor have they ever had, any official imprimatur. Historians believe that the use of red, white and blue in the Stars and Stripes has to do with the simple fact that they were the colors of the first flag of the American colonies, the Continental Colors. And there is little doubt where the red, white and blue of the Continental Colors came from: the Union Jack of England.


3. The Pledge of Allegiance has long been recited in Congress and other governmental bodies.

The pledge was written by magazine editor Francis Bellamy in 1892 for a nationwide public school celebration of the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s landing. In 1898, during the Spanish American War, New York became the first state to mandate that public school students recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of each school day. Many states followed suit, and the pledge remained a staple of the daily routine in many schools until 1988, when it became an issue in the presidential campaign"

[pig]

So what are myths 4 and 5?

[thyme4change]

4. It is illegal to burn the American flag.

It was illegal until 1989, when the Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 in Texas v. Johnson that burning the flag is a form of symbolic speech protected by the First Amendment. The case involved Gregory Lee Johnson, a member of the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade, who had burned the flag during a protest at the 1984 Republican National Convention. He was convicted of violating Texas’s flag-desecration law, fined $2,000 and sentenced to a year in jail. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the conviction, ruling that Johnson was exercising his First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

The Supreme Court’s decision invalidated a 1968 national flag-desecration law, as well as similar laws in 48 states (all except Wyoming and Alaska). In response, Congress passed the Flag Protection Act, but that law was also challenged and wound up in the Supreme Court. The court in 1990 essentially affirmed its earlier ruling, stating that any law banning flag burning violated free speech.

Those decisions led to a national movement to amend the Constitution to make flag desecration illegal. The leading voice in that effort has been the Citizens Flag Alliance, which was founded in 1994by the American Legion. Proposed amendments have come up regularly in the House and Senate since then but have yet to receive sufficient support.

5. It’s okay to wear a Stars and Stripes T-shirt.

The U.S. Flag Code frowns on the use of the flag “for advertising purposes.” It goes on to warn against the sale or display of any “article of merchandise . . . upon which shall have been printed, painted, attached, or otherwise placed a representation of” the flag to “advertise, call attention to, decorate, mark, or distinguish the article or substance on which so placed.”

In other words, when you wear a flag T-shirt or hat while reclining on an American flag beach towel near your American flag camping chair, you are violating the Flag Code. The code, which was drawn up at the first National Flag Conference in Washington in 1923, is part of the law of the land. But it is not enforced, nor is it enforceable. It is merely a set of guidelines, letting Americans know what to do — and what not to do — with our red, white and blue national emblem.

There is no Flag Police. You will not be arrested for wearing a flag-embossed T-shirt on Flag Day — or any other day of the year.

[thyme4change]

I have a flag t-shirt, but I think it is okay because it was designed by Betsy Ross.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

In other words, when you wear a flag T-shirt or hat while reclining on an American flag beach towel near your American flag camping chair, you are violating the Flag Code

::runs to tell husband::

Thank you! I hate that american flag t-shirt, now I can tell him the law says he has to get rid of it.

[thyme4change]

I just bought American Flag cookies - damn commie Dough-Boy.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

I just bought American Flag cookies - damn commie Dough-Boy.

[❤ mollymouser ❤]

I want cookies now.

[vonnie6200]

Jun 28, 2011 14:02:56 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

I have a flag t-shirt, but I think it is okay because it was designed by Betsy Ross.

well my T shirt was actually made by Betsy

[❤ mollymouser ❤]

So ... illegal?

[thyme4change]

well my T shirt was actually made by Betsy

I hope you don't machine wash that - her workmanship was shit!

[floridayankee]

Jun 28, 2011 14:04:36 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

In other words, when you wear a flag T-shirt or hat while reclining on an American flag beach towel near your American flag camping chair, you are violating the Flag Code

::runs to tell husband::

Thank you! I hate that american flag t-shirt, now I can tell him the law says he has to get rid of it.

Don't run too quick. This section deals with advertising and has nothing to do with articles of clothing with the American Flag printed on it. Here is the entire section 3 of the flag code as written to contrast with the cherry picked pieces quoted in the article.

§3. Use of flag for advertising purposes; mutilation of flag
Any person who, within the District of Columbia, in any manner, for exhibition or display, shall place or cause to be placed any word, figure, mark, picture, design, drawing, or any advertisement of any nature upon any flag, standard, colors, or ensign of the United States of America; or shall expose or cause to be exposed to public view any such flag, standard, colors, or ensign upon which shall have been printed, painted, or otherwise placed, or to which shall be attached, appended, affixed, or annexed any word, figure, mark, picture, design, or drawing, or any advertisement of any nature; or who, within the District of Columbia, shall manufacture, sell, expose for sale, or to public view, or give away or have in possession for sale, or to be given away or for use for any purpose, any article or substance being an article of merchandise, or a receptacle for merchandise or article or thing for carrying or transporting merchandise, upon which shall have been printed, painted, attached, or otherwise placed a representation of any such flag, standard, colors, or ensign, to advertise, call attention to, decorate, mark, or distinguish the article or substance on which so placed shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be punished by a fine not exceeding $100 or by imprisonment for not more than thirty days, or both, in the discretion of the court. The words "flag, standard, colors, or ensign", as used herein, shall include any flag, standard, colors, ensign, or any picture or representation of either, or of any part or parts of either, made of any substance or represented on any substance, of any size evidently purporting to be either of said flag, standard, colors, or ensign of the United States of America or a picture or a representation of either, upon which shall be shown the colors, the stars and the stripes, in any number of either thereof, or of any part or parts of either, by which the average person seeing the same without deliberation may believe the same to represent the flag, colors, standard, or ensign of the United States of America.

aka, defacing the American Flag for commercial advertising is what is "illegal". Of course, since burning the flag was ruled as free speech, none of this even matters.

[ed1066]

No federal law, resolution or executive order exists providing an official reason for the flag’s colors — or their meaning.

Right, and we all know that nothing can be possible without a federal law, resolution or executive order to justify it...good liberal propaganda...

[thyme4change]

Five MythsChallenging everything you think you know

I would hardly say that these five things challenges EVERYTHING I think I know about the flag. First off, I think we all knew Betsy Ross was at least a partial myth. Second off, I already knew that our colors were likely based on the British flag, and had never even heard that myth.

But most importantly, I bet all of us could say at least one thing we know as FACT about the flag that wasn't challenged here - like say, what the stars and stripes mean, how you should fold it, how it should hang, the rules about lighting it, etc. etc.