Unthinking flag desecration

You can purchase a shirt that displays the flag in violation of the Flag Code. All the outlaws are wearing them these days.

Don’t worry; once we get the Amendment to the Constitution to make flag desecration a crime, these people will go to jail.

But they’ll whine all the while that they didn’t know they were violating the flag code.  That’s the problem:  They don’t know.  They don’t know much about anything.  Calling Dr. Dunning and Dr. Kruger . . .

“Pledge shirt” from the so-called Patriot Depot; putting the flag on shirts like this is a violation of the U.S. Flag Code.

Yes, putting the flag on apparel violates the Flag Code, 4 USC Sec. 8, “Respect for the Flag”:

(d) The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery. It should never be festooned, drawn back, nor up, in folds, but always allowed to fall free. Bunting of blue, white, and red, always arranged with the blue above, the white in the middle, and the red below, should be used for covering a speaker’s desk, draping the front of the platform, and for decoration in general.

And:

(i) The flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever. It should not be embroidered on such articles as cushions or handkerchiefs and the like, printed or otherwise impressed on paper napkins or boxes or anything that is designed for temporary use and discard. Advertising signs should not be fastened to a staff or halyard from which the flag is flown.

(j) No part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform. However, a flag patch may be affixed to the uniform of military personnel, firemen, policemen, and members of patriotic organizations. The flag represents a living country and is itself considered a living thing. Therefore, the lapel flag pin being a replica, should be worn on the left lapel near the heart.

God will forgive them, but we owe thanks to God for answering our prayer to make such idiots show themselves by their ignorance, right?

No, I don’t think these people intend to disrespect the flag, and we don’t really need to jail them.  The creation of this shirt is one more indication that those who cloak themselves in the flag generally are not the patriots they claim to be, however, and their respect for the flag and patriotism generally runs no deeper than the thickness of the t-shirt.  A t-shirt patriot is impossible for me to distinguish from a sunshine patriot.  Thomas Paine warned us against them some time ago.

U.S. flag patch displayed legally, and correctly, on the shoulder of a U.S. soldier at Fort Carson. This display is reversed from those worn on other uniforms, including police, firefighters, and Boy Scouts. U.S. Army photo

More:

• Red, white and blue fashion: Patriotic or out-of-bounds? (poll) (al.com)
• Americanism-The Religion of Peace (bothwell.typepad.com)
• On Flag Day, Defend the U.S. Flag By Punishing Those Who Desecrate It! (gawker.com)
• The Flag and the Law (naplesnews.com)
• Flag found in trash honored in Plover (wsaw.com)

Update:

Just stumbled into this photo; it’s an AP photo, but this is fair use. Surely none of these Tea Party functionaries intended to desecrate the flag, did they? AP caption on August 4, 2013: “Associated Press/J. Scott Applewhite, File – FILE – In this June 19, 2013, file photo, Tea Party activists rallying in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington. The movement’s top strategists concede the tea party is quieter today, by design. It has matured, they said, from a protest movement to a political movement. Large-scale rallies have given way to strategic letter-writing and phone-banking campaigns to push or oppose legislative agendas in Washington and state capitals. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)”