Once more into the stupid, sweet Americans, once more into it. For those of us who have been around for a few decades, another damn fight over the perceived mistreatment of the American flag makes us roll our eyes and say, "Sorry, what were you saying, conservatives, about Muslims upset at the mocking of Mohammed?"
Last week, the Associated Students of the University of California-Irvine (motto: "Did you know your campus has a student government? Stop laughing!") passed a resolution by a 6-4 vote to ban all flags from the lobby of the student government offices because...really, who the fuck knows anymore...imperialism, colonialism, oppression, the usual hypochondria of the part of the left that thinks changing symbols and speech requires as much effort as changing laws and leaders (yeah, fuck it, attack the Rude Pundit for saying that - it's a bigger topic for another time). Anyways, it was six non-white college students who were then excoriated in the right-wing media because, you know, it distracts from the "nigger"-chanting white students in Oklahoma. Fox "news" has been at DEFCON Birth Certificate for much of the last week over it, with its implicit "UC campus bans flag."
Except for the fact that the student government's executive council vetoed the whole thing two days later. But why let the end of it stop a good story? It's gotten so bad that the university canceled a scheduled student government meeting because of "viable threats" received. And, of course, it's led to protests and arguments, with cranky old people in Tea Party shirts and veterans showing up to bellow patriotically at the students for daring to use their speech in a way that upset them.
Pro-tip: If your response to people wanting to ban a flag is that you fought so they could have the freedom to do such things, don't fucking complain when they do.
(By the way, those rolling papers totally exist. Burn a flag for freedom.)
