The Freedom to Fly Freak Flags

Noticed a bunch of right wing flags on Long Beach Island in New Jersey. The most chilling is the thin blue line flag. It’s been around for a while but became popular with cops during the George Floyd protests, when the official police response to the slogan “black lives matter” was “all lives matter” and then they just dropped that and went with “blue lives matter.”

The most ridiculous non-Trump flag is the P.O.W./M.I.A flag. Do people realize that — even in the 80s when weirdos like Ross Perot and weird movies like Rambo popularized this right wing trope — there were NO American prisoners of war overseas?

At least people in this country have the freedom to fly whatever flags they want. In Germany you will be thrown in jail for flying, say, a swastika flag. Or a Palestinian flag, for that matter. Governments in the global south have an even dimmer view of this type of speech.

These images are offensive and hurtful but taking away freedom of expression from people is more so. Let people display their ignorance if they want. We know where they live.

—Alex