Why are people talking about flying a flag upside-down?
Today, a bunch of people on my Mastodon feed are making declarations about somebody apparently flying a flag upside down, and this apparently has something to do with the New York Times being terrible.
See, that’s where I was confused. Since it has rotational symmetry, I didn’t notice, since I just took an image and rotated it— but it didn’t consider how a flag hangs from a flagpole, with one edge having eyeholes for a rope or string. This means it would be inverted, not rotated, and the stripes would be different.
In the upper corner of the flag nearest the flagpole, the wider diagonal white stripe should be above the red diagonal stripe. If the red is above the wider white stripe the flag is upside-down.
Flying the national maritime ensign upside down is an internationally recognized distress signal. A UK-flagged boat wouldn't fly the Union Jack upside down (which would be rather ineffective), but rather the Red Ensign (for civilian vessels).
Violating these laws can lead to varying degrees of fines and or prosecution, depending on the country and the type of country flag desecration (burning a flag is worse than getting the height of the flag on the pole wrong).
Half mast is the more famous distress signal internationally.
That said, Alito, even if not doing something illegal, is definitely signalling something very ominous. I agree with the experts that such an extreme degree of the appearance of impropriety is definitely gonna run afoul of supreme court ethics rules.
But: no check of power means no executive power and that means a rule might as well be unwritten.
Flag code in the US has no teeth. Flag burning is legal per Texas v. Johnson. Symbolizing a stance of the nation being in distressed is definitely protected speech. Impropriety is a stretch for a statement on his private property that amounts to "our country is in turmoil".