Am I wrong for feeling cringe and ickiness when looking at my country flag?

Not from the US but when I see my country's flag I don't really feel anything. In theory I've got two flags, both the Scottish one and the Union Jack but they both elicit the same lack of reaction. Countries are just social and geographical facts. Getting angry or elated at the sight of a flag is a bit like having an emotional reaction to the moon; I suppose it's possible in some circumstances but most of the time it's just there and you shrug.

Aw, you're turning English.

The St George Cross flag basically gets trotted out for football and racism. That's it.

If I see one on somebody's house and it's not Euros or World Cup season, then I automatically assume they're seething because they heard somebody have a phone conversation in a foreign language on the bus three weeks ago and that they should bring back smoking in pubs.

I haven't been proud to be an American in a long time. We were looking for a house, now we're debating if leaving is safer.

This country is doomed, and everyone who voted Trump deserves to burn in the fires they helped create. Fuck em, I have literally no sympathy left.

I have always had that feeling living in a fascist third world country (Turkey) welcome to the club

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel" - I think Samuel Johnson's original meaning, of complaining about "false" patriots, strongly applies to your distaste for the flag. The idiots we see proudly waving their country flags (in Brazil, that'd be the bozonaristas) are using them as a cover for their prejudices and stupidity. They wouldn't be able to name a single thing they like about the country they love.

I don’t think you’re wrong at all.

Personally, I don’t hate the flag because for me it represents ideals that should be for everyone and that I should be fighting oppression of those against the dream. I have a very Captain America-esque view.

What I cringe and have disgust with are the citizens that want to tear down these just ideals or misrepresent and distort what we should be.

I know exactly what you're talking about. I'm from Russia.

I may have a chance to travel to Europe for the first time in my life, and I'm worried that the Ugly American stereotype will be factored in to my reception. Probably won't go until things calm down here/the nukes fly.

Nope, same thing happened to me in Canada after the clown convoy. Canada Day was never the same nor celebrated since

I felt this way a few years ago when we had the idiot convoy ride across Canada. The flag became a symbol for racist, anti-vax, just general assholes.

I never was a huge fan of flying the flag anyway, because to me it represents colonialism, but I never used to mind it as much. Now when I see it out of place, I just assume bad, unless it's one of our more cheerful variations like the indigenous design or the heart one that was used to show support for medical workers.

I see other people getting down voted for similar sentiments, but visiting the US always made me feel uncomfortable to see ALL the flags. I honestly haven't been to another country that takes that much pride in their flag. Until the convoy, I don't think I even ever saw anyone flying Canadian flag in their yard except maybe for Canada Day.

Idk, what I'm saying is, I feel for you, I understand it's a symbol of your national identity, but also, maybe take more pride in what actual good Americans do rather than in just some made up symbolism of what they should be.

You're in good company. Germans have a similar relationship with their flag.

No, you shouldn’t, because nearly half the country voted against Trump. It wasn’t enough, but it certainly indicates a significant portion of the country opposes him and the ideologies behind him. What we, as Americans, should be ashamed of is our pathetic educational system, which is at the root of this problem.

Both Republicans and Democrats are at the core of this problem. Republicans don’t want any public education at all and Democrats have polluted public education with Far Left propaganda that has fueled conservative rage and helped Far Right people divide the nation. Race and gender issues have eclipsed class issues, which are the real problems of the nation. As much as LGBT and racial groups deserve their particular rights, the real divisions at the heart of America are between the middle- and working-classes and the ultra-rich. Corporations are the prime devil that need to be taken down, not White men. Plenty of White men are suffering at the hands of corporations and they need to be woken up. The most recent election has shown that non-Whites are just as susceptible to Trump’s charms as anyone else. We need to stop focusing on superficial divisors such as race and gender and start focusing on class divisors much more.

I kinda know what you mean... I used to not think anything weird about seeing an American flag, sometimes it even made me feel patriotic. Now when I see a car with an American flag sticker I assume the person driving probably has a loaded gun and is desperate to get into an argument about something

Don't forget who took that from you.

Every time I see flags out in public, it just reminds me of authority.

I don't like authority, from schools administrators to employers, or even parents, fuck them all, wannabe fascists.

Flags, school logos, corporate logos, or the concept of the "family name" its all the same. (I'd change the family name if it doesn't cause so much paperwork trouble)

Maybe this flag as a replacement?

youre not alone. the american flag makes me sick. overt patriotism has been coopted by magats, and its hard to see it any other way.

if someone feels the need to wave the american flag, i feel the need to be suspicious of your lack of empathy and possible fascist undertones. sorry.

The country where I was born and raised is 900 years old. This implies a lit of history, both good and bad.

The country was literally started because our first king decided he wasn't going to allow his mother and her lover to steal his father's lands. After that, the Pope demanded our country to pay the church a huge sum in order to be recognized, the king said "we'll eventually come to that" and never payed. We were taken over by our neighbouring country at some point because of blood ties and after 75 years we just said "enough is enough, these guys are getting housted". We fought Napoleon. We had a bloody civil war. Somewhere inbetween all of this we decided "Let's build a lot of boats and see where we can go." because the price of spices was to damn high. And more recently we got out of bed for a morning, threw down a fascist dictatorship, and went back to our quiet life. Nobody cares or notices us but yet we have one of the most powerful passports in the world.

But why all of this boasting?

It's cool to have all this history and background. But I don't owe my country nothing. I owe who I am to my family and friends and I owe to the future generations to remember where we come from and teach them the same I learned by myself: we are our country. We decide what we stand for and we represent the values we want to spread.

The government of your land may be corrupt today but it does not have or needs to represent you. And by refusing that, you put up your own resistance. No matter how small, that is resistance. And if you feel your flag needs to be reclaimed, put it upside down.

Stay strong, OP.

The greatest lie the Right ever told that the Left bought hook line and sinker was that they were the ones who represented America.

The thing is, while the US has it's horrible history and present, the people who fought for the ideals we're supposed to have are also just as much American as any conservative asshole. MLK Jr was American. Frederick Douglass was American. John Brown was American. Mister Rogers was American. Abolitionists. Suffragists. Union fighters. People fighting for fixing the problems, righting the wrongs, holding our country accountable for it's own ideals, are just as much a part of that flag.

The assholes laid claim to that flag and the people who are aware of the problems, who have legitimate concerns with the bullshit this country has done and continues to do, accidentally let them.

Patriotism leads to nationalism, xenophobia, and racism. Not always, of course, but often enough to make it a horrible thing. Our communities are only as good as we make them, and any notion that presupposes greatness is antithetical to continued improvement.

No. I saw a lady driving with two USA flags on the sides of her car yesterday. I assume this is her alternative to having a Trump sticker, since that shit would likely engender a negative response in the Bay Area (specifically Oakland / Berkeley). She just looked dumb as fuck. I was embarrassed for her.

Don't be ashamed to be ashamed of your country. If you're also a USA citizen, we have a lot to be ashamed about. But also don't give up. Fight back. Don't let them slow-roll to victory by causing us to go numb.

You tell me, man. Over here in Brazil, seeing a national flag outside the context of "it's world cup match day" generally signals whoever is flying it is a fascist twat.

On a semi-related note, I’m glad that Superman’s motto was updated to “Truth, Justice, and a Better Tomorrow” back in 2021.

You are not wrong. Seeing jingoism and corporatized patriotism for the sham that they are really opens your eyes to how much of it truly exists. A person who wants no politics in life is often fine with a national anthem, a gigantic flag stretched across a stadium, with jets flying over for a Cheez-It Citrus Bowl and has absolutely no idea that it is political propaganda for nationalism and perpetual war.

In my 50+years here, it has only gotten worse and worse. We've always stuck our military where it doesn't belong, back to the beginning with genociding indigenous peoples here. Now we stick military bases all over the planet and strong arm every other nation into unbalanced alliance. We create conflict for oil and to line the pockets of defense contractors. We aid those currently committing genocide and protect the perpetrators from receiving international justice. Nationalism and fascism snap together like two magnets.

Every time I am told to stand for a national anthem at a professional for-profit sporting event, I think of these things and remain sitting.

The American flag has become more a symbol of nationalism to me than a symbol of patriotism. It represents everything I hate about my country, and none of the things I love.

I hate even dressing up on July 4th for fear of looking like a capitol raiding moron. It didn't use to be like this, and frankly, it's depressing as fuck. I used to be very proud of my nation, and the progress we'd made in my short lifespan. We legalized gay marriage, elected a black president, tried to get healthcare for all (didn't work and we all know why), but I genuinely felt optimistic about our nation and the future. 4 years of Trump did a number on my sense of patriotism, and were only 1 months in to Trump 2.0 and he's dealt a knockout blow to it. I genuinely cringe seeing any amount of national pride now.

As a German, I feel you.

It's a good step to consider patriotic ideology as prelude to fascism and tribalism. Welcome in the world of great oportunities, free from borders and labels put with force in your mind. Welcome there, human!

Here's an alternative take to upset the boring consensus here.

Patriotic pride (not necessarily nationalism) is the inevitable product of social cohesion. A society which is cohesive is one where people look at strangers and see them as members of their tribe - essentially, as extended family. It's a society where citizens are therefore willing to pay high taxes to fund those strangers' welfare benefits, for example. No welfare state has ever arisen in a country without this essential quality. Almost by definition, social cohesion is closely correlated with patriotism. In the world's most redistributive countries - I'm talking about Scandinavia, of course - you will see more national flags than you might think given their "leftist" reputation. In Sweden, ordinary houses sometime have flagpoles in the garden, I've seen them. None of this is coincidental.

Patriotism can be a dangerous slippery slope, yes. But it's also what empowers strong states and collective action. Nobody wants a patriotism-free world more than the billionaires that everyone hates here. Be careful what you wish for.

In elementary school, I was all about patriotism. The flag was cool. we (country) were the bad-ass owners of our own fate and we're cool. We are the melting pot, by the people for the people.

Up through Desert Shield, I was still like yay, America.

W lost his luster, I got old enough to feel the embarrassment of broccoli and NUCULER. I wasn't rah rah anymore, but those that are, live and let live right?

Dixie flag wavers were racists, that was easy, but the 1776 flag, will maybe they're historians.

I was mostly over our the right's shit by Clinton. But then Clinton had some of his own disturbing shit.

When Trump hit the first time, I saw, 30-40% of the population throwing flags up and starting fascist fights. Complete and Immediate disillusion.

At his point, someone flying the US flag is a BIG red flag. The Dixie flag is stupid racists, The 1776 flag is libertarians who fall into camps between uninformed and uninformed racists pop it up there with the don't tread on me bullshit.

At this point, if you're not retired military from a better time, there's very little you can do to show me you can fly an American flag and not be a horrible person.

Where I live it's hard to see someone flying an American flag and not immediately assume they're a bigot.

Magats did to the American flag what they think gay people did to the rainbow.

My hunch – both the Red Tribe and the Blue Tribe, for whatever reason, identify “America” with the Red Tribe. Ask people for typically “American” things, and you end up with a very Red list of characteristics – guns, religion, barbecues, American football, NASCAR, cowboys, SUVs, unrestrained capitalism.

That means the Red Tribe feels intensely patriotic about “their” country, and the Blue Tribe feels like they’re living in fortified enclaves deep in hostile territory.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/

Same, I just feel kind of gross now when I see it. Sad as I still love my country, just not what it's doing now.

Do USian school children still talk to that bit of fabric every morning - or is that a myth? From an outsider’s perspective I always put the US just below, uh, post-Weimar republic Germany in the excessive flag club chart placings. Always seemed excessively jingoistic.

Best of luck with your country…

No, you've started to see things more clearly.

No, you're right to feel that way. While most Americans aren't terrible people, enough of us are that we allowed fascism to take over and we will have to carry that shame with us for the rest of our lives. It Happened Here.

However you feel is not "wrong", and in this case pretty understandable.

Here in Australia I don't have a problem with the flag itself, but there seems to be a strong correlation with people putting flags on their cars and being racist assholes.

Totally healthy! I started that when my friends died in Iraq or came back without limbs and sustaining life long trauma. But newbies always welcome 😁

this is what free speech is all about, you should never feel wrong for feeling gross about how your country is fucking up

Yes and no.

You can can display an American flag and not be a facist. Facists can’t co-opt the US flag.

The flags that look similar to the American flag, but have a blue line or are black/grey are the ones that cringe me up. Those are actual false flags and are anti-patriotic. Right up there with the “rebel” flag.

Maybe get a tiny little flag and put it in your garden.

Any day you're able to rise above the cult of nationalism is a good day.

I've always felt pride in the ideals of my nation, and shame from its actions.

But at least I still hold onto the ideals. It's not nothing.

For me it's been longer than that. I am a queer Canadian and anytime I have travelled the US or stayed with friends and seen any group carrying or wearing American flags that hasn't given me the "ick" so much as rung alarm bells that those people are not safe.

Thing is, it's the same thing with the Canadian flag. Any group flying too many Canadian flags outside of Canada Day is likely to be Conservative and anti-queer. Anti-Trans protesters or anti-vaxxers on highway overpasses? Canadian flag. Lifted truck soaring down the highway with a "Fuck Trudeau" bumper sticker - Canada flag. Hoard of protesters demanding book bans, group of people protesting Pride with a "you are gunna burn pedos" sign, antiDEI crusader mob - Canadian flag. It doesn't take long before one starts to draw certain conclusions about a person's character when they wave it around. For those of us trans folk who can it's a sign to hide. A literal red flag.

Amoungst the left up here the flag is a complicated symbol. Many of us on the West Coast see it as a symbol of colonial practice and an insensitive declaration of an occupying nation on stolen territory for people who are still here and whose original sovereignty is still not properly acknowledged. It's not a symbol of pride and if personally used as such it's a sign of insensitivity and work to be done. At the same time I would not say that I am not proud of my Country for how far we've come. We are a nation in therapy who has the opportunity to put the work in to getting over some really bad murderous and selfish flaws and try new things to make things right. When I had an American friend up here it took a bit for him to understand how seriously the effort is to recon with our past and he treated us like a utopia of leftist sentiment but it is like therapy, yeah we might be putting the work in - but we can see how much further we need to go and praise doesn't hit us as "job well done" it's a reminder of how shitty it still is. But if anyone ever thinks that this complicated and nuanced relationship to country would stop us from rallying together to fight to preserve our rights to keep working towards that better future they would be dead wrong.

So I understand pretty well where you're coming from but for a lot of us this isn't a particularly new thing. It just is affecting more and more people as they wake up to realizing how these symbols are used.

Even as a kid, I never understood how the USA flag could be a symbol of "freedom" while conscription exists. Today it has gone from a generally indifferent lie to borderline offensive

It really only feels appropriate to see it upside down these days.

I agree that our history has always been fucked up. But there are degrees of fucked up-ness and we're officially leaving the measurement scale.

It's fucking over.

The flag doesn't bother me but the pledge to it does. The traitor flags (Confederate battle flag and one bearing a president's name) do.

In my opinion, true patriotism requires being critical of your nation. A patriot doesn't blindly let their nation go to hell. The Republicans that have take the word "patriot" are not patriots, in my opinion. They've ruined the word. A patriot wants to find the issues with their nation and improve them, not yell about being the best and to ignore everything wrong.

Basically, yes. I feel the same as you about the flag, but because it's been used as a symbol of blind faith, not patriotism. I feel patriotic pride in being critical, not in saying a pledge or anything like that.

I am from Canada, and while the flag could go either way for me, mounties, even in their blood-red uniforms do turn my stomach. (Paintings by Kent Monkman, showcasing the "Sixties Scoop"

Our past further back has not been much help.

In addition to the physical appropriation of land was the colonial effort to eliminate the transmission of cultural identity, traditional skills, and connection to the land. Beginning in 1883 (while this was the date of the first federally established church school, similar institutions existed as early as the 1830s, years before Canadian federation) Indian Residential Schools (IRSs) were established in Canada (as were American Indian Boarding Schools in 1862). Children were forcibly removed from their families and were institutionalized in IRSs with the explicit goal of ‘taking the Indian out of the child’. These mandated church-run IRSs endeavoured to save the souls of the ‘savages’ by immersing them in Euro–Christian beliefs and eradicating access to traditional socialization values, language, practices and ways of life. By the 1930s, roughly 75% of First Nations children attended IRSs, as did many Métis and Inuit children. The last of the IRSs was closed in 1996, but by then several generations of children had experienced the mistreatment that abounded in these institutions.

Then to really prove we could be as evil as everyone thinks we're polite, we added this gem to our crown.

"It is readily acknowledged that Indian children lose their natural resistance to illness by habituating so closely in the residential schools, and that they die at a much higher rate than in their villages. But this alone does not justify a change in the policy of this Department, which is geared towards a final solution of our Indian Problem." -Duncan Campbell Scott to BC Indian Agent Gen. Major D. MacKay.

And there are those who say it is in the past, and everyone is crying over things from long ago, yet 1996 is not so long ago for Residential Schools, and our police deny any ongoing wrong-doings. I for one do not feel patriotism for our past, though I have some small hope for our future.

Team america, world police

We suck.

I am a US citizen but have been living abroad for the last 4.5 years. I can get by with Norwegian language but didn’t really feel hyper compelled to speak it all the time as English is spoken widely and well here. But especially since the inauguration it’s like, I don’t want strangers to realise that not only am I a foreigner, I’m an American. I try to be a good ambassador through my actions and words, but there’s only so much I can do to distance myself from broad brush strokes of “Americans” anymore and honestly is embarrassing. Also I feel deeply sad that I feel like I can never go home. That place just isn’t real anymore.

Tbh I think flag hate or angst is about as useful/less as flag worship. If you need something to be preoccupied with, why not make it a problem you can put that energy into doing something about where you live - like homeless people or food aid.

I might be reacting this way because I've been getting recent emails from my college about changing the school mascot, which is a "pioneer". When I was there I don't remember even being aware that there was a mascot. But apparently they think "pioneer" might be too closely associated with colonialism and they've decided this is an important issue. My attitude is create a Native American scholarship (or anything that actually does something) - don't obsess on imagery.

No

As a Canadian, my favourite thing about the American flag is there isn't a lot of room for a 51st star on there. It would break the symmetry.

As to our maple leaf, I've had mixed feelings about it. As a kid, I thought it was cute and friendly as national flags go. Then later, watching assholes in Dodge Rams with the flag whipping around next to their Fuck Trudeau stickers during that aggravatingly endless trucker rally left me less enthused. But now with Trump threatening annexation, I've rediscovered its beauty!

I would advise you not to hate people you don’t know just because they fly a flag but your feelings are valid. Nationalism is a toxic ideology founded in violence and oppression at its very core.

Welcome to the club. People from other countries have these thoughts for some time already.

If you think every time you see the US flag the person with it is a fascist get off the internet for a while. Most people are not nazis.

The same happens in Spain if you are leftist since the civil war, even before maybe.

No

"All men are created equal"

IS SLAVE STATE

Always has been

If nobody ever would identify with a flag we'd have like 1 problem less.

I'm with you. I'm on vacation in a foreign country. There was a performance and part of it was asking the crowd where they were from. I felt no enthusiasm when the performer asked the crowd to cheer if they were from the USA. It felt shameful.

You aren't unjustified in this. Politics has become a complex web, and it's difficult to grasp a singular feeling for the nation they pertain to, such as pride, especially when you politicize something like the flag. Even if your stance is on the other side of the spectrum, this is on America.

It also stands for showing sign of dementia these days.

Look for the helpers

What you're feeling is rationality. Nationalism is an extension of basic primal instinct humans have developed to protect their tribe, but it is only detrimental to modern life.

I dont think these meets my standards for ask lemmy. Just throwing that out there.

I'd say the only reason you didn't feel that before was ignorance, the American flag is NOT a thing of good. It has been fucked up from the very beginning. And to us who are not Americans, it's very obvious how much your country absolutely forces brainwashing of all citizens from the second they're born. American patriotism and love for the flag etc. is in the same way that for example a priest shows how much they're against homosexuality and other sins like it then they're found with child-p (I don't want to fully write it) and stuff like that. It's the school bully that screams about how cool and strong they are, when they're exactly the opposite.

No, but to make a post about how "cringe and icky" you feel is pretty fuckin cringe.

It also doesn't make a ton of sense to be fine with America through the duration of Trump's first presidency (which started 8 years ago and ended 4 years ago) but to feel icky for his second presidency??

Which also implies that Biden was the turning point for your loss of patriotism.

Something tells me this might be the first election you were old enough to vote in. And if that's the case, I hate to break it to ya but each election season is always better than the next.