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.

What happened?

  • hoshikarakitaridia@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Some additional information on that:

    Generally, depending on the country there’s laws for that.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_protocol

    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.

    • FireTower@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      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”.

      • Bytemeister@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Flag code in the US is just recommendations for citizens. I think it is only “enforced” for military personnel.