I like flags. Trying to avoid another demerit.

Attached Images

flags.jpg (53.3 KB, 48 views)

Doubt he waited to 83.

__________________
Sure you did

Uh oh!!!!!

Americans have been on watchlists with the Feds since J. Edgar Hoover so this is nothing new.

Several years ago, I learned (don't ask how) that I was on one such list and that ALL veterans within the past fifty years have been on the list, too. Probably just being an NRA member or a member of a forum such as this automatically puts you on one. It wouldn't surprise me.

I lose NO sleep on it.

__________________
The Last Standing Knight

If you are NOT on some list you ain't trying hard enough!
Hell, I'm pretty sure I'm on all the moderator lists just for starters

__________________
Forum consigliere

I agree with Caje ............. If you aren't on a list already you ain't trying very hard. By now we are all on some kind of list, just having an opinion and voicing it are enough to get someone keeping an eye on you nowadays! I need to grab another flag pole mount for the new "Don't Tread On Me" flag the wife picked up for me at the county fair (she knows me pretty well LOL) ........... Need to give the neighbors something new to talk about ..............

So long as I can still get on a plane...

Over the past several decades we have adopted new statutes and constitutional amendments prohibiting discrimination based upon age or gender, so it is arguable that the federal militia now consists of all citizens and lawful residents. Physical handicaps have also been pronounced as protected, so the old "able-bodied" standard is gone as well.

The militia of the United States is authorized in the Constitution and enacted as public law under Title 10 US Code. Most of the states have similar constitutional provisions for the state militias. These have always served as the underlying authority for Selective Service (draft by conscription).

The term "militia" has been given a negative connotation in recent years because of the various radical movements adopting that moniker for their organizations, but militia service has always been part of the duties of citizenship in our country. Perhaps overlooked by government officials, but remaining as a legal institution for as long as our republic has existed.

__________________
Life of the party until 8:00PM

It's sadly amusing to me that so many Americans who are so cynical when it comes to US Government law enforcement and security agencies...are seemingly blind to the deliberate, calculated efforts of foreign governments to sow discord in our society.

I suspect many or most of us have accounts on other social media sites. Well, when you notice poorly-written posts, from accounts that have no photos, no friends, and no information attached to them, that's a dead giveaway that the poster is in Moscow and not Miami.

Documentation of these Russian efforts isn't hard to find, if you're willing to look for it.

Russian Disinformation Efforts on Social Media | RAND

I would fully expect that ATF is monitoring the classified ads here to make sure sellers and buyers are complying with the laws regarding interstate transfers.

But I'm equally certain our adversaries half-a-world away are also on here, stirring the pot, keeping up tensions. In fact, when I think about some of the posts on here over the past couple of years, on certain topics, that seem designed only to provoke debate and discord, I'm convinced of it...

looks like Seal Team 3 must be on their list, because at least one platoon uses a stylized Punisher logo. Chris Kyle's platoon.

Sadly, some of our most treasured national symbols and emblems, such as the Gadsden Flag and the Betsy Ross Flag, have been appropriated by racists and hate groups. And those people are definitely out there. Yes, I know all about Antifa and BLM...but they are not actively trying to foment a race-based civil war in our country.

Domestic Violent Extremism Poses Heightened Threat in 2021 | Homeland Security

Same happened to the Hakenkreuz, and politicians have banned it in Germany. With the way it's going over here I wouldn't be surprised if one-, or some of these useless knuckleheads would introduce legislation to ban those symbols...

__________________
Jorge

Rather easy to compile lists in this computer era.
In East Germany the Stasi achieved the highest degree of surveillance and penetration by any secret police agency, yet at the end they had no idea what their people really thought and felt.
I don't think not posting pictures, personal information, etc. is a sign of a troll or a provocateur, rather I think people have gotten rather careless and indiscreet.
"Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead." Ben Franklin, 1735

It just so happens that last Friday, August 4th, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the subject of national security and the top terrorism threats faced by the United States today. His statement is linked below.

Reading the Director's testimony, it strikes me that he discusses the whole panoply of threat actors, foreign and domestic, and explains the danger each of them poses. It's interesting reading if you're concerned about national security...

Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation — FBI

You can't seriously be advocating for display of the swastika anywhere?

It's not proof, just one indicator, something that fits a pattern. Let's just say that when I read a social media comment that serves only to stir the pot, to keep people riled up, and I look to see who's posted it, it doesn't surprise me to see that the author has no friends listed and no photos to show.

I hardly ever post personal photos. It's residual caution from a career in policing, then service on our parole board.

Many cultures used that symbol for many things, but only one guy misused it for evil things. Now the symbol is bad. So, one guy, one nation can misuse a symbol and its meaning, and now it's a symbol for evil and evil only around the world.

With our current legislators I wouldn't be surprised if they (try to) outlaw some of our historical symbols too because some idiots misuse them.

I'm not offended when seeing a traditional swastika in different cultures. They had nothing to do with Nazi Deutschland.

__________________
Jorge

I've never seen symbols 'outlawed' in this country. In the Baltic nations it is a felony to possess Nazi flags or symbols and Soviet flags and symbols.

How often do you see pictures of Che, yet he was a very evil, hateful, vicious man, a Stalinist, advocated what the New York Times called a "sclerotic orthodoxy", one article I read said Castro found him a lot more useful as a dead martyr than a living colleague-and competitor.

New York State has banned the display of the swastika on public land and other places, and more than one state considers a burning cross to be a hate crime . . .

Information on Hate Symbols - OPHC

__________________
Wisdom comes thru fear . . .

Sclerotic orthodoxy! Whoa!

Losing millions of your people will tend to make you a little wary of the symbols that represent their killers.

We Americans have generally had it so easy here...

I'm not a constitutional scholar by any means, but so far as I know, you can display whatever you care to...on your own property. You can hold a meeting and burn a cross if you want to...on your own property.

The government is under no obligation to provide someone with a platform to display a swastika or burn a cross.

I see offensive political signs and vulgar flags every day that have me shaking my head (and relieved that I don't have small children who can read them), but so long as they're on private property, I will support their owners' right to display them.

Respectfully, sir...arguing that "only one guy" misused the swastika is simplistic in the extreme. 60,000,000 people died, and much of Europe was laid waste, under the flag bearing that symbol. No nation there escaped the misery of World War II, and Germany and Austria paid a very heavy price for having succumbed to the siren song of a deranged crackpot.

Bucolic Alpine towns have monuments to their sons who were killed in the war. A monastery in Salzburg has a plaque affixed to it that honors those who were killed there during the years the Gestapo occupied the building. A plaque in a square in picturesque Bernkastel-Kues marks the place where 41 citizens were killed when a bomb landed there. Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) in German and Austrian cities are placed in sidewalks to mark the last residences of citizens before they were deported to death camps.

I am an absolutist when it comes to free speech...in this country. But the swastika long ago ceased being about anything but hate and oppression in Europe, and I fully understand why it is banned there.

Attached Images

	DSC04226.jpg (93.0 KB, 17 views)
	20151019_115517.jpg (59.4 KB, 13 views)
	20170507_120226.jpg (131.3 KB, 13 views)
	20170502_131920_001.jpg (195.8 KB, 14 views)
	20170508_121532.jpg (171.3 KB, 12 views)

Sir, I am by no means downplaying anything that happened back then. All my grandparents on both sides survived that time and by God I don't know how. The Nazis were not good, neither were the Russians nor the Japanese.

Of course, context is important. We all know the Nazi flag, the red banner with white round center and the black kreuz. This symbol as a whole should be banned indeed, not the kreuz alone.

The Hakenkreuz was adopted by the NSDAP in 1920 if I remember correctly and it was that political party that made up its meaning and abused it for their evil doing (they admitted to that). And because of that it's an evil symbol around the world.

It's not fair to those cultures who used it for positive things, some even date back to 6000 BC!

Now Imagine the Nazis would have used either the trinity or the infinity symbol. Would they be "banned" now? I don't think so.

If we have American idiots using our historical symbols to do dumb things, I can see other dumb people (our legislators) try to introduce legislation to ban them. That's all I'm saying.

__________________
Jorge

Replies were deleted and dings issued. Seems this topic can't avoid discussion about politics and racial issues. We’re done here.

__________________
"I also cook."