this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2024
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The Gadsden flag, the snake, was a patriotic symbol during the American revolutionary war.
The snake in general was a common symbol used at the time with a famous (Franklin?) illustration of a snake in 13 pieces representing how the snake needs all 13 colonies to be whole.
The Gadsden flag was the “13 pieces of the snake united, coiled and dangerous” with its “don’t step on me” motto. This flag despite being anti-government oppression was actually supposed to represent the strength in our unity (sad they now use it to divide).
The blue line flag is part of a movement that implies that the police are the only thing holding back chaos from society. It’s designed to mean the flag only exists because police keep society existing. This has and was always been a load of shit but now has moved more into meaning “our side is the side who makes stuff work” and sliding even further into a fascist strongman style ethos.
Both are now effectively just “brands” of the American conservative right.
The thin blue line flag is supposed to support police, the weapon of the state. But the Gadsden flag represents that “they can’t or won’t be oppressed.” The Gadsden flag made a big comeback during the Bush years and the spread of a more “(what they called) libertarian” sect of the American right. Which frankly is bullshit because it’s an American symbol not the hate symbol they’ve coopted it into these days.
It’s a grab bag of US conservative branding but all in all on the surface you can make a measured bet that this person complains very hard about the taxes other people pay, don’t understand civics at a fundamental level, and likely while pretending they aren’t they are supremely racist.
You could equate these two flags to be the equivalent of someone flying a Thor Steinar logo flag in europe.
A better idea of how dumb this is would be imagine someone driving down the road in 2250 flying a Brexit flag and a EU flag on their truck
This. It's a typical example of how conservatives are utterly clueless about American symbols. Like how they adopted Springsteen's "Born in the USA" thinking it's a patriotic jingle, when the song is completely critical of the USA. Just read the lyrics of the song for God's sake.
But the only thing Goober Nation hears is "Born in the USA."
They used the song for an American win at the 2012 London Olympics, as well as "Werewolves of London" for a British win, a song with the line "little old lady got mutilated last night".
Werewolves of London again.
Ahwooooooooo!
Springsteen was a genius, knew exactly what he was making. I remember the first time I listened to the lyrics and my heart broke a little. The lyrics are all too familiar and sting, with the sharp positive turn to the chorus. It's a perfect metaphor for society.
Whenever I hear it I get angry with America, and I get angry with conservative boomers who use the verses as drinking breaks so they can belt out the chorus proudly thinking they are real patriots.
I do believe it was Franklin who had the 13 pieces of the snake but I always thought the 13 pieces of the snake was printed with the slogan “Unite or Die” which had a slightly different context than the more commonly seen “don’t tread on me”.
I expect that both were kicked around at the same time during the revolutionary or pre-revolutionary war and Franklin made use of it as he saw best.
Of course I could just search for it, but what fun would that be…..I already researched it a long time ago, why go back and try to correct memory, right?
The Franklin illustration and Gadsden flag are separate, I was just referencing the common use of the snake to represent the colonies