Enough With the Flags Already

Pretty soon we’re going to need longer flag polls.

June seems to be the month of flags. Yesterday, Madison raised a transgender flag (I didn’t even know there was a transgender flag) on its Municipal Building flag pole. The mayor gave a speech. Earlier this month Gov. Tony Evers raised the rainbow flag over the Capitol and gave a speech. Also this month a Juneteenth flag was raised in the city. Speeches ensued.

All of those causes are left-leaning, but let’s not leave out the right-leaning standards. The depressing black POW/MIA flags have been flying for decades after the end of the Vietnam War and the return of all POW’s. Some soldiers are still missing in action from several prior wars and their remains are being returned and properly honored as they are found. That’s important ongoing work, but it doesn’t need a flag.

Less ubiquitous, but still there to make a conservative-populist political statement, is the Don’t Tread On Me flags you see here and there, most famously at the insurrectionist riot at the Capitol. I’m not aware of one flying from an official government flag pole, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find that there are some.

And, in a rare case of flag subtraction, the confederate flag has been struck from most, if not all, official poles. That was the right thing to do and there should be more of it.

In the interests of full disclosure let me admit right here that I haven’t been above this sort of thing myself. When I was Mayor of Madison the Dalai Lama visited a couple of times and each time I flew the Tibetan flag on that same Municipal Building flag pole. I did it not only to welcome him but to irritate the Chinese. Each time I got an angry letter from the Chinese consulate in Chicago. When they take over I’ll be on their list for reeducation. But I digress.

On official government flag poles I’m for flying Old Glory, and maybe the state and municipal flag, and just leave it at that. The problem with these special cause flags is that they’re intended to make a political statement on behalf of a particular interest group, not a statement about unity.

I think gay folks, transgender people, Black people and everybody else should be treated equally under the law. To me that’s what the American flag stands for. In a paradoxical way, the special interest flags work against that principle of equality because they send the message that the group represented by the flag should be called out separately, not subsumed in the American flag. Calling folks out separately, instead of inviting them inside the big American tent, is generally speaking a really bad idea.

It seems to me the principle should be that everybody is an American, regardless of their race or gender identity, and in fact their race and gender identity shouldn’t be factors in their enjoyment of their rights as Americans. The special flags inadvertently send the opposite message.

This is an extension of a broader point of view that has grown on the left and it might explain why it’s the left that has really been into flag proliferation. The hard-left has come to the view that pressing for simple equality under the law isn’t enough and that put-upon groups need special recognition to even the score.

I suppose the idea is to advance the rights of groups who feel, and sometimes are in fact, not fully recognized. But I’m not so sure they have that effect. The liberal flags irritate conservatives and the conservative cause flags get on the wrong side of liberals. And, by the way, if you’re a full-blooded, orthodox liberal who loves this kind of thing because your side has more flags, be prepared for some super conservative with a bright idea to design a Second Amendment flag and fly it from the statehouse and town hall of every conservative local government in the land. In the flag proliferation wars I can feel a backlash coming.

State and municipal flag poles should be places to find unity. The proliferation of special cause flags — liberal and conservative — is only another symbol of our pole-rization.