A San Francisco leftist saw this picture and was just triggered to the sodding moon.
You really can’t make this stuff up, folks.
So there’s this guy in San Raphael, Marin County, California. A Vietnam vet by the name of Dean Morris. He’s a perfectly ordinary guy who, like many other perfectly ordinary Americans, flies his nation’s flag in front of his house every day. Pretty boring stuff, right?
Well, you’re right. There’s nothing interesting about Mr. Morris in any way. Sorry to disappoint, I guess that just about wraps it up for toda–hey, wait a minute…
Goddammit.
Earlier this week, Morris and a few of his neighbors who also flew flags every day received a poorly-written anonymous message berating them for their feeling of pride for their nation:
After checking with his neighbors, Morris learned his Riviera Drive friends who also fly American flags received the same note. It included profanity, and assumed its receivers were Republicans who did not agree with the politics of what the writer described as the nation’s “black president.”
This deserves a deeper analysis. Okay I guess it really doesn’t, but picking apart and verbally pantsing nameless and faceless IRL trolls is a great distraction from re-writing the opening of a hard-fantasy detective story, so I’m doing it anyway. Now where did I put my scalpels?…
1) Of course this sort of thing would happen in San Francisco. I’d expect Bostonians to try something similar, but the American Revolution actually happened there, so we tend to have a bit more respect for our history.
2) What kind of a person sees someone with a flag outside some random guy’s house and just assumes they’re a conservative? A spoiled SWPL college student who’s never left the suburbs in his life, that’s who. In case you haven’t noticed, Americans in general love the flag, regardless of who they vote for. It’s literally one of the most uncontroversial things in the country right now. Hell, even among the New England libprog yuppies I grew up with, there was a seriously abiding, powerful respect for the flag as a symbol of America. I’m not even sure if this is a cultural thing in CA, or if this was just a complete Weather Underground-tier whackaloon. My point is that there are only 2 ways I know of for someone to be this sheltered from the realities of American political culture–not being familiar with American culture (foreigner, etc.), or prolonged exposure to radical politics. I’m guessing the latter, simply because most foreign visitors I’ve met have tried their best not to insult random people for no reason.
3) I found it very telling that our trollish friend here felt the need to specifically mention Barry O. as “the black president,” instead of mentioning him by name. Obviously this was intended as a triggering tactic, with the troll’s alleged “thought process” being something like “that guy down the street keeps his American flag out all the time and therefore must be a conservative, and therefore a racist! I’ll piss him off by reminding him that he’s being ruled by a black guy, that’ll show him!” Let’s put the whole “conservatives are racist” trope aside for now. Instead, let’s look at how this statement betrays the troll’s own racial biases. It pulls back the curtain for a moment and gives us a peek at what lurks behind his façade. He doesn’t really think of Barack Obama as a person like you or me–his only value lies in his blackness, since it makes him just a stick to hit conservatives with and make them cry. It’s a really weird feeling when you realize that the “racists” who treat the sitting president with scorn and hold him to certain standards are less bigoted than the “anti-racists” who only value him inasmuch as they can use him as a rhetorical weapon against other white people. Which group do you think is treating other races with more respect?
“Show some respect and fly your flag on important holidays instead of trying to make a moronic statement. It is not cute!”
Oh, I see. So now showing a patriotic symbol less makes you more patriotic? Kind of like how the sort of person who goes to church on Christmas and Easter takes his religion more seriously than someone who goes to church every week. I didn’t realize patriotism was such a scarce resource that we were rationing it now. Are you actually one of the secret field operatives for the Ministry of Patriotism, some sort of meter-reader for your neighborhood’s national pride?
Might wanna slow down a bit there, comrade.
That just about wraps thing up for today, so I just want to close with a brief observation:
Mr. Troll (should you come across this blog one day)–you know that “black president” you love to wield like a cudgel against your enemies and gloat over, but couldn’t care less about as a human being? Check out his house:
He never takes HIS flag down. How disrespectful, right?
Bonne nuit, mon ami!
The View from the Purlieu 