Not sure how I feel about this

[ScottF]

https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1150007832428761088

On one hand, you should have every right to go into someone else's country, tear down their flag and replace it with your home country.

[TheDrake]

What makes you assume that the protesters are from another country?

[ScottF]

Ok I’ll play. As a citizen, how do you feel about fellow citizens going to a government facility within your country of citizenship, vandalizing/removing the flag of your country of citizenship, and replacing it with the flag of a foreign nation? Now ok?

[TheDrake]

Sure. I'm not a flag fetishist, so none of that seems worse to me than any vandalism, which I don't condone. How does it make you feel?

[ScottF]

If they’re citizens, they should be charged with whatever maximum vandalism of a federal facility will allow. If they are not citizens or permanent residents they should be immediately deported.

[TheDrake]

I'm not sure you can legally call it vandalism unless the US flag was damaged. I'm sure there is some law that covers it, though. So to be clear, if it was someone on a student visa you'll kick them out of the country for replacing one piece of cloth with another?

[ScottF]

I'm not sure you can legally call it vandalism unless the US flag was damaged. I'm sure there is some law that covers it, though. So to be clear, if it was someone on a student visa you'll kick them out of the country for replacing one piece of cloth with another?

Yes

[TheDrake]

Why so extreme? Would you deport someone for tagging a bus stop? Shoplifting? Public intoxication? Or is it the m that they are ungrateful about the privilege of being allowed to be in this country? And for citizens that they aren't showing respect and pride in our country?

[TheDeamon]

Why so extreme? Would you deport someone for tagging a bus stop? Shoplifting? Public intoxication? Or is it the m that they are ungrateful about the privilege of being allowed to be in this country? And for citizens that they aren't showing respect and pride in our country?

Historical conventions in this case. "Planting the flag of your nation" tends to indicate you're claiming that area for your nation. So trespassing onto a government facility, removing their flag, and replacing it with your own could, after a fashion, be considered an act of war against that country. As you just essentially "claimed" that facility in the name of the your own nation.

Obviously, there is a lot of other nuance and additional factors in play with regards to the use of national flags, particularly when not in their respective nation. But those contexts don't generally revolve around trespassing.

[D.W.]

So from peaceful protest (albeit a disrespectful one), to act of war? 

Interesting.

[TheDrake]

So then, flying the stars and bars is an act of sedition.

[JoshuaD]

Why so extreme? Would you deport someone for tagging a bus stop? Shoplifting? Public intoxication? Or is it the m that they are ungrateful about the privilege of being allowed to be in this country? And for citizens that they aren't showing respect and pride in our country?

Historical conventions in this case. "Planting the flag of your nation" tends to indicate you're claiming that area for your nation. So trespassing onto a government facility, removing their flag, and replacing it with your own could, after a fashion, be considered an act of war against that country. As you just essentially "claimed" that facility in the name of the your own nation.

I'm not a fan of what they did, but that is really a big jump in reasoning.

[TheDeamon]

Why so extreme? Would you deport someone for tagging a bus stop? Shoplifting? Public intoxication? Or is it the m that they are ungrateful about the privilege of being allowed to be in this country? And for citizens that they aren't showing respect and pride in our country?

Historical conventions in this case. "Planting the flag of your nation" tends to indicate you're claiming that area for your nation. So trespassing onto a government facility, removing their flag, and replacing it with your own could, after a fashion, be considered an act of war against that country. As you just essentially "claimed" that facility in the name of the your own nation.

I'm not a fan of what they did, but that is really a big jump in reasoning.

Which is why most places won't Declare War, unless it was a military doing so, without invitation.

[TheDrake]

North Korea would execute you.

[TheDrake]

By the way, this was clearly designed to provoke an overreaction with ice agents using excessive force to portray them in a bad light. Congratulations to them for not taking the bait.

[D.W.]

By the way, this was clearly designed to provoke an overreaction with ice agents using excessive force to portray them in a bad light. Congratulations to them for not taking the bait.

While I agree this was the likely intent, it's a sad commentary that it's an expected response such that anyone would attempt to bait them, and that we give them a pat on the head for not doing so.

[DJQuag]

So then, flying the stars and bars is an act of sedition.

This is not getting enough feedback. The Confederacy was maybe a foreign country and maybe not, depending on how you look at it. (If you go from Northern attitudes, they were just rebels who were put in their place, but if you go from what they did, it sure seemed like war between nations.)

Yet all these people getting up in arms defend flying that particular flag.