Symbol of the People - What Does a Flag Represent and Should Citizens Burn Their Flag in Protest?

Board/Bored Monkey
Reflection Large Sticker by TET.
Available on Redbubble.

Recent reports in the Australian media, of university students creating flag burning kits to sell as a way of protesting government policy, have sparked the debate about whether flag burning should be a criminal offense, and highlighted people's misguided understanding of what the Australian Flag represents.

First and foremost, our flag is not a symbol of a specific government. It represents us. No matter how far we travel an Aussie flag helps connect us to other Aussies abroad and it reminds us of home. It is a symbol of the people.

Some say that our flag represents freedom. Quite often people who say this will attempt to deny you of your freedom to burn the flag.

Australia prides itself on being a tolerant society. It is our ability to tolerate criticism without resorting to violent retaliation that helps makes us strong. It's one of the things that hold us together as a community. I don't want to be represented by violent individuals that can't handle criticism. I can't support violence even when I agree with the perpetrators point of view.

I certainly don't encourage flag burning - especially not as a way of protesting government policy. It's misguided and divides people who are proud of their country. At the same time I can't support making flag burning a criminal offense. If our flag does represent freedom then not being able to burn it is as 'un-Australian' as you can get.

I saw on the news that the university students were banned from selling their kits by the university administration. I also saw images of so called 'patriots', right in the faces of the students, verbally bashing them about how many people died under our flag so they could have the 'freedom' they enjoy. Two totally disappointing responses.

Impressive though, was the response of some Liberal party student representatives, who took it upon themselves to sell water to people who may need it to extinguish potentially dangerous burning flags. Nice to see a sense of humor. How very Australian is that.

Comments

I'm Confused About Why People Prefer to Say Discombobulated?

D iscombobulated. Is a word that I think someone rediscovered about three or four years ago (maybe more because the pandemic years have thrown out my sense of time) and now I hear it a lot. It's not a new word by any means, but when I started hearing multiple celebrities using it in everyday sentences, I actively had to look up what it meant. Define it with as many synonyms as you like but essentially it's just another word meaning 'confused'. Seinfeld Quotes: Quotes.net The words are pretty much interchangeable. He was discombobulated by too many choices. He was confused by too many choices. My confusion is the length of the word. It's unnecessarily long with too many syllables. There are many other words that mean confused, and therefore also mean discombobulated. Most of them are shorter and easier to say. So why not just say 'confused'? Perhaps discombobulated sounds more intelligent, maybe? Hawaii Five-0 Quotes: Quotes.net I've noticed it gets us...

Introducing the Second Sunday Skateboard Sessions - Doing Less to Skateboard More

This was my second heelflip attempt of the day. I was pleased I at least got the full rotation even if I didn't land it. I am determined to keep skating for as long as possible, though, since my last post in May 2024, about reigniting my kickflip battle at age 54 , I've probably been skateboarding less than I had hoped. Still haven't landed that elusive kickflip either. Strangely I've been wanting to film myself skateboarding again but have been reluctant to do so because it can be a bit of a hassle trying to create interesting content, not to mention a lot of editing, if you want to capture the full journey of learning a trick. I really hate editing. Looking at my camera equipment the other day I was thinking what is the most minimal setup that I can put together that would make it easy to film skate videos anywhere? I landed on using my Samsung A13, Android phone, mounted on a GoPro selfie stick that has a tripod base in the handle, and a wireless mic I bought some t...

The Princess' Butterflies - Using an AI Image to Video Generator to Animate Art That Started as a 23 Year Old Rough Pen Sketch

B ack in October of 2023 I used Prome AI's Sketch Rendering feature to color a 23 year old rough pen sketch I did of a princess watching butterflies, sitting next to a waterfall in the forest. You can read more about that in my previous article, The Princess' Butterflies - Using an AI Art Generator to Color and Enhance a 23 Year Old Rough Pen Sketch The three images I used to create my final image (bottom right). Notice how closely the AI has followed my line art sketch (top left) but in the first image (top right) has misinterpreted the waterfall as some kind of large tree stump. Prome's render of the artwork was pretty good but I did end up creating a composite image myself from two of the best renders, to get my final image. Since then AI Image to Video has come a long way, particularly when it comes to creating animation from artwork and maintaining the art style for the whole generation. AI still does much better with turning photographic images to video but I found ...

Two Former Right Wing Australian PM's Call Out President Trump and His America First Approach

Q uite often, leaders on all sides of politics, once they've retired from office, become the kind of person, with a political view that I would've supported, if they had been that person with that viewpoint, when they were leaders. Case in point, two former right wing, Australian Prime Ministers were individually interviewed about President Trump's negative impact on Australia and global politics in general. Both said things that even a left leaning 'woke' voter like myself could get behind and nod in agreement with. Keep in mind both these former PM's are right wing politicians that should be aligned with the US Republican party, and President Trump's views on many issues. Malcolm Turnbull Mr Turnbull, like President Trump is a businessman turned politician. He's a person I was all set to vote for until he aligned himself with the Australian Liberal Party. Which was a little unexpected for me because up to that point his politics sounded more left than ...

TV Series Review: Skeleton Crew (2024) (Disney+) No Spoilers

I f you saw the trailer for Skeleton Crew and decided the show looked too much like Star Wars for little kids, and didn't watch, you missed out on a real treat. While I will say this show was definitely targeted at bringing in younger fans to the Star Wars universe, it is very much more like family viewing than kids only TV. Not to mention, characters are literally gunned down or murdered on this show, but without the really graphic violence you might see on a more adult orientated show. It's actually no more kid only orientated than the first series of Stranger Things (2016), or even the original Star Wars (1977) movie. In fact the whole show is a not so subtle homage to original Star Wars (1977), Treasure Island (1950), and eighties movies like The Goonies (1985), ET (1982), Explorers (1985) and others. The plot is very straight forward. A group of children, living in the Star Wars equivalent of the suburbs, find an aband...

Second Sunday Skateboard Session Ep 2 - Some Improvements

TET heelflip - looking better but still not a land. A s of writing this I've stuck to my plan of filming myself skate every second Sunday. By the time this post goes up I will have three episodes done. As part of that goal I am also skating more between episodes, about every second to third day for an hour, practicing Braille's Skateboarding Made Simple, Volume 1. That said, I'm not posting these videos here immediately after they're posted to my @TETLife YouTube Channel because I only post an article once a week, and that would make every second article a Sunday Session post. These posts are really so I can add some additional thoughts after the fact, and, of course, because this blog is about all things that interest me, of which skateboarding is one of them. In episode two I had intended to speak to camera more than I do but my driveway is right next door to my neighbor's shed/workshop, and I get a little self-conscious if I'm not too sure whether he's th...

Making an Effort to Be a President Trump Free Zone - Final Rant (I Hope)

I hope the American people, who voted for President Trump, get the full experience of what they thought they voted for along with what they're actually getting. Now may be a good time for them to learn to speak Russian because if World War Three does break out, it's not beyond possibility that it'll be the USA and Russia against the rest of the world, as Trump appears to be emboldening Russia to dig in on their attack on the Ukraine. China, may opt to stay neutral, or even join forces with the rest of the world because they've been quietly winning an economic war with so many countries, they may not care so much about the USA. Especially since President Trump wants to bring manufacturing back to America and impose tariffs on every country exporting anything to the USA. After that fiasco meeting President Zelenskyy had in the Oval Office with President Trump I've pretty much had enough. I'm not writing about what new dumb ass thing Trump's doing this week. ...

TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Search This Blog