this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
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This statement is missing the point that such thinking requires some prerequisite knowledge of the symbol. Why stop at uncommonly seen, and extremely modern usage, and abandon the well over 200 years of pre-existing knowledge?
Still though, I wouldn't give up on the Gadsden flag so quickly. I firmly believe that as long as the average public can be made aware of how ridiculous the auth-right's using the flag is, and continues to call them out on it, it can be saved. I'm pretty sure that the majority of the auth-right, and other groups haven't considered how contradicting it is to their platform. To me, seeing someone in the auth-right flying the Gadsden flag is just as weird as if, hypothetically, a marxist decided to fly it.
It's not like those who know its original meaning suddenly decided to change it. If enough people who don't know or don't care about the original meaning give it a new meaning, then that does become a "correct" meaning.
Just like language. You can yell at everyone that literally doesn't mean figuratively all you want, but in the end it still ended up updated in all the dictionaries as meaning just that (along with its original meaning, of course).