THE POLICE PROBLEM

Just need to make it shameful to fly it. Spam the internet with "patriotic" posts about our flag is Red, white and blue. Give people shit that their flag is disrespectful to our troops since the red signifies the blood of our armed forces that protect us. Make it the equivalent of kneeling for a flag.

It's absolutely a hate flag. It represents their support for police brutality and outright murder. Little more than a gang sign.

It represents loyalty between police, not loyalty to the law, not to their oaths, not to the public: just to other cops. It's an omerta; "blood of my blood."

It's antithetical to the role of police as officers of the law.

They aren't soldiers in a trench. Their loyalty has to be to the public trust before it's ever to "every other cop, just because they are cops."

Springfield Twp is largely progressive, I hadn't even noticed that our police had added the thin blue line to their logo. This doesn't represent the majority of people here, just the cops, whose biggest on-the-job risk is that someone might get in line ahead of them at Wawa.

You know we probably should have all see this coming when we told cops that they literally didn't need to serve communities and that their job was not to protect it even enforce laws equally but to make money.

All cops are now just 9-5ers with the right to use guns against people they dislike dealing with. Like a gas station employee with the right to kill.

I live in a Midwest city of 2 million people, and almost all of our police cars have a thin blue line sticker.

Did they choose black and blue to symbolize the color you'll be after they're though with you?

What you put on public property isn't free speech, what the fuck? God our system of justice is so fucking broken.

I feel like this is because it's essentially a poster. It's not a real flag, it's a poster for losers. I actually prefer to allow it so I know who the window lickers are.

In general, I am happy to give people the right to express themselves in awful ways because it is supposed to mean that everyone's free speech is protected, but this isn't quite as easy:

Springfield’s commissioners voted, 5-2, to ban the flag’s display by any township employee who was on duty, as well as on township property and vehicles.

(re-ordered)

... saying that the flag had become central to tensions between marginalized communities and law enforcement, and adding that it had been adopted by white nationalists since its introduction.

That seems fair, but was probably too restrictive. They should have banned all kinds of extraneous messaging.

District Judge Karen Marston wrote in Monday’s ruling that the Springfield’s ban was an “unconstitutional restriction on employee speech under the First Amendment,” which “protects speech even when it is considered ‘offensive.’”

This sort of thing generally escalates and gets picky -- down to "you must wear your uniform and nothing else" and then they get exceptions for wedding rings, crosses, hair bands, glasses, jewelry, and then people wear pins of the 'banned' item but since it is jewelry it becomes hard to argue that certain jewelry is OK but some isn't.

They should still be able to completely disallow 'defacing' of their public propert (vehicles, etc.).

1. acquire a thin blue line flag
2. take a shit on it.
3. photograph and share

I've never understood why some people are so proud of being the thin blue line that divides the USA

Believing that banning a piece of fabric will stop police oppression is, ironically, encouraging such oppression by coercively violating the right to private property and freedom of expression.

I don't think we should ban flags