this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2023
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Vexillology

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7 stripes for 7 core founding fathers

13 stars in a circle for the original 13 colonies

1 larger, more prominent star in the center of the 13 for E Pluribus Unum

3:5 for both flag and blue corner

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

7 founding fathers is great man theroy BS, there were 56 delegates to the Second Continental Congress, 55 delegates attended the Constitutional Convention.

[–] Diprount_Tomato 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

"great man theory is bs"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don’t understand. What do the delegates of the Second Continental Congress and Constitutional Convention have to do with anything?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The 2nd Continental Congress created the Declaration of Independence, the Constitutional Convention wrote the United States Constitution. Those two documents were the founding documents of the United States, along with the Articles of Confederacy. They separated the American colonies from the British Empire, and established the United States of America as it's owne country and government.

Anyone trying to pick 7 of the 100+ people that helped create those documents and elevate them as "The Founding Fathers" is probably trying to push an agenda, probably one that relies on picking and choosing writings from "The Founders".

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm not trying to push an agenda. I don't know what you mean by "picking and choosing writings". I'm still not sure exactly what you're saying.

If you're saying there are no such thing as "founding fathers", I think that's just wrong in the sense that the myth of the founding fathers is a part of American culture and is taught in American schools. There is no "founding father" gene or element, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.

If you're saying all the people who were delegates at those conventions are equally "founding fathers" because they helped forge the documents, then sure, I can respect that opinion. But some of those delegates undoubtedly played a significantly larger role in early American history than others (including the creation of those documents!). Hence why we learn about a select few of them, and not all ~100 (although I guess that would also be impractical in a school setting). The specific number 7 is a bit arbitrary, but ~10 were a lot more important than the rest.

[–] CharlesMangione 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Okay, interesting, but how about this: just discard the 13 stars, since nobody cares about new england actually. set the number of stripes to just two with red on the bottom half and white on top, then make the blue stretch all the way to the bottom and probably make it a little less wide to compensate, then center the lone star among the blue sky. I think that'd be a much better flag.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Alright look just because a certain someone made the best of all these “style” designs doesn’t mean the motherland doesn’t deserve at least a little better.

Though the large center star is the least compelling aspect due to the similarity, perhaps it should be the same size as the others.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

7 founding fathers seems like a rather arbitrary number — at least not one I've heard of and definitely a number you could argue — so I wouldn't put that as symbolism on the flag. Also not a huge fan of the arrangement of the stars. They don't fill the width of the blue field, and the 13 stars feel oddly small. I definitely agree that the U.S. flag could be simplified, but this isn't it imo.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Sure there's some degree of arbitriness to 7, but I don't think you could reasonably claim it's any less than 7, and 7 is even a number wikipedia throws around. Not that there are only 7, just that there are 7 particularly important ones.

I really just think the 13 the current US flag has looks too busy, but this is the only "American" number I could think of which was less than 13. If you have others I'd love to hear!

Can you say more about the stars? Are you against them being in a circle?

There's not really any way to have them "fill up" the blue while still being in a circle (even if you change their sizes), unless you change the ratio of the blue, which would cause it to deviate from that of the flag itself. Maybe I can cook up a 2:3 version for ya.

As for the size of the stars, again they are in the maximum radius circle which fits in the blue, so can't change their position, and making them any bigger would cause them to touch each other or at least feel cramped.

The stars in a circle in the blue is a classic American design which has been done on the flag before (besty ross, cowpens, etc.).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Kind of like the Cowpens flag with less stripes

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yes that is probably the most similar of all (real) US variant flags. Compared to Cowpens: less stripes, upright stars, one more star in the circle (14 vs 13 total), and the center star being larger than the rest.

Though perhaps the most similar other flag is the one used by Ulysses in Lonesome Road.