People taking flags down

[thewalrus3]

I know there have been a million threads on flags.

Lately I’ve seen a lot of videos circulating about people being very angry when seeing others taking flags down. Also lots of comment sections on various community groups being very offensive about people taking them down. One including a video of a male in a van shouting vile, misogynistic abuse at a woman cutting some off a roundabout.

My question is if people choose to put them up in a public space do they have the right to be pissed off that someone else is removing them from said public space? It doesn’t belong to them, they want to see it but perhaps others don’t. It certainly doesn’t warrant male abuse towards women by those who are chanting ‘protect our women and kids’ at these far right protests.

A bit like the Gary Neville case - people crying over freedom of speech but then trying to get someone cancelled if they express an opinion that doesn’t align with theirs.

Can they honestly not see how hypocritical it is?

Yanbu.

If people want to fly a flag on their own property, then nobody else has a right to take that down (except for anyone else who happens to live in the same property!)

If people put flags up in public places, then others are of course free to take them down.

We shouldn't be surprised that racists are also misogynists.

I think people can put whatever they want up on their own property. Edit: within reason / the law.

I vehemently disagree with putting things up on public street furniture unless it's agreed as part of an organised event which is then tidied up afterwards.

There were a load of England flags on lampposts going into town near me. Following the weather, many of them are now stuck in trees, bushes, and verges.

Those who put them up have basically littered the great English countryside with more Chinese-produced plastic... I'd suggest that's probably counter to what they wanted to achieve but I don't think they'd care.

I don’t think anyone can expect that things they put up in public spaces without permission from the local authority or owner of the property remain there, whether that’s political flags, sandwich boards, or those flyposters advertising Rave in the Carpark. But when things are put up, I suppose the test would be whether the same people taking down the flags (and I assume you mean England flags here) would find it okay for the people putting up the England flags to take down other flags they disagreed with in public places. And honestly, I suspect they wouldn’t be and there would be outrage if anyone took down Pride flags or Palestinian flags.

YANBU. Obviously if you tie something to a lamppost, anyone can take it down.

There are loads in my local area. I know who put them up as he has been very vocal about it on social media and is clearly also a massive racist (based on the things he posts in the community group). I don’t want to see it. I have no issue with the flag but I have an issue with what it’s being used to represent at the moment.
However I would be scared to take them down due to the abusive backlash I’d probably receive from this guy and the depressing amount of people who agree with him. Doesn’t seem fair.

I don't understand why local councils have left them up for so long.

I think many are afraid of the backlash. Plus it would be a massive workload especially if people put them straight back up again.

Commemorative yellow ribbons were taken down by a vile creature. So called progressives love to get their own way.

We all know about it when that doesn't happen.

Councils have no money. It would cost too much to pay someone to take them all down.

Plus some councils are led by Reform and probably wouldn't want to take them down anyway.