Student sits during pledge of allegiance; gets chair kicked out from beneath him

[henryp]

I'd guess plenty of veterans would find your not standing/saluting/whatever to be disrespectful.  Your intentions may not be to disrespect them, but that wouldn't change how some would feel, I'm sure.

I think it boils down to more of a social grace?  Grace isn't quite right.  I'm not sure what the word is.  Things like take your hat for the anthem.  Shake hands when you meet someone.  Not wearing crocs to a wedding.   Arbitrary actions that are for whatever reason displays of respect.

Even though their is no logical connection between revealing the top of my head for a song, and respecting the military, it's still a thing we've settled on to mean something.

...and plenty wouldn't.

I certainly can't help it if anyone sees refusing to participate in coerced nationalistic virtue signaling to be offensive.  Quite frankly, I see no reason to kowtow to their demands.

I think the coerced nationalistic virtue signalling could also be viewed as a harmless agreed upon social norm to politely show respect.

I meet someone and they put out their hand, I know the act of holding hands and wiggling them a couple times is fucking dumb.  But that's what we came up with.  Is it so dumb that I'm going to start slapping people's hands away and calling them morons?  I don't really see a need for that.  We shake hands, and move on.

Nationalism and militarism certainly are scary'ish ideas.  On the flip side, a sense of community, and an appreciation for some who've sacrificed is another way to frame it.  I think as individuals, we can easily scale the intensity of what it means to us.  Some people just have difficulty not projecting that intensity onto others.  But that's how symbolism works.  I like the confederate flag because I grew up watching the Dukes of Hazzard.  I had a general lee car, and bedspread.  That's my relationship to that flag.  For me, I 'kowtow' to others demands, because they seem reasonable enough.   To me it's just a cool design, to them it's a history of persecution, so I go along with the idea of not displaying it all over or whatever.  The American flag goes the same way.  I don't give a shit about the military.  But I know a lot of people do, and I think that's reasonable enough.  So I play along, as it doesn't cost me anything.  I guess I could draw a line in the sand, but I just don't see what I'd be trying to gain by doing so.

That being said, I see someone like Colin Kaep doing what he's doing to protest treatment of black people in America, that seems 100% justified.  And I think in a better world, what he's doing and those who find a lot of meaning related to military would have no problem coexisting.