Why is the american flag flying at half mast
Why Do We Fly Flags At Half-Staff? | Answers With Joe
so you driving to work and you go past a
post office or city hall or a police
station and you see that the flags are
at half staff immediately you catch your
breath and you grab your phone to check
Twitter while you're driving to see what
happened so like do we lower flags at
half-mast and who do we do it for and is
it just mayor has it been happening a
lot more lately
superdude Doug prade asked why don't we
fly flags at half-staff to mourn a death
and when did it start I was really glad
to get this question because I am one of
those people when I see the flag at
half-mast
I must know immediately what happened
and I Drive past City Hall every single
day as you might have figured out by now
I don't like not knowing things well
apparently the act of lowering the flag
is been going on since about the 17th
century it's said that they lowered it
to make room for an invisible flag of
death overhead cuz that's not creepy or
anything by the way if you're wondering
the term is half-mast on the Bessel line
at sea like on the mast of the ship it's
half-staff when it's on land can't
imagine how embarrassing that would be
to get that wrong there are basically
four reasons why the flag is taken to
half-mast the death of a federal
official some kind of disaster federal
holidays or just whenever the hell the
president feels like of the for federal
holidays when the flag is lowered to
half-staff the most famous one is
Memorial Day Memorial Day is actually
one of our oldest federal holidays it
was started in 1868 to honor the dead of
the Civil War but more of that is unique
because the flag is actually at
half-staff before noon but after noon it
goes up to the top again this was
created to honor the dead in the morning
and then celebrate the survivors of the
war in the afternoon
eventually surviving veterans got their
own day Veterans Day in 1954 and from
that point on it became more of a symbol
of respect for the dead before noon and
then hope for the future in the
afternoon the other three standing
holidays are Peace Officers Memorial Day
Pearl Harbor Day and now 9/11 which is
sometimes called patriots day so that's
only a few days out of the year when the
flag is lowered to half-staff on a
regular basis all the other times are in
response to some kind of tragedy paints
the pit in my stomach whenever I see
them down at City Hall the main reason
for the lowering of the flag is the
death of federal officials and it breaks
down like this members of Congress have
the flag lowered on the day of their
death and the following day associate
Supreme Court justices have the flag
lowered from the day of their death
until their funeral current vice
presidents and speakers of the house get
a full ten days as through the sitting
or former Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court but we really pull out all the
stops for the president sitting or
former presidents get a full 30 days
when they die the last time this
happened
Gerald Ford in 2006 outside of that
major disasters get the half-staff
treatment have issued by a presidential
proclamation some of the most recent
ones include Hurricane Katrina the
Boston Marathon bombings and the Sandy
Hook shootings by the way these are
really more like suggestions there isn't
any way to enforce flag laws because
they're raising and lowering of a flag
is considered political speech which is
protected by the First Amendment mostly
though people and organizations that
have a flag up or more patriotic and
more respectful the flag rules that most
people so it's not usually an issue so
like anything the President does flag
lowering can be a bit of a political hot
potato especially at a time when we're
having mass shootings almost on a weekly
basis deciding which ones to raise and
lower the flag for can be a bit of a
tricky decision for instance President
Obama got some criticism in July of this
year when he didn't immediately lower
the flag after the shootings of five
servicemembers in Chattanooga in fact
memes were circulated the claim that he
lowered the White House flag for Whitney
Houston but not for these five soldiers
as PolitiFact's pointed out though the
White House in fact did not lower the
flag for Whitney Houston it was only
lowered in one place the state of New
Jersey and that was issued by Republican
Governor Chris Christie apparently some
people get New Jersey and the White
House confused now this isn't about
Obama Bush he found his own fair share
of criticism over similar things but
what it basically comes down to is that
if you're the president it's better and
safer to err on the side of being more
respectful so if it feels like the
fights been lowered a lot more lately
it's because it probably has of course
the president can only lower flags and
federal offices the governor of each
state can lower flags at state offices
like Chris Christie did in New Jersey
and mayor's can lower the flag at City
offices so between the president the
governor and the mayor there's a whole
lot of up and down action on that pole
that sounded dirty the big question
becomes is that all a bit too much does
lowering the flag too often cheapen its
meaning or is it more important to show
the maximum amount of respect in all
situations tell me what you think of the
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