French Flag Filter

[Jack]

I've been perturbed by the number of otherwise politically inactive people on Facebook adding a French Flag filter onto Facebook. One of my more trustworthy friends (who didn't change his picture) posted a status pointing out the trend, and I posted this in support of him. 

 

I think I figured out why I don't like the French flag filter, it's because the filter is no-thinking band-aid. When you put on the filter, you can leave it at that and ignore the circumstances that led to this tragedy, like the French Government's arm sales to Arab despots, allowing millions of fighting age "refugees" into their country, and neutering their own populace by making France a gun free country. The French Government has screwed their people by allowing the circumstances that led to the Pairs massacre, and showing your support by flying the French Government's colors isn't going to stop the next attach. Stopping foreign arm sales, increasing deportations, and allowing gun ownership would.

 

What do you fine people think? Should free-thinking people be showing support for France, is the French flag filter a misdirection? Am I just an insane bigot who doesn't care about France in it's time of need?

[MagnumPI]

As Doug Stanhope would say, it's just "another form of doing nothing".

[ResidingOnEarth]

What do you fine people think? Should free-thinking people be showing support for France, is the French flag filter a misdirection? Am I just an insane bigot who doesn't care about France in it's time of need?

 

If you're here -- posting in this forum -- you're probably still insane, but still far more sane than the vast majority of people on the planet.

 

You could interpret their display of the flag in any number of different ways, but unless they say why they are displaying it, you probably wont know for sure what their exact reasoning is.  If I had to guess, I think most people probably just display it as a  non-offensive acknowledgement of the incident and a means of showing solidarity with French people.  I expect most people are gently feeling around for what politically correct statements they can make about this incident.

 

Personally the kind of symbols I'd feel good about seeing right now are:

* A picture of Howard Beale's angry face with the famous tag line: "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"

* The voluntaryist symbol (possibly the most heart warming thing for me to see on the planet right now - I swear I'd probably cry a little if I actually saw that symbol somewhere AFK).

* The "don't tread on me" snake symbol.  I know it's largely a statist symbol, but I think the attitude of the people that display it is far closer to the attitude I have and the attitude I believe people of the west need.

[shirgall]

Moral self-licensing, such as feeling like you did something by changing your icon, is harmless until people try to shame you for not doing it. I ignore it, but if someone wants to call me to task for not doing it, that's when I point out how ineffectual it is.

[dsayers]

You could interpret their display of the flag in any number of different ways, but unless they say why they are displaying it, you probably wont know for sure what their exact reasoning is.

This is an argument against its being displayed, not those who observe it. The fact that we don't know what it's supposed to communicate only serves to reveal how meaningless it is. How many of those same people respond to something like this want gun control? After all, the gun is a symbol too. If nationalism (a form of symbolism) wasn't a thing, would these innocent people have been attacked for what their "leader" did? Would people have been able to do the things on the scale they were done that served as motivation for the blowback? Displaying a flag is part of the problem! Of course we can say that behaviors void of meaning are meaningless.

[Wuzzums]

The Gaadfather to the rescue:

[Kaesar Sm]

What you are doing and saying here is a misdirection.

Its not about just cliking a button and then feeling good that you did something. If people want to show their sympathy by doing that then ok.

 

I myself will join in a public sympathy meeting(in a lack of the f** correct words, english not my native language). You know not a demo but a...argh anyway I think you understand

 

But this post is relativism and just silly to even use time at. Facebook made it easier to show sympathy this way and why are you mixing in all of this in with that?

Put whatever flag or other profilepic-changing thing up if you like or dont.

[Mister Mister]

They are not trying to be political per se, it is probably partially that they are upset about what happened, and partially that they want to jump in on the moral fashion of the week.  Maybe next week another black person will die in police custody, or a white male celebrity will put out tweets that could be considered sexist, and people can move on to the next thing.

The one thing that annoys me is that what was really tragic about what happened is that over a hundred people were killed, that it is a symptom of the larger problem of conflicts with Muslim immigrants in Europe, and that we can only expect more violence and unrest in France and throughout Europe moving forward, more intervention in the Middle East, more assaults on civil liberties.  Showing "solidarity with France" by flying their colors, the way you would wear a jersey from a sports team you support, is so irrelevant in all this.

[labmath2]

At least with a Jersey you contribute to the franchise (assuming its not bootleg).

[Pendrokar]

The French Government has screwed their people by allowing the circumstances that led to the Pairs massacre, and showing your support by flying the French Government's colors isn't going to stop the next attach.

Ahh but you well into their trap. It is a symbol of France and/or French people, so they can switch their choice around to whatever suits them.

 

However there are still criticism from others regarding the Facebook filter. Like the people of Kenya, who did not have such a filter when there was a massacre of around the same measure there.