The Glade 4.0

Whether they did is not relevant. The question is whether it would have been appropriate. And yes, it is an apt comparison. Both individuals were artists. Mark Twain's art was literature, while Whitney Houston's art was music. The question is whether or not it is appropriate to mourn an artist by lowering flags to half mast. Mark Twain is widely held as an American cultural icon.

So is the objection to Whitney Houston based on not thinking art merits lowering a flag, or not thinking her particular body of work was sufficient? If its the latter, then that's a subjective call - and not one I disagree with. Now, if it's the former, well, pound sand. Government and/or military service are not the only ways to serve one's country with distinction.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Yes, as a matter of fact the question of whether they did IS relevant as it would reveal something about past attitudes on the subject. It would also change the question from if it would have been appropriate to if it was appropriate.

As for "pounding sand", thinking that art alone, or even being a "cultural icon" does not merit lowering the flag does not somehow confine it to "government and military service". Perhaps some of us would simply prefer not to emulate the British practice of trivializing their knighthoods by handing them out to any movie star or singer that manages to avoid making an *** of themself.

Furthermore, in view of the need of a large proportion of the public to tie their preferred form of discrimination to such displays, one wonders at the wisdom of lowering it for "cultural icons." A "cultural icon" to one part of the population might be deeply offensive to others. Suppose it were a Christian singer that died; or even one that sang a combination of music that included a great deal of Christian music? How about a gansta rappa, dawg? What if it were Toby Keith? Doubtless we'd be hearing a rather different tune, about glorifying ignorant rednecks or something simply because of different tastes.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Still don't care.

Pretty much.

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Prior to June 14, 1923, there was no federal regulation on how to display the US flag. Samuel Clemens died somewhere around April 21, 1910.

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I do.

Yes. And? The question here is not whether any regulation on display of the flag has been followed; it's whether it's socially appropriate.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

There don't appear to be past attitudes on the subject prior to 1923.

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The lack of Federal regulations prior to 1923 does not preclude their being public attitudes on the subject prior to that time. Why else would they start regulating in 1923? Congress just got bored one day and decided to make flag regulations?

Whether it (which could be either the national flag, the state flag of Missourii, or possibly that of Connecticut) was lowered on his death would certainly provide us with a general idea of prevailing public attitudes on it, at least in that area. It might even reveal something of the sentiment that led to the regulations introduced in 1923.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Speculative history is still speculative; you can't infer or induct motivation into logically disparate events; we can discuss whether or not it was appropriate for Christie to lower New Jersey's flag; since we have no information on whether or not the flag was lowered for Clemens, and since we can't actually aggregate the necessary sociological data to establish a prevailing opinion, shuyung's observation is rather correct: "there don't appear to be past attitudes on the subject prior to 1923".

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It's very nice that shuyung has managed to construct a statement that is linguistically correct.

However, that appearance is true only as long as we don't have any information on the subject.

We do. It appears that the custom's earliest-known occurance was in 1612.



It seems that it was already common practice by that time, which indicates that it most likely still was in Samuel Clemens's time.

As to information on what might or might not have been done for Clemens's funeral; that doesn't seem to be readily available.

In any case, it is not correct that there don't appear to be any past attitudes on flying the flag at half staff before 1923; the past attitude was that it was a recognized practice at least three hundred years earlier. It may be true that there's no information available specifically for Clemens, but the fact that the practice was widely recognized in 1612 indicates that there was most likely an attitude of approval around the practice itself, if not any handy data on specifically who it was commonly done for.

As to Clemens, the problem is that Clemens died over a hundred years ago, so is the question "would it have been appropriate at the time" or is it "would it have been appropriate if he had died in 2012?" If the former, we need to look at his time in order to come up with the best answer possible. If 2012, well, I would think that if he were somehow alive we would, at a minimum, see certain people freaking out that he had used the n-word in his works if we honored him in that fashion, but then if he died in 2012 he would either be 177 years old or would have done his writing at a different time, about different topics and therefore be regarded as an altogether different person.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

That's quite a leap. The practice may have been common for naval commanders, at sea and on their ships, but when did that make the transition to a national recognition? Or any recognition on land? I have not argued that the practice didn't exist, I am saying that there is no evidence that the general public gave it any consideration until 1923. Leaving aside Mark Twain, was the flag flown at half-staff for Teddy Roosevelt? William McKinley? Grover Cleveland? Sherman or Sheridan? What you've got is some segment of the population recognizing an action, and ascribing that same recognition globally.

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Wow, talk about a spurious source ...

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Ok, first of all I am not "ascribing it globally". It's a western practice. I cited the 1612 incident as the earliest recorded use of it; you cannot look at that one incident, claim that makes it a naval practice, and then claim I'm "ascribing it globally." We call that a strawman; there is no reason to think it needed to make a national transition or a transition to land at all; that one incident does not establish that it was exclusively naval in 1612. In point of fact, flags, standards, and banners were important communications devices among land armies at the time as well as at sea; there is little reason to think a naval custom pertaining to a flag would have escaped notice on land.

Second, there were flag acts as early as 1777, and again in 1794 and 1818 as well as the 1912 executive order by William Howard Taft. There's a pretty extensive history regarding the U.S. flag.



If there was no public opinion on flags prior to that, there would hardly have been an appearance of flag desecration statutes. The Supreme Court affirmed the Constitutionality of these state laws in Halter v. Nebraska in 1907.

The only thing you've done so far is cite June 14, 1923 as some sort of date where, as far as I can tell, you think the custom of lowering the flag to half-staff for memorial purposes suddenly popped both into the body of public law as well as the public consciousness for.. well, for no apparent reason. Again, Congress just got a wild hair up it's *** to have a flag day and a flag code? Where are you getting your evidence for this unlikely hypothesis?

What is the significance of this date? Furthermore, where do you get the idea that the practice, or that public concern over flags in general (so far you have not made any position clear) was somehow absent prior to that date?

As for the actual custom, it was around at least 300 years prior to 1923 which, again, is a date you've selected for no discernable reason. Even if it was exclusively naval at that time (which you have not established, since there is nothing about the custom that relates to the sea; it is done to allow the "invisible flag of death" to fly atop the staff) it had over 300 years to appear on land and claiming that "gee there must have been no opinion on it" simply because people don't find it necessary to relate its use at the funerals of public figures in their descriptions does not mean it must not have appeared by that time. I have not noticed that in the descriptions of Samuel Clemens's death that they bothered to relate that he was placed in a coffin either despite being buried in a family plot. I suppose that means that coffins were not in common use and he was simply dumped unceremoniously in the ground. Record of whether it was done or not is unlikely to exist since it was almost certainly done on an individual basis because Presidential authority of Gubernatorial to so order was not granted yet and therefore there would have been no common call to do so to be recorded, and as I pointed out, communications systems of the time probably precluded any national call to lower flags anyhow.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Global to the set, not global to the globe. All you've got, in 1612, is that it's a recognized tradition of sailors. You have not shown any other recognition, from 1612 onward, of a non-maritime use. In contradiction of your claim that there is "no reason to think it needed to make a national transition or a transition to land at all", there is every reason, due to lack of evidence, to think that it did. So if you have some evidence, I would like to view it.

Now, you have managed to come up with anti-desecration statutes, at the state level. But those statutes make no reference to position nor manner of display that I can tell, so while you can claim that the general population was aware of flags and at least their national identity symbolism, you can't corroborate a claim of recognition of honor or tribute via positioning.

As to June 14, 1923, that is the date on which the National Flag Code was constructed, by a consortium of over 68 organizations, under the auspices of the National Americanism Commission of The American Legion. The Code was distributed by The American Legion. The Code was adopted into Public Law on June 22, 1942. I apologize for my incorrect implications of federal adoption on the 1923 date. So the public awareness campaign, outside of a few concerned groups, of US flag care, handling, presentation, etc., would be considered to begin in 1923, culminating in I suppose a critical mass prompting Congress to act in the 1942 timeframe. Probably something to do with WWII, but that's just speculation.

With the understanding that specific records are chancy, at best, prior to the turn of the 20th century, but yet also recognizing that the mass of historical documentation, both public and personal, archived by numerous organizations in the US provides a fairly detailed view of life, weddings, funerals, and whatnot, don't you think that amongst that minutiae, the non-standard positioning of a flag or two would not escape comment?

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And you have got nothing to show any logical reason it would be confined to sailors.

You need to start showing some evidence of your own. Do you deny the importance of flags to military communications in that era? Do you contest the importance of the Royal Navy to Britain at that time, or the prominence it held? We can draw some conclusions from our general knowledge of history at that time, and one of those is that it is highly unreasonable to assume that a custom in use by the navy was entirely unknown outside the maritime community especially when there is nothing explicitly nautical in its nature.



Exactly what other non-military purpsoe do you imagine they were fulfilling then?



And you are somehow thinking that these 68 organizations just somehow came up with this out of the blue in 1923?



I don't know. Since you're the one that wants to go exactly on the evidence that can be cited based on internet links and only on that, perhaps you can show some evidence in either direction, of that?

I am going to remind you that I have not claimed that any given flag or flags was or was not lowered for the funeral of any given public figure. All I said is that it would be instructive to know. Sure, Sam Clemens by himself might not say a whole lot, but a lot of others might.

You have, again for reasons I do not know, arbitrarily picked out June 14, 1923 as a date when for some reason flags were supposed to have suddenly gained major importance in public consciousness. You need to lay off the questions and provide some sounder reasoning for demanding citation of anything and everything before that date in particular. Evidently, there was at least enoug public controversy over the flag to generate Supreme Court Cases, and the tradition of half-masting for funerals was in use over 300 years for that time. Have you got any evidence to support a theory that it was imported wholesale into the public consciousness of flag treatment from an exclusively nautical tradition at that time?

I think not. A more likely explanation is that it was common, but informal, practice and these 68 organizations seized on that to include it in their proposed code. I find it hard to believe that these 68 organizations were concerned enough to publish a code at all without some significant public questions in regard to the flag and the proper use thereof. Since Twain died only 13 years before, and the Supreme Court case I cited was some 13 years before that, I don't see any good reason to think that the practice of half-masting was not something that, at minimum, a non-trivial minority of the public was aware of and practiced.

It's quite simple. If the answer to "did they half-mast at Twain's funeral?" is "I don't know" then fine. There's no need for exhaustive research on the subject. But, because of the time difference between then and now, that brings up the issue of how whether they did so then is relevant to them doing so for Whitney Houston.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

What era? 1612-???? or ????-19??. Nothing explicitly nautical in what, half-mast? Or signalling via flags such as the "Telegraphic Signals of Marine Vocabulary"? Or today's "International maritime signal flags"?

National identity symbols, perhaps?

Maybe, maybe not, but that's when they went on record.

Since the original question was "Does anyone feel it would have been appropriate for the state of Missouri to lower flags to half-mast for Samuel Clemens?", and then you brought up the relevance of whether they did or not, because you feel the social climate surrounding the national flag in 1910 had some bearing. Since then, we've been investigating the social climate surrounding the national flag in 1910. I pointed out that there doesn't appear to have been any of substance, since from what I found, 1923 is the first documented evidence of a real push to codify the display of and respect for the US flag. You managed to find some anti-desecration acts, which show that the US flag was in the social consciousness, but not how it was used, nor how substantial that awareness was. Also, you latched onto 1612 as some sort of indication that everybody and their brother was aware of the meaning of a half-mast flag display. We can certainly have a discussion about sailor traditions, ceremonies, superstitions, etc., and how many of those landlubbers ascribe to, but I think that might be going off tangentially and maybe we should have a separate thread for that.

While you're not claiming that any given flag was or was not lowered, you certainly seem to be dancing around stating that a flag's usage commonly included honoring deceased <undefined people>.To which I asked if you had any knowledge of a half-staff display for figures whose deaths were in the vicinity of Samuel Clemens. Vicinity, in this case, being roughly a decade to either side. More in the case of Sherman and Sheridan, but the presidents fall within a decade. Well-known public figures, and there's probably records of their funerals.

As to Supreme Court cases, I'm not convinced that acts as any sort of indication. For instance, do you know what cases the Supreme Court heard this past Wednesday? Further, the only Supreme Court cases you've referenced are on the right of states to pass flag anti-desecration laws. If you've got any text of the sample laws, I'll be happy to take a look, but I doubt they addressed the flag's presentation for mourning, thus we can draw no conclusions about that practice.

As to the evidence I have, I've presented what I have. You've presented what you have. I see what evidence neither of us has. I have drawn my conclusions. They are as follows:
Half-mast displays were known in maritime circles, at least as far back as 1612.
There is no evidence of half-staff displays, either generally or specifically, through at least the first quarter of the 20th century in the US.
It is unlikely that any flag was flown at half-staff for Samuel Clemens, nor anyone else for that matter.
It is unlikely this is any sort of statement on the value of their contributions to American society.
By today's mores, it would have been appropriate for Missouri to fly the flag at half-staff to display mourning for Samuel Clemens.
By 1910's mores, they could have if they liked, there doesn't seem to be anything to say they couldn't.

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I was responding to your claim that in 1612 it was a known tradition of sailors.. except that it wasn't. In 1612 it was a known tradition and the example shown was one in which sailors were involved. There's nothing explicitly nautical in either half-mast or signalling by flags. I don't know what you think signalling flags or



And the general population was interested in displaying symbols of national identity all around the interior of their own country for what reason, exactly, if not to honor it? Do you think they were worried someone in central Missouri might be confused as to what nation they were in? How exactly then were state flag desacration statutes to appear and a Supreme Court case, if people were not displaying flags all around the country, in areas where there would be no reason to be confused as to national identity?


Maybe, maybe not, but that's when they went on record.

That's when an assortment of 68 organizations went on record. It is not "maybe, maybe not", it is "not". The claim that these 68 organizations would simply decide to come up with a flag code without prior public concern or interest in the issue is an extraordinary one, especially in view of the fact that there was apparently sufficient controversy and interest to generate statutes and a Supreme Court case.



The problem with this is that there is no significance to the first date of attempted codification. You've attempted to assert that we don't know ("maybe, maybe not") if they just came up with it out of the blue, but then you tacitly admit that they didn't - when you "codify" something you are reducing it to a code, making a digest, or arranging in a systematic collection. In other words, what you are codifying must already exist. Now, I'm not in the habit of assuming everyone always looks in the dictionary before using every single word they type, so maybe by "codify" you meant you actually do think that, for some reason, there is a possibility that these 68 organizations just got the hankering to create a flag code. Or maybe, you simply do not know.

The fact, however, is that there is no evidence whatsoever to support a hypothesis that these organizations did come together in a spontaneous manner. This is an extraordinary claim; you cannot choose June 14th 1923 as the date of codification and then claim there is no evidence prior to that without it being specifically cited. The fact that they did come together to codify it at all indicates that the practices included in the codification were already in widespread, accepted use and the business was mainly to assemble them, resolve any contradictions or outlying, unusual practices, and then write them down.



It did, indeed, include honoring undefined deceased people, for just under 300 years prior to Clemens' death, and just over 300 prior to codification. This is a known fact. I have not claimed that Clemens' funeral did or did not include any flag-lowering because the only reason I care is to better define the original question: "Would it have been appropriate in his case?" If it was indeed lowered then the question is "Was it appropriate" although even then we are confronted with the question of "appropriate by our standards" or "by the standards of 1910?"

If it was not lowered or if it cannot be determined, then the question is not "Would it have been appropriate" by itself. It's "Would it have been appropriate at the time according to those living?" or "Would it have been appropriate at the time (1910) by our standards?" or "Would it have been appropriate if he had died today?" Each question includes serious underlying difficulties, all of which call into question the relevance to Whitney Houston.

To which I asked if you had any knowledge of a half-staff display for figures whose deaths were in the vicinity of Samuel Clemens. Vicinity, in this case, being roughly a decade to either side. More in the case of Sherman and Sheridan, but the presidents fall within a decade. Well-known public figures, and there's probably records of their funerals.

As to Supreme Court cases, I'm not convinced that acts as any sort of indication. For instance, do you know what cases the Supreme Court heard this past Wednesday? Further, the only Supreme Court cases you've referenced are on the right of states to pass flag anti-desecration laws. If you've got any text of the sample laws, I'll be happy to take a look, but I doubt they addressed the flag's presentation for mourning, thus we can draw no conclusions about that practice.[/quote]

We can certainly draw that conclusion that there was public interest in the proper use of flags from the fact that A) the states felt it necessary to pass the statutes and B) someone evidently was accused of violating them, giving them standing to challenge in the USSC. Flag desecration as a crime must, by its nature, by publicly committed and the impetus to control it includes an element of (not necessarily the only, or even main reason for prohibiting it) wanting to control behavior likely to invite disorderly conduct or riot towards the desecrator. The fact that there was a Supreme Court case indicates that there was, in fact, flag desecration going on for the statutes to prohibit. I don't know why you think the obscurity of Supreme Court cases in general matters.



What would that be? The only thing you've presented so far is the date of June 14th 1923 and then the clarification that the code created on that date


The fact of the matter is that there is, in fact, evidence of half-staff displays well before that. The fact that the practice existed in order to be codified in 1923 and had existed in 1612 (and was widespread enough even THEN that it required no explanation to those seeing it) indicates it was in steadily more widespread use and was common enough by 1923 that it was introduced without comment into the flag code. Essentially, you are taking that gap in direct citations from 1612 to 1923 and claiming the hypothesis that the tradition suddenly lept from nautical circles to the flag code at that time is just as reasonable as one that allows it to follow the more normal spread of traditions, simply because one cannot readily cite a chain of spreading tradition based on internet links.

As to whether it is appropriate by today's mores to fly it for Clemens, again.. does that mean if Clemens had died today, or Clemens as he existed in 1910? If the former, we are confronted with him being of either unlikely age or having lived in an entirely different time and therefore doing entirely different things. If the latter, then that invites the question of how we are to apply today's mores to a man who died in 1910 in a meaningful fashion.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Do you know what a mast is? And your 1612 example is one involving only sailors, not any other population. You have no corroborating information for anything land-based.

What do you mean by signalling? Along the lines of "England expects that every man will do his duty", or along the lines of "charge", "rally", "retreat"?

What are the reasons to display a national identity symbol? Unity, pride, some other intangibles. I highly doubt that to clear up confusion of where somebody is standing makes the list.

The American Legion (apparently the chief instigator of the National Flag Code) was formed in 1919. Do you know what else happened around 1919? 4 years is pretty much "out of the blue" from a historical standpoint. It's entirely possible that half-staff made its jump to the mainland in that time period. J. Random Seaman pipes up, "Hey, you know what we used to do in the Navy?"

As to codification, it's exactly what I meant. I at least have a chain of events. We have the end of WWI, the formation of the American Legion, some percolation of public opinion among veterans of proper flag usage, and then "Hey, Flag Day 1923, let's take this opportunity!".

You don't have any undefined deceased people, you've got sailors, and more specifically ship captains. That's it. That's all the evidence you've got. How are you making the jump from that to a full national population? What are your links in the chain? Your map describing point A to point B, where is it?

By your own quote, the Supreme Court case addressed the right of states to pass laws prohibiting "(i) placing any kind of marking on the flag, whether for commercial, political, or other purposes; (ii) using the flag in any form of advertising; and (iii) publicly mutilating, trampling, defacing, defiling, defying or casting contempt, either by words or by act, upon the flag". Do you see any other "proper use of flags" activities going on in there?

There are evidence of half-mast displays. There is no evidence of half-staff displays. When you figure out the difference between at sea and on land, you'll catch the distinction. And again, it was widespread enough AMONG SAILORS. On another note, we can track the evolution of the Stars and Stripes. We can see that there was a de facto standard until 1912, when a de jure standard was emplaced. But we've got the evolution recorded. We can point to it at any point in time from its establishment. How the practice of flying the flag at half staff evolved, you don't have. You can point to some half-mast traditions, but no half-staff. We've got evidence of when half-staff became de jure, and we have some evidence of when it was de facto, but nothing about when it became de facto or even entered the (non-sailor) public awareness.

For Clemens, appropriateness in retrospect. I don't know where your 177 year old Samuel Clemens keeps coming from. Meaningful to who? People in 1910, or people today? Are we today capable of ascribing meaning to past events, or speculating meaning on past events? Maybe you aren't. That could explain a lot.

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I don't need any. There's no reason to think it was nautical other than that the earliest recorded incident was nautical. That's just the first time it happened to be written down. That does not in any way establish that it was limited to nautical settings. Where's your evidence?

As for a "mast" yes, I know what a mast is. You can stop with the condescending nonsense now. The fact is that "half-mast" is the most common term for the practice; "half-staff" is less common but accepted.



I am not going to respond to attempts to bury me in endless questions. There is plenty of work available on the importance of both regular flags (including naval jacks and ensigns) and signal flags on both land and sea. You know perfectly well we are talking about the national flag, which, at a minimum, signals the nationality of the ship from which it flies. If you wish to know more, I suggest you do your own research.



So someone would display a national symbol for reasons of unity and pride, but would have no opinion on the way in which that ought to be displayed? That's rather silly. Generally if one has pride in something and displays the symbol to display that, they will do so in a way they feel is respectful and will object to to disrespectful displays.



J. Random Seaman existed in.. let's see.. from 1612 we have (for the U.S. alone)
The French and Indian War
The American Revolution
The actions against the barbary pirates
The War of 1812
The Mexican-American War
The Civil War
The Spanish American war

prior to WWI, to say nothing of the fact that people did, in fact both A) die and B) return from the navy to civilian life in the years between each of those.

That does not even count the wars of various other nations where the practice is conducted. Yet we're supposed to believe that all of a sudden after WWI that this was when it made a sudden entrance into civil society just because the American Legion was formed? Not to mention that, primary or not, it was one of 68 organizations and I doubt very much that ALL of them, and probably neot even half were formed from 1919 to 1923.

Then, of course, there's your enreasonable focus on the practice in the United States, despite the fact that it is practiced in the following nations:

1.1 Australia
1.2 Canada
1.3 People's Republic of China
1.4 Republic of China
1.5 Germany
1.6 Hong Kong
1.7 India
1.8 Ireland
1.9 Israel
1.10 Indonesia
1.11 Japan
1.12 South Korea
1.13 Malaysia
1.14 Netherlands
1.15 New Zealand
1.16 Pakistan
1.17 Philippines
1.18 Russia
1.19 Saudi Arabia
1.20 Thailand
1.21 Turkey
1.22 United Kingdom
1.23 United Nations
1.24 United States
1.25 Zimbabwe

... which are really jut examples, anyhow. I suppose however, that in every single one the practice was unknown before June 14, 1923 outside of whatever navy they may have had at that time.

Then let's see.. in Australia, Canada, and England the flag is flown in this fashion on the death of the Soverigen. This is not limited to naval ships. Do you suppose that the land-based practice of this just happens to coincide with your arbitrarily-selected date of 1923 in the United States? Or do you suppose that just maybe the prominence of the King or Queen in those nations might have led to this practice being observed well before, and that, even if it were originally a naval procedure that it would have taken until after WWI to appear on land? These are commonwealth nations and the importance of seapower to Britain and her Commonwealths is well known; sailors were never in short supply and even if they spent a great deal of their life on their ships, they did get off them occasionally, you know. Then of course ships have to enter ports. Do you think it might occur to someone on land to ask, at some point between 1612 and 1919, why a ship had its flag half way up?

The fact is that this appearance of a flag code in 1923 does not, in any way, serve as some sort of line of demarcation where we can suddenly assume there was public awareness of the practice of raising a flag, but where any awareness before must be cited specifically. At the very least it ignores the worldwide nature of the practice to focus excessively on one event in America.

I'd also point out that there were vastly more deaths on land than at sea amongs Americans fighting in WWI. America did not enter until all of the major naval battles had occured. That points as well to any American Legion importations being more likely to come from the Army than the Navy, even counting the Marines Corps.
http://www.worldwar1.com/dbc/facts.htm





You have a chain of events leading to a flag code. That does not in any way imply that what was included in the code was introduced into civil society at that time. You are focusing on this one practice of half-masting and pretending there's some reason it, in particular, was likely to have been imported from naval practice at that time. Not only does this focus excessively on American aspects of the history of the practice, but there is no apparent reason you think that this one practice was suddenly imported to civil society at that time - save that it is the one under discussion.



I don't need to cite every single link in the chain for you.

1) You have not established that it was nautical in nature. You are focusing on the fact that the earliest recorded example was nautical and claiming this only establishes it was known int he nautical community. As I pointed out above, the nautical community is not self-contained. People leave ships, and ships enter ports. You need to establish some evidence that the practice was originally nautical and then entered land beyond the coincidence that the earliest recorded incident was on a ship.

2) You are erecting an arbitrary barrier between practices at sea and those on land. The reason you are doing this is that it is well-known that the nautical community has certain insularities about it; I have not asked you to establish that because we both already know it. Yet that does not establish that such insularity extends to this particular custom. Yet you are not acknowledging things we both already know; you know perfectly well that ships enter ports and people interact with their crews and people leave the seafaring life, and that there was ample opportunity for the practice to spread before WWI... yet you're demanding I cite such obvious facts as "ships dock" for some reason.

3) You have simply claimed that this codification in 1923 establishes some sort of public awareness and then demanded I disprove the idea that this was when it suddenly appeared. This is in complete disregard of the fact that it is clearly an international custom, not an American one, and that is something you should have been aware of. I presume you do not need me to cite the fact that in 1612 the United States did not exist, and wouldn't for over 150 more years. Why you would then tie the civil or land-based use of the custom to an American veteran's organization is unknown. I suspect that the reason has something to do with the fact that it's conveniently after 1910.


Why would I need to? That establishes that there was, in fact, a public concern with proper use thereof and that this resulted in laws being passed prior to 1923. Your original claim:



Yet there evidently are, and they were of such importance as to result in a Supreme Court case. I'm sure you'll reply that "the subject" is half-masting, and the case doesn't address that.. yet I have established that the practice was accepted



You are misusing the term "half-mast" and "half-staff." Don't presume to correct me on such things. I know the distinction - there is none when referring to flying the flag halfway up it's means of hoist. Any other meanings of staff or mast are not relevant.

half-mast/half-staff


So let's just dispense with the semantic nitpickery, shall we?

As for the rest, this is, again, your assertion that some evidence needs to be shown that it was somehow confined to sailors simply because that was the cited example. You are erecting an artificial barrier between sea customs and land customs that might be appropriate in some cases but cannot be generalized to this custom, and for which there is no evidence that it was the case. You are seriously deficient in evidence here. Your original claim of "no public awareness before 1923" is demolished (sailors are, in fact, members of the public, especially when they, you know, quit being sailors). You are further hemmed in by the fact that it was not and is not uniquely American or even unique to British tradition and therefore that there is no reason to assume that adoption of a flag code in America is somehow indictive of public awareness.



You can't add? If Clemens were buried in 2012 he'd be 177 years old if he were born at his actual time. It comes from the failure to address the basic problem of looking at the appropriateness of looking at an event in 1910 through today's mores. You seem to think "appropriateness in retrospect" is somehow obvious, but that really fails to address how the appropriateness of doing so in 1910 in any way relates to the appropriateness of doing so for Whitney Houston in 2012 beyond the tenuous connection of "they're both artists".



Meaningful in terms of the original comparison to Whitney Houston.

As for your snide remarks like "Maybe you aren't. That could explain a lot." and the allusion to figuring out the difference between land and sea, it's quite obvious (regardless of any protestations of innocence you may contemplate) that these are simply attempts to provoke me. Am I not being "belligerent" enough for you to extract yourself with the excuse of "I'm done here"? Would you prefer more outright rudenss and aggression? Please, by all means let me know. You apparently felt I was too "belligerent" in the thread on abortion, so I deliberately toned it down here. It's very interesting to see that you feel the need to provoke me when I don't do it.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

At this point I can't tell what you're arguing. You're refusing to answer questions, and attempting to flood the page with irrelevant factoids. Not to mention just pasting wholesale from wikipedia.

So is it your claim that the practice of flying a flag at half staff to honor a deceased has been in widespread use, both on land and at sea, in the generally-accepted "Western" region, since 1612? If so, while you've provided corroboration for the at sea piece, your on land piece is missing. What do you have showing the custom on land? And yes, I'm focusing on the USA. That's where we are, the flag which we are discussing, and the nation of the figures sparking this discussion. If you'd like to branch out, here's this.

Interesting source of that material. Queen Victoria died in 1901. So here's evidence that a personal flag (you'll note it was the Royal Standard, not the Union Jack) was flown at half-mast for the Queen of England. It doesn't make mention of William IV, so it would seem the practice developed sometime after 1838.

No mention is made of any flag flown at half-mast for Prince Albert Victor's funeral in 1892.
Both the Duke of Wellington and Sir Winston Churchill's funerals are classified as State funerals, but no mention of half-mast is made regarding State funerals that I can find. I can find no evidence that the Union Jack was flown at half mast for the Duke of Wellington, although it did fly at half mast for Sir Winston Churchill. That, though, was in 1965 and fairly contemporary.

So far, there's three reigning monarchs and one consort receiving a half-mast, all either the Royal Standard or a personal standard. That's not exactly widespread, although it is widespread amongst British monarchs between 1901-1936.

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Yes, yes, we know. You just can't make up your mind. you want evidence, then it's "irrelevant factoids" and "flooding the page". You can tell perfectly well what I'm arguing. Don't play games. It's patently obvious that this is just trying to spin my posts so that you can have an excuse to withdraw in faux disgust later on.



My claim is that you cannot establish a clear demarcation line such as June 14, 1923 as a date when flying a flag at half staff all of a sudden became a matter of public practice. The practice was known, and in use before that and became gradually more and more widespread over a period of at least 300 years prior.

I am not lacking any corroboration for a "land piece" YOU NEED TO SHOW THAT THERE IS A DEMARCATION BETWEEN LAND AND SEA IN THIS REGARD. You have singularly failed to do this. I have placed it in capitals this time so that you can easily see it, and thus avoid any further failure to meet your burden of proof.


Interesting source of that material. Queen Victoria died in 1901. So here's evidence that a personal flag (you'll note it was the Royal Standard, not the Union Jack) was flown at half-mast for the Queen of England. It doesn't make mention of William IV, so it would seem the practice developed sometime after 1838.[/quote]

While fascinating A) There is simply the possibility that they did not care to discuss William IV B) this provides absolutely no weight to your chosen date of June 14th, 1923 since this is all British practice C) the fact that it is a Royal Standard is irrelevant for the same reason; we don't have royalty in this country.


No mention is made of any flag flown at half-mast for Prince Albert Victor's funeral in 1892.
Both the Duke of Wellington and Sir Winston Churchill's funerals are classified as State funerals, but no mention of half-mast is made regarding State funerals that I can find. I can find no evidence that the Union Jack was flown at half mast for the Duke of Wellington, although it did fly at half mast for Sir Winston Churchill. That, though, was in 1965 and fairly contemporary.

So far, there's three reigning monarchs and one consort receiving a half-mast, all either the Royal Standard or a personal standard. That's not exactly widespread, although it is widespread amongst British monarchs between 1901-1936.[/quote]

Evidently,

More generalized sources indicate that the common practice is, and has been the custom to use the Royal Standard in this fashion for some time; it is not cited in every single instance because it is common practice, and the exact status of the flag is a minor footnote surrounding a monarch's death. Lack of citation of the flag's status is not an indication that custom was not followed.

Royal Standard



The likely beginning of this practice is with the events of 1660. Given the importance of sea power and the navy and merchant marine to Britain, it is very hard to imagine there was any meaningful barrier to the practice appearing on land, if, indeed, it wasn't already there. From there, it would ahve over a hundred years to come to the United States, not to mention continuing ties after that time.

But, let's go back to the original asserion you made: June 14, 1923. You asserted that June 14th 1923 was when there was first a regulation (you already corrected the government part) regarding the flag, then you asserted that there "were no past attitudes prior to 1923." Then, when it was pointed out that 1923 was "codification" and something had to exist to be codified, and further that there was a legal history of attitudes in the U.S. and a 300-year history of half-masting, you came up with this idea that the practice was unknown on land until WWI after which the American Legion formed and inserted this practice based on the relation of it by sailors at the event where the flag code was created.

This is silly. There certainly were public attitudes about flags in general prior to June 14th, 1923. There is no good reason to think the practice only came into public awareness after WWI; there had been plenty of sailors prior to that, with plenty of wars, and the practice is used in plenty of countries. There is no good reason to think the American public was somehow isolated from the concept prior to 1923. At best, you could argue it wasn't "widespread" or "common" but in an era of much more primitive communication it would have been localized most of the time anyhow.

The fact is that you're only propounding these theories to keep the date when it occurs in public ahead of 1910 when Clemens died. This is silly. I never asserted that it did or didn't happen at Clemens' funeral. I said it might be helpful to know; if it did happen and was a minor footnote we would at least know that it raised no public comment. If it did not, we could still discuss whether it was appropriate although there is still the issue of trying to somehow relate it to events .

The fact of the matter, however, is that the question was never intended to be a serious one. It mysteriously changed from this:



to this:

wherein the question rather abruptly goes from open ended to a closed dichotomy. Right after which Coro tells everyone the second answer is ok but the first answer is not ok, because somehow thinking art alone doesn't merit the honor = restricting it to government or military service.

I agree that government and military service are not the only ways to serve one's country. Samuel Clemens is a perfect example; he acted essentially as a private ambassador around the world, was an inventor as well, and provided useful commentary on the institution of slavery through his writing in addition to the value of the work as art. Nevertheless, the leap from "art doesn't merit the honor" to "only government and military service do" is a long one and revealing of the need to tilt at the windmills of people who think only government or military service merit a half-mast. What's even more revealing is the amount of effort you've gone to just to avoid the possibility that the practice might have been in use at that time.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I would officially like to go on record as being firmly in the IDGAF camp on this one.

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

Well said and I agree!

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"Said I never had much use for one, never said I didn't know how to use one!"~ Matthew Quigley

"nothing like a little meow in bed at night" ~ Bruskey

"I gotta float my stick same as you" Hondo Lane

"Fill your hand you son of a *****!"

This doesn't upset me, really. But I can understand why folks could get upset. I wouldn't say we (the USA) should be in the habit of lower flags for entertainers.

Plus, why Whitney Houston? Maybe I am wrong, but I don't think she retained any meaningful amount of star cache. Her type of music was never my thing, but I would expect that even those who are fans of the genre would have moved on some time ago.

Also, any positive image she once may have had was erased almost two decades ago. I'm not trying to disrespect her specifically; I just find myself surprised at a half-mast flag for someone of her 'caliber' (putting aside my opinion that the practice is not appropriate for entertainers to begin with).