celluloid

So there's a thread somewhere in the SG messageboards all in a tizzy about germany's 4th of July photoset.
They're all "blah blah blah, you're disrespecting the flag"... and all like "its not just a piece of cloth-its a symbol"...
But, sadly, I don't think many people really know what the symbolism of it is.
Like probably everyone in this country of misinformation, I was brought up to learn that:
The 13 stripes were for the original 13 colonies, and the fifty stars were for our states.
The blue field stood for bravery (I never quite got that).
The white stripes were a shitty band that somehow I like... Uhm, I mean the white stripes stood for the purity of this nation.
The red stripes honoured the men that spilled blood for our nation.
*BUZZER* WRONG!
In reality, in any flag of the revolutionary/colonial/expansionist period of America where you find red fields being intersected by another colour it simply means "we hate those British assholes and their imperialistic nature" (not that this is a current sentiment, mind you).
The red was the British and other coloured lines cutting through it were the men and women of America rising up to cut through the oppression and taxation.

I should know - I have an anti-British flag tattooed on myself.

But I dont' hate the Brits, I just like George Rogers Clark.

But why the white and blue of the flag? Honestly, I don't know. Perhaps there was some thought behind it, but my guess is that red, white, and blue made up just about every flag back in the day. Maybe, as is the case with the GRC flag, all Betsy Ross had at her disposal was red, white, and blue.

SO, anyway people...
Though I will never claim to be an expert on things, you all should think before you open your idiotic mouths. And I mean think for yourself. Don't just vomit up that bullshit you learned in your Gulf War-era Junior High history class.