I don't think Q was complimenting all those Twitter accounts when he spotlighted them with the expression FLAGS OUT.

The accounts themselves all exhibit some strange behavior if you look at them all closely enough. Just go back and look through the tweets of any one of them. Do they really sound like "real patriots" to you?

Which prompted me to look into the expression "FLAGS OUT." This is some of what I discovered (none of it conclusive, but all of it seems to further suggest "flags out" was never meant as a compliment).

The term "FLAGS OUT" is mainly a British slang expression and has mainly been used sarcastically. As in, "Wow, Bobby finally cleaned his room, put the flags out!" So in the modern use of the phrase, it's s not actually a very positive expression, but a bit of a slap in the face. (I've actually noticed Q has a bit of a penchant for British expressions.)

The expression's origins are a bit murky but some say it comes from the title of the book "Put Out More Flags" (1942) by British writer Evelyn Waugh, which was a classic satire about England’s upper crust in the early days of World War II. Again the implication of "putting out flags" by Waugh was actually critical, not complimentary.

"Put Out More Flags" is a story about the so-called "Phoney War" as reflected by the novel's main characters, including Basil Seal, a wealthy man and "bad egg" who amuses himself by exploiting personal opportunity in the name of the war effort, and whose job it is to – get a load of this – write leaders for "The Daily Beast!" And then there's also Alistair Trumpington, an earnest would-be soldier who finds himself engaged in incomprehensible manoeuvres instead of real combat.

The men and women Waugh writes about are not those who will be ultimately impacted by impending war with Germany. They will all just retire to country estates of family and friends, out of harm's way. They will not be on the front lines struggling to stay alive, but in cushy offices debating the broader points of strategy. This disconnect between the masses and the elites is a prominent theme in Waugh’s writing, which focuses on privileged classes.

That is, Waugh uses his cast of wealthy characters to illuminate those who see opportunity and amusement in conflict. That sound like the elites or even the "paytriots" to me.

So I'll just end with an odd discovery I made in my cursory research into "Flags Out." Waugh himself seems to have derived the expression from Lin Yutang's book "The Importance of Living" (1937) in which Yutang quotes a proverb from an unknown Chinese philosopher: "There is a proper time and place for getting drunk…A drunk military man should order gallons (of booze) and put up more flags, in order to increase his military splendor." It was harder for me to get a sense of the original meanings behind that proverb, but it did lead me to an article in the Washington Post: "Trump doesn't need a parade, he needs a Roman triumph" (7 February 2018) by the illustrious never-Trumping-traitor Dana Milbank. Milbank quotes the Lin Yutang proverb in the article itself.

And in that article Dana Milbank portrays Trump as a narcissistic emperor who needs to be adored in a grand Roman military parade, which historically followed very specific (pagan) protocols. Milbank goes on to describe the traditional Roman imperial parade, which he says Trump supposedly deserves:

"Toward the end of the Roman triumph procession, two white oxen were sacrificed at the Temple of Jupiter and the prisoners killed. Trump’s triumph, by contrast, would pause outside the Trump International Hotel. Though executing his opponents could be problematic, Trump might stand in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue and shoot somebody, just for symbolism. Mission accomplished! There’s only one problem with this plan, as I see it. In the Roman triumph, a slave would ride with the general in his chariot and repeatedly whisper into his ear, 'Memento mori': Remember, you are mortal. For our parading president, this could be a dealbreaker."

There is something chilling about Millbank whispering into Trump's ear "Remember you are mortal." That sounds like a poetically veiled threat to me.

So basically, I'm wary of the expression "Flags Out."