At one point, the American people fought for their freedom from what they considered an oppressive and tyrannical authority: the English Crown.

Some did. Some were merely opportunists who didn't want the government getting in their way. Most of the US founding fathers were smugglers and land speculators. They didn't like that the US had ended the French and Indian war by promising that in exchange for peace, their colony would stop expanding westwards. That pissed off the founders who had bought land to the west and wanted a return on their investments.

Other American people were just fine with the arrangement with the crown. They didn't want a brand new government, they thought things were fine as they were. These people were either killed or driven off their land by the rebels who wanted a new government, and were forced to head to England or up into Canada.

Just look at the other places that didn't consider the British monarch to be an oppressive tyrant: Canada, Australia, NZ, etc. Did they suffer under the grinding boot of the king and lead miserable lives as a result? Were they forced to hand all their wealth over to England? Hardly. Within a few decades the British gave their local governments more power. Now they all merely have the king as a figurehead and are fully controlled by the people.

Meanwhile, the rebel colonists in the US went only a couple of decades before descending into a civil war. Plus, there's the war of 1812 which, in large part, was due to these people who famously hated tyrants and oppression ignoring treaties and killing off natives so that they could expand westward.

It seems to me that if you look past all the propaganda that is part of the US school system, the British king being a "tyrant" was more of a convenient excuse rather than the actual legitimate reason for the rebellion.

You're conflating the Revolution with the "Founding Fathers", who were actually mainly associated with the constitution.

Which was in many ways the counter revolution, where the rich and propertied (like Washington) decided that the Revolution had gone too far, with Shay's Rebellion and revolts against debt being the main driver of that.

The irony is that when some Americans look at that same flag today, they see it as a symbol of the very kind of powerful, oppressive authority that the American Revolution was fought against.

And, unfortunately, a lot of people around the world look at it that way too.

18% of Americans were unable to select the correct option:

A) The Earth revolves around the Sun

B) The Sun revolves around the Earth

C) I don't know

Edit: I found a source for 26% before I found the source for 18%

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/02/14/277058739/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-survey-says

Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is, no matter how obvious it is, there are tens of millions of Americans who will easily get it wrong.

The USA is just as bloody as its parent, the UK, and they’re both as bad as other nations with an Imperial past.

Or, you know, damn near every single empire or powerful ruler throughout all of human history. The Greek golden age was only possible thanks to slaves working the fields, Rome was similar in this regard.

Eastern nations weren't any better, read up on ancient Chinese culture and all the fucked up shit they did.

Same goes for India, hell they're still trying to end child marriage but still represent like 20-25% of all child marriages in the world.

People love to dog on America, and I'll be happy to point out all the historical examples, but the truth is this is more a symptom of the human condition and less about a nation. Look at the other countries on earth and you'll find plenty of evidence that evil isn't isolated to one nation, people, culture or time period.

It's universally a human thing.

I’ve reached a point where I can’t even list all the bs.

The Wikipedia page for United States involvement in regime change is, if printed, 77 pages long.

Yup

As a flag it's not very appealing tbh, too many small details as well.

No, this is incorrect and it only serves to whitewash colonialism and the particularly cruel practices of the British Empire and its grotesque contemporary vestige.

Ruthless conquering forces are the exception, not the rule. Ethnic groups coexisted, intermarried and assimilated. Languages and political systems merged. Migration was not, normally, conquest. And conquest did not normally amount to ethnic cleansing.

The British empire starved millions of people across multiple continents. It is a part of their coping mechanism to posit that the only thing that separates the English from other peoples us the opportunity. But we have many other empires in history that didn't even treat theit most remote provinces how the British treated Ireland, to say nothing of its more distant colonies.

The USA is worse in spirit than Britain ever was, but luckily with much more limited opportunity.

That's why the message of Cyrus from 2600 years ago is inscribed in the UN.