(What you call an "objective fact" here is - as you say - your report of your personal experience. Everyone else would probably use a word more like "subjective".)
Can’t help but notice the difference in sentiment between the flag that represents a people and a flag that represents a nation, especially historically.
Hmm? Which is which? Is this one of those British things people from normal countries don't understand? Like the difference between United Kingdom and Great Britain.
Perhaps I should have used the term “sovereign state”, as that’s more precise, even though when most people use the colloquial term “nation” (as in “nationalism”) they’re referring to a sovereign state.
A sovereign state has borders they can enforce to their own discretion (political gridlock notwithstanding), a stable and well-defined (non-transient) population, a single recognized government (both internally and externally), and ability to conduct foreign relations without being stopped by force or decree.
So, with that more precise definition out of the way, you can recognize that the flags in your links do not represent sovereign states, but rather peoples - who, coincidentally, are often fighting for their rights and freedoms.
Elsewhere in the thread are mentions of nation flags, like the Union Jack, which represent a sovereign state, and are instead often associated with national identity, xenophobia and oppression.
There's not a lot of difference there. Citizenship COULD be used, but now you're talking about two different domains of language. A person who is British but now has an American citizenship, still talks with a British accent and identifies as British is still British. The same way a trans person with XY is still a woman if she identifies as a women, even though that person is also a male in another domain of speech.
Humans who identify as "humans, not animals" are just stupid and wrong in the scientific domain of speech, but absolutely correct and reasonable in the colloquial domain of speech.
I’m not following your argument at all, could you try to word it differently?
The distinction I’m drawing is that flags that represent peoples are usually more ideologically pure: people seeking justice or rights. They may be co-opted over time by more actors who deviate from the original intention (e.g. Gadsden Flag).
Nation flags, on the other hand, are by definition exclusionary towards an outgroup that exists by legal distinction. In the historical record, nationalism rarely works out well for anyone who sits outside the definition of a nation. Nationalism is a useful tool during wartime, especially during the early years of a nation (e.g. colonial revolutions) or when facing an existential threat (e.g. Ukraine), but it’s an ideological debt that may end up being paid by future generations when someone comes along and wraps themselves and their ideology in the flag and paints their opposition as “unamerican”, for example.
Is your point that all flags have the same ideological utility no matter what they represent? Or is your point not talking about flags at all and instead focusing on the difference between “sovereign state” and “nation”?
I'm seeing a lot of flags.