This question on Worldbuilding used the phrase to describe banning vegetarians from eating meat:
Sure you can instute mandatory public meat eating, but that's like
making a communist salute the flag. They'll eat the meatloaf to escape
detection, but inside they're still deeply, morally corrupt.
I don't understand the meaning of this simile. Google searches for "soviet flag salute" or "chinese flag salute" show plenty of examples of communist countries instituting flag salutes, voluntary or otherwise, and I don't see how saluting a flag voluntarily would make one less morally corrupt.
While I inferred the meaning to be something along the lines of "making a bad person do something that a good person normally does", is this the actual meaning of this phrase?
Best Answer
This comes from a very a tongue-in-cheek response to a question about how to enforce a ban on vegetarianism.
Note the title of the answer:
This is an allusion to the House Unamerican Activities Committee, a standing committee of the US House of Representatives from 1938 to 1969.
The author is thus speaking of saluting the American flag, an action which communists would presumably find morally or ideologically repugnant.