Posted on 06/29/2005 5:59:26 AM PDT by fight_truth_decay
The top editor at a newspaper owned by Gannett, which publishes USA Today, promised in a Sunday column to burn an American flag if the Senate passes an anti-flag burning amendment. Linda Grist Cunningham, Executive Editor of the Rockford Register Star in Illinois, pledged: "If the U.S. Senate follows its silly siblings in the House of Representatives and votes for a ban on burning the American flag, I'm going to burn one. It never occurred to me to burn a flag -- except in some flag-retiring ceremony -- but just the idea that Congress has nothing better to do than spend time on this nutty issue makes we want to burn one." She also displayed her disgust with critics of Senator Dick Durbin, complaining that people "with an ax to grind" took "a couple of lines out of context."
There are conservatives on both sides of the debate over whether flag-burning should be banned via a constitutional amendment, but I don't think any of the conservative opponents of such an amendment would burn a flag just out of pique for coming out on the losing side.
Mark Belling, the 3-6pm talk host on WISN in Milwaukee, alerted CyberAlert to Cunningham's June 26 column in which she addressed "a handful of odds and ends to clear the desk."
An excerpt from her thoughts on the flag and Durbin:
....# FLAG BURNING: If the U.S. Senate follows its silly siblings in the House of Representatives and votes for a ban on burning the American flag, I'm going to burn one. It never occurred to me to burn a flag -- except in some flag-retiring ceremony -- but just the idea that Congress has nothing better to do than spend time on this nutty issue makes we want to burn one.
I am assuming that if we ban burning, we'll also ban purses that look like flags, flags painted on cars, and flags tattooed on butts?
I'll exercise my First Amendment right to free speech, freedom of assembly and freedom to petition my government for redress by burning the flag. I won't burn it on a day when the temperature is above 90 and the wind is more than 10 mph. (Isn't that what the rules were on leaf burning? Ought to apply to flags, too.)
I believe in what the American flag symbolizes. I do not believe in creating graven images, so to speak, that must be worshipped. Burning the flag, or tossing it into a trash can for that matter, as a protest against the government, isn't going to bring down the 'Murican Way of Life.
# U.S. SEN. Dick Durbin has been taking it on the chin for a "foot-in-mouth" thing he did in a recent speech. Goes to show you what happens when someone with an ax to grind takes a couple of lines out of context and twists them for all they're worth....
Heavens, how I wish someone had flagged Durbin on that Nazi thing. Mention it and everyone goes nuts. Best to cut that whole line rather than stick it out there. The senator's message got lost in the fury that followed....
For Cunningham's piece in full: cf.rrstar.com
For a bio and picture of Cunningham, who oversees a newspaper with a respectable 75,000 daily circulation, and who lists the West Wing as her favorite television show: cf.rrstar.com
Mark Belling's page on WISN's Web site: www.newstalk1130.com
# Tom Brokaw is scheduled to appear Wednesday night on CBS's Late Show with David Letterman.
-- Brent Baker
"Ask the men and women who stood on top of the Trade Center," said Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham, R-Calif. "Ask them and they will tell you: pass this amendment."
Sen. Joseph Biden D-Del., a likely presidential candidate, has said he would oppose the amendment.
The proposed one-line amendment to the Constitution reads, "The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States." For the language to be added to the Constitution, it must be approved by two-thirds of those present in each chamber, then ratified within seven years by at least 38 state legislatures.
The amendment is designed to overturn a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling in 1989 that flag burning is a protected free-speech right. That ruling threw out a 1968 federal statute as well as flag-protection laws in 48 states. The law was a response to anti-Vietnam War protesters setting fire to American flags at demonstrations.
The Senate could consider the measure as soon as next month. House approval 286-130.
So far Linda Grist Cunningham, Executive Editor of the Rockford Register Star in Illinois is the only one who has publically threatened to "burn the flag" if the amendment passes the Senate.
so is this another bill in the senate going the fillibuster
route?
i bet if you substitute the words french and/or united nation's flag every RAT would be running to vote for the bill
Constitution >>> Flag.
I would hold up the right for someone to burn a flag. I would also support anyone who beat up a person burning a flag (that would be a form of expression too.)
Our congress needs something better to do.
Perhaps the ditz should wrap the flag around her body before she lights it. It sounds like she suffers from self-hatred. She may as well relieve herself of her misery and kill two birds with one stone.
Let's see if he is brave enough to burn a Koran.
I, for one, would be tempted to join him.
Flag desecration ordinances are just stupid. It is cheap, tawdry partisan politics of the lowest order. I am ashamed that the Republican Party is wasting our time with this steaming pile yet another time. Don't they have anything better to do?
A Gannett editor? No surprise there. Every town serviced by a Gannett rag knows many of the editors who are hired already have probably burned flags.
Those "silly siblings", Cunningham, so blithely talks about are the men and women American voters have put in office. So, by extension those "silly siblings" are the American voters.
I'd love to see her burn a flag and do a perp walk. Of course there'd be a claque of anti-American leftists cheering her on, but that's to be expected.
You also don't believe in national sovereignty defended by soldiers who have pledged alegiance to what the flag symbolizes. Since your position is infantile and clearly anticonstitutional, it is irrelevant.
The flag should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.
The flag should never touch anything beneath it, such as the ground, the floor, water, or merchandise.
The flag should never be carried flat or horizontally, but always aloft and free.
The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery. It should never be festooned, drawn back, nor up, in folds, but always allowed to fall free. Bunting of blue, white, and red, always arranged with the blue above, the white in the middle, and the red below, should be used for covering a speaker's desk, draping the front of the platform, and for decoration in general.
The flag should never be fastened, displayed, used, or stored in such a manner as to permit it to be easily torn, soiled, or damaged in any way.
The flag should never be used as a covering for a ceiling.
The flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature.
The flag should never be used as a receptacle for receiving, holding, carrying, or delivering anything.
The flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever. It should not be embroidered on such articles as cushions or handkerchiefs and the like, printed or otherwise impressed on paper napkins or boxes or anything that is designed for temporary use and discard. Advertising signs should not be fastened to a staff or halyard from which the flag is flown.
No part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform. However, a flag patch may be affixed to the uniform of military personnel, firemen, policemen, and members of patriotic organizations. The flag represents a living country and is itself considered a living thing. Therefore, the lapel flag pin being a replica, should be worn on the left lapel near the heart.
The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning
Sec. 9. — Conduct during hoisting, lowering or passing of flag During the ceremony of hoisting or lowering the flag or when the flag is passing in a parade or in review, all persons present except those in uniform should face the flag and stand at attention with the right hand over the heart. Those present in uniform should render the military salute. When not in uniform, men should remove their headdress with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart. Aliens should stand at attention. The salute to the flag in a moving column should be rendered at the moment the flag passes
Sec. 10. — Modification of rules and customs by President Any rule or custom pertaining to the display of the flag of the United States of America, set forth herein, may be altered, modified, or repealed, or additional rules with respect thereto may be prescribed, by the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States, whenever he deems it to be appropriate or desirable; and any such alteration or additional rule shall be set forth in a proclamation.
You are correct.
It seems as though being an out and out leftist is a prereq for being an editor at a Gannett paper.
Damn, this is a silly law.
Still, if you paint your property in the stars and stripes, maybe the state will think twice about bulldozing it for eminent domain.
When I was in college I said the exact same thing: "Go ahead and burn it - but don't be surprised when I bust your jaw for ya when you do it."
The response of the left then was: "Burning the flag is speech, hitting a flagburner is assault."
My response was: "According to the law, there are such things as 'fighting words' - if flagburning is speech, it's also 'fighting words' and there is no reason why I should get in trouble if you intentionally provoke me like that."
This is still how I feel and it's common sense. Flagburning is intended to be a provocative act purposely done to enrage patriots.
You forgot to mention that by outlawing it, flag-burning becomes a very potent symbol. Can you imagine the impact of a flag burning followed by arrests? At the moment the flag burns and the person doing it looks like an arse.
But if the cops storm in and arrest him then he is a victim of a repressive state and his (idiotic) point is given visual and physically impact as his person is then incarcerated.
The analogy to the desecration of the Koran is absolutely correct. I think America is powerful enough and its symbols strong enough to withstand a littel bit of desecration. Aparently that is not true of Islam.
Until some way is found to return the supreme court to its original purpose, amendments to the constitution are a waste of time. However clearly and simply the amendment is written, the court will interpret it to mean what they want to mean.
How about every one burning their USA Today and other Gannet subscriptions? I canceled my local liberal rag about 6 years ago. Palm Beach com-Post. These scum won't stop attacking this country until we stop sending them $$$$$$$.
If the Flag is not sacred, neither is the Constitution. We are seeing both trampled, and while I support a ban on the burning of the American Flag except for the proper retirement of a worn out Flag, I would prefer to see a companion bill which would compell our government to dispose of ANY law or legislation which violates the Constitution of the United States, in addition to requiring the mandatory impeachment and removal of any judge or official who bases their decisions upon ANY foreign law or legislation, any U.N. proclamation, in fact ANY document except for the Constitution.
Of course to enact THAT sort of sweeping legislation would require another confrontation on the order of Lexington and Concord, and our imperial masters in Washington are not about to stand for that.
So suck it up you peasants, the Flag has already been virtually burned by those in Washington who have betrayed the Constitution and our Republic. This proposed law, while certainly based on good intentions, is a classic case of closing the barn door after the animals have run out.
If the Senate passes the anti-flag burning amendment, I'll burn the flag. I can't belive that Congress continues to waste time politically grandstanding on the flag issue, while it does nothing to end the invasion across our southern borders. If Congress feels compelled to amend the Constitution, how about a clause that prohibits government from taking private property for the benefit of private developers.
Since the Republic and the Constitution that the flag represents have been shredded, what does it matter if one burns a piece of cloth that is meaningless.
Instead of worrying about people burning a small piece of their personal property, everyone should be trying to stop Jorge Arbusta from dissolving the remains of the nation into the North American Community.
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