Posted on 06/29/2005 5:59:26 AM PDT by fight_truth_decay
But go ahead and try to burn a Rainbow Flag, you'll get charged with a hate crime.
I have buried my comrades with that flag over their caskets. You try to burn it, I will try to stop you.
A good link with almost every pro/con argument out there for this issue:
http://www.debatabase.org/details.asp?topicID=175
I don't see that term "Murican" used by anyone who is not a liberal. Libs use it to mock the sensibly conservative average American and depict him as an illiterate redneck.
Good point made about conservatives who oppose the flag-burning ban. We don't take the opportunity to run out and burn a flag. Enough of them burned in battles where Americans died defending liberty.
The real question is, what will the judges decide. Since we've evidently adopted the judicial form of government, the actions of the Congress can only be taken as advisory.
The lamestream media again illustrates its rank hypocrisy. They always claim to defend the first amendment....when it suits them. They are the biggest cheerleaders for campaign finance reform that would limit a citizens freedom of speech by limiting donations. WHY? because the media would get more power and influence.
"How about burning one USA today?"...
I was thinking the same thing myself.
That is an excellent argument. I have never heard it before. Thank you very much!
And the flag should not be accompanied by another flag below it on the same pole. I hate to see two flags, IE; US, then state flag or corporate flag on the staff.
Former Chairman, and owner of Gannett, Al Neuharth held a ra-ra party for Daschle and McGovern here last year, so I guess it's a systemic thing.
Exactly! Anyone can burn a flag or a bible, takes no guts because there will be no consequences. I DARE any of these people to do anything at all to a koran. They won't because deep down inside they are totally gutless.
It's not about freedom or speech. It's about hating America and Christianity.
Durbin insinuated that the behavior of our servicemen and their superiors (especially the president) was beneath contempt. On the basis of a report that an inmate at Gitmo, who had probably gained weight in captivity,had been deliberately made uncomfortable.I wish someone had flagged Durbin on that Nazi thing.
Flagging Durbin "on that Nazi thing" would have done no good; Durbin would not have understood what was being said. He still hasn't admitted that he was wrong to insinuate that George Bush and his subordinates are as abusive as Pol Pot and his minions were.Democrats can't help thinking,
At bottom Democrats just don't accept that any evil could be worse than their being out of power.
- "I dislike Bush."
- "Bush doesn't like Pol Pot."
- "Therefore I should compare Bush to Pol Pot."
She's deeply offended that veterans might be offended by the flag being trampled and burned and by a United States senator accusing veterans of being Nazi holocaust thugs.
No one should be offended by these things and she's so offended by their being offended she's going to burn a flag, by golly.
Because she has nothing better to do.
Looks innocuous enough, but is it?
Congress shall have the power to prohibit...
Well, how can you prohibit desecration of the flag if you don't know if somebody is doing so or whom that person is? In order to have the power to prohibit, Congress must have the power pass laws to enforce this prohibition. So Congress has to have the power to put people into private meetings, and determine who is present, and monitor their activities, just in case any desecration of the flag might take place. Maybe they could pass a law where every flag could have a unique ID number and be registered, kind of like guns, so if a flag was desecrated the police could trace it back to the owner.
Will Congress have the power to prohibit flag desecration by folks like those "students" in Iran who used the US Embassy flag to take out the garbage in 1978? Are they permitted to use the power of the US military to enforce their prohibition?
Perhaps people are desecrating flags in the privacy of their own homes. Congress will have the power to prohibit this, too. Along with that power comes the power to determine what is going on in these homes, because the power to prohibit is meaningless without the means to enforce the prohibition.
If the penalty for flag desecration is a year in jail and people are still doing it, will Congress have the power to increase the penalty to ten years in order to make sure it never happens? What is the upper limit? Could the United States have the death penalty for burning a flag? Under this Amendment, that could happen.
Is there any other thing that Congress his specifically granted the right to prohibit in the Constitution? This would open a Pandora's Box, IMHO, with Congress taking all necessary powers, when the mood strikes them, to enforce this prohibition. Since it is written unambigously into the Constitution, I don't know how any court could stop use a Constitutional argument to stop them. And since whatever power they take could be used for nefarious ends, it seems we are just borrowing trouble.
And then there is the matter of what constitutes physical desecration. The amendment does not say. Suppose in ten years your Congresscritter takes it into her pretty little head that flags painted on hardhats constitutes desecration because the hats get dented and dirty and look generally disreputable. Will Congress have the power to have half the construction workers in the country repainting their hardhats by sundown? Why not? Congress has the power to prohibit!
Of course, the most effective way to prevent desecration of the flag is to prohibit possession of flags altogether. If Congress has the power to prohibit possession of drugs, which are mentioned nowhere in the Constitution, why not flags, over which they have been given express authority by Amendment?
Of course, maybe we should all just trust those Congresscitters not to do anything bad. Yeah, that'll work...
I agree with that. As any biker will tell you, If you disrespect my "colors" you are challenging me to battle.
I would propose the following conditions. Anyone who has defended the flag by being in the military may burn the flag without a problem. Anyone who has not served in the military or otherwise defended the flag may not burn it.
The operative word in the Flag Code is "should"
The operative words in the proposed amendment are "Congress shall have the power".
Big difference, there.
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