Posted on 06/13/2006 11:44:31 AM PDT by pissant
I'm not sure there's any "of course" about it.
It was part of previous amendment attempts.
We are not as smart as the Founding Fathers, nor do we have a clue what they did. Any change we make ends up being used for something else, and anything mentioned in the Constitution or an Amendment becomes automatically a Federal matter and subject to Federal jurisdiction, and that includes things only implied such as the modern American corporation. Which Amendment created the modern American corporation and the necessity of GATT and NAFTA? The only amendments that make sense are those that provide suffrage for citizens.
The first 10 were pretty good, dont you think?
How about 13 and 22 and 15 and 25 and especially 21.
Have fun. You'll be rich.
ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11
Seriously, although I love Old Glory, and am maddened when I see anyone mistreat this symbol of our nation (even through ignorance or stupidity) I am always wary of this amendment when it perennially comes up for a vote. My objections revolve around two main ideas:
1. For those who love our land and our flag, this is an offense that will make anyone who does it anathema to us, and that is a vast majority of Americans. It is analogous to spitting on the sidewalk. It is inappropriate and crude, but shouldn't be illegal (especially at the level of amending our founding document).
2. With vastness of the Federal Code and laws that regulate our lives in every conceivable way, more laws are not what we need. What we need is a return to the will to national greatness (and our recognition thereof) that will make anyone who tramples on our national symbols the outcast that they deserve to be.
The Second is the one that counted and that secured approval for the new Federal Constitution. The rest is window dressing, excepting those that grant full citizenship to citizens, such as the much abused Fourteenth.
It is analogous to crapping on a soldiers grave or protesting their funerals, not spitting onthe sidewalk.
I'm all for repealing 80% of the stinking laws on the federal docket as well as the states. But the way to overturn a ridiculous court decision, REQUIRING that states in this republic allow flag burning is through an amendment. It is the SCOTUS that lead us to this point. Free speech my arse. If you had done so in early America, you would have been tarred and feathered.
Throughout our history and into the foreseeable future, those very few who desecrate our flag only reveal themselves for what they are. They're ignorant. They are worthy of our ridicule as much as they are worthy of our scorn.
If you want to see more flags desecrated in a single week than you've seen in your lifetime, go ahead and get your ban passed. Such a restriction on our First Amendment rights would be the latest and most significant in a series of steps toward our nation becoming everything our Founding Fathers did NOT want. In view of McCain-Feingold and some recent SCOTUS rulings (e.g. eminent domain), it's no wonder there's renewed talk of the flag protection amendment!
If the time should ever come when our nation is sufficiently mired in tyranny -- again, look where we're headed if you need to be reminded why the Founding Fathers did NOT protect the flag (those inalienable rights are more sacred than this or any nation) -- I reserve the right to burn MY flag as a symbol of my hatred of tyrannical nations.
You do whatever you want with your own flag. Protect it with your life if you wish. That's your right every bit as much as it is my right to do with my property as I wish.
If and when I am ever driven to the point of burning my flag, it will only happen in perilous times after a great amount of thought. And, given how perilous things will have to be in order for the time to have come, burning the flag will surely express the sum total of those thoughts more clearly and succinctly than words ever could. By that point, words will be cheap.
Sure, today -- but, not as much as yesterday -- anyone who burns a U.S. flag is likely just an emotional ignoramus. But, if the time comes when things are bad enough, instead of hippies, we might find it's the patriots who are doing it, just like any who burned the Union Jack in the mid-1770s.
People shouldn't kid themselves into believing there could never be a time when flag burning isn't just for ignorant hippies. (That's the same sort of naivete that leads people to believe we don't need a Second Amendment.) Look around. Read the news of where Congress—a Republican Congress no less—and the courts are taking us. Something tells me we "ain't seen nothin' yet". Surely you'll have to agree the idea of tyrannical gov't is increasingly less far-fetched.
The Founding Fathers didn't adopt the Bill of Rights because of the government they'd founded. They adopted the Bill of Rights because of what that government could become under the wrong circumstances. [Insert any number of your favorite Founding Fathers quotes here.]
When it comes to chipping away at the Bill of Rights, the liberals are doing plenty. It's frustrating and ultimately sad to see so many so-called "conservatives" taking up the liberals' pickaxes to do their dirty work on this particular issue -- as if doing so makes the "conservative" flag-wavers more patriotic than the liberals? Hah! (Superficially, at best.)
including GOP Whip Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
Mitch is going Left to grab support of RINO's for the leadership post. I've lost any respect for him, and wuld rather have Kyl or Sessions take it.
Look, if this really passes, I'll be shocked...but pleasantly so.
Oh, and for anyone that dislikes it, tagging on an amendment to the Constitution is NOT an easy process, so it can't be dismissed as a passing political fad. And it's a constitutional right. We've never had an absolute 100% majority in favor of anything, even the Founders weren't in 100% Majority about everything. You are Free to dislike the Amendment process, but Americans are free to make use of it when enough people agree one is needed.
Pass a giant entitlement, repeal the first amendment, leave the borders open, and then wave the flag. What a bunch of crap.
The 2nd protects the rest of the amendments. I agree. Does not render the others useless.
Well we certainly whould emulate Greece.
Just like abortion, the SCOTUS decided in their infinite ignorance what states could or could not do with flag laws.
It needs to be overturned. The courts can call burning flags free speech til the cows come home. It isn't speech and they encroached on states rights.
So was the court correct in ruling that states or cities could not ban flag burning? How about abortion? How about the kelo case?
The rest of the Ten address specific limited concerns of the times. New York and Virginia were inclined to reject the new Federal Constitution and probably would have shot it down without the Second Amendment being included. Patrick Henry rose again to speak on the lack of need for the new Constitution when they already had a Constitution; even though he was getting on in years he was not gaining in mellowness.
Exactly my point.
Bring back the tar and feathers, but leave the Constitution alone.
They can dislike the amendment process all they want. Means they dislike the constitution itself.
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