Posted on 06/08/2005 11:26:52 AM PDT by newgeezer
Washington, D.C. — Leading up to Memorial Day, with the support of Iowa Congressman Steve King, the House Judiciary Committee passed a Constitutional amendment that would allow Congress to make it a crime to burn the American flag.
Although almost eighty percent of Americans support a Constitutional amendment banning desecration of the American flag, in 1989 and 1990 the Supreme Court ruled that laws passed by Congress violated the First Amendment. Passing a constitutional amendment is the only way to protect the American flag from acts of desecration.
“Our Founding Fathers would have never imagined the need for an amendment to the Constitution like this,” said King. “They fought so hard to be able to display the American flag, and they did so proudly. This Memorial Day weekend, we must remember all of those who fought for our country and this flag. It’s not just patriotic to want to protect this flag, but our duty as Americans.”
“This flag has led the way into battle, been planted on the moon and draped the coffins of Americans who have sacrificed their lives for our county. It was raised at Iwo Jima and in the debris at Ground Zero. It is the symbol of freedom to everyone in the world,” added King.
H.J. Res. 10, the Flag Protection Amendment, will need to be passed by two-thirds of the full House and Senate and be ratified by three-fourths of the states to become law. The amendment has been passed by the House with more than the two-thirds majority needed in the past five Congresses. In addition, all 50 state legislatures have petitioned Congress to approve a flag protection amendment and send it to them for ratification. The amendment has been considered in the Senate twice in the last five Congresses, and both times it failed to garner the two-thirds majority needed.
According to me, those 50 legislative bodies are made up of a bunch of cowards who value the prospect of re-election more than they value one of the most basic, fundamental principles on which this great nation was founded.
If they didn't support the amendment, an opportunistic, more-patriotic-than-thou opponent might be able to successfully use it against them during the next (primary or general) election season.
Sorry, man. The act of desecrating the symbol of America just doesn't rise to the level of 'the most basic, fundamental principles on which this great nation was founded'.
And it ain't speech.
It most certainly does, and it most certainly is.
However, I'm glad you showed up and carried the torch for those on your side of the issue.
Have a good evening.
Yeah, you too.
Re your Post No. 23. I agree with you completely. I always remember my husband, who came out of Castro's Cuba at the beginning of the revolution, telling me when he landed in Miami and saw the American Flag flying how secure and safe he felt. He went on to obtain American citizenship, never looked back and flies the American Flag every day. To him, Americans who burn the American Flag should be sent to Castro's Cuba and then maybe, just maybe, they might appreciate America.
I'm with you EternalVigilance.
The way this country treats its own flag is appalling. When I see it used for promotional purposes at car dealerships, or see t-shirts with the american flag, or that absolutely disgusting idea after September 11th to cash in on the patriotism by making American flag pillows or diapers and whatnot - when I see that, it makes me want to puke. Not even in socialistic Western Europe have I seen such hatred for one's own flag.
...And then there's the flag-burning communists. I see more than my share of self-loathing filth in college here in New York City.
And to the a--hole who compares EternalVigilance to the Nazis: You ought to be ashamed of yourself. You're using a tactic of the liberals and even of the communists by comparing him to the Nazis. Remember the Bush = Hitler ad? You're doing the same thing. What's next: Nazis hated communists, so anticommunist8 is a Nazi?
I'm afraid that FR is changing alot, and not for the better.
If you'd have told me even a year ago that I would be sitting here in a minority on a flag-burning thread, I'd not have believed it.
As I said upthread, this issue has not been at the top of my personal agenda. But now, I'm becoming convinced that the national debate over this issue...over the stars and stripes and what it stands for...will be cathartic for this nation, and vitally useful to those whose goal is to restore our free republic.
One last note before I retire for the evening:
A dear friend pointed out to me very passionately and succinctly a little while ago on the phone: A)Burning the flag is not 'speech', it is an act, and B)We have laws against burning leaves, for goodness sakes.
God bless.
"The way this country treats its own flag is appalling. When I see it used for promotional purposes at car dealerships, or see t-shirts with the american flag, or that absolutely disgusting idea after September 11th to cash in on the patriotism by making American flag pillows or diapers and whatnot - when I see that, it makes me want to puke. Not even in socialistic Western Europe have I seen such hatred for one's own flag."
The use of the American flag on pillows, clothing, etc. isn't hate, it's merchandising. The people who did this did so to make money, not to make a political statement. And the people who bought that stuff did so in an (what I consider to be misdirected) effort to express their regard for this country, not their lack of respect.
Such use of the flag is also forbidden by the U.S. flag code, but merchandisers pay scant attention to any law that has no penalties attached; God knows they pay little enough attention to those that do.
Interesting, too, that you consider the use of the American flag on T-shirts, pillows and diapers as expressing hatred. Sounds to me like you do consider abuse of the flag as speech, after all, if you think that by such a thing you are expressing hate for either the flag or the country it represents.
Anti, you probably wanted to send your comments "to the a--hole" so that he's sure to see your point.
Seems to me that not wanting to restrict unpopular political speech by essentially amending the First Amendment is entirely within conservative principles.
the stars and stripes and what it stands for ...
The debate here is whether banning flag burning puts the symbol of our republic ahead of the ideals of our republic that said symbol stands for. I believe that it does, and therefore is a violation of those principles. You may feel differently, but that's your right. Until, of course, someone decides to restrict your right to say so.
So I disagree with your point A, and I offer as evidence the emotional affect, and the clear communication of the feelings and opinions of the person burning the flag to those witnessing or hearing about same. It may not be a spoken word, but it's clearly communication.
As far as point B goes, much as I deplore such laws (as the local cops can tell you), people suffering from asthma and other respiratory illnesses do have problems when the whole neighborhood lights up piles of leaves. There's no such problem with American flags. Plus, I don't believe anyone's arguing that burning leaves is political speech.
If I were to grant you, for the sake of argument, that burning Old Glory was 'political speech' (even though I hate the notion...it's the exact same corruption of the language that is used to justify the most explicit forms of pornography), would you agree that it is a VILE form of political speech?
Come to think of it, if it IS speech, I'd have to say that it's the equivalent of fighting words.
If I was on a jury, I think I'd have a hard time voting to convict a man charged with beating the cr*p out some Leftist scumbag who was caught in the act of burning our flag.
I certainly don't agree with the sentiments behind the burning of a flag (at least in the context of political protest), but I wouldn't grant that they are fighting words. First, I've never heard of a fight breaking out over such an act, so it doesn't seem to apply. Secondly, I'm not real impressed with the concept of "fighting words" to begin with. If I was on a jury, I'd have no problem convicting a man charged with beating the crap out of some Leftist scumbag who was caught in the act of burning a flag. As far as I'm concerned, the proper response to free speech you don't like is to engage in free speech yourself. Smacking someone around on that pretext is what we have to teach 6-year olds not to do. Adults should be prosecuted for it.
Well, I guess different people react differently to the sight of the flag being disrespected.
Do you think everything wrong should be illegal?
And to the @$$hole, that doesn't understand how to read critically, (study harder, or ask for a tuition refund) I didn't compare EV to the Nazis. In fact about four posts later I agreed with his point.
What I did compare was his OVER THE TOP NATIONALIST statement to the same kind of propagandist tripe the Nazis used.
Ideals are what makes a people who they are, the worship of symbols in place of ideals, invariably leads down a dark path.
Much Like Christ dying on the Cross so that all might live, The Flag is what it is, partly because it is allowed to be burned.
No, why?
At the very least, I will fly mine upside-down to symbolize our nation's distress.
The last time I vowed to do so (also in this forum) was while the SCOTUS was deciding whether to allow Algore to re-"count" the FL votes until he could manufacture enough votes to win.
I thank God it didn't come to that.
The flag in the painting of the little girl is improperly touching the ground. That little girl should be imprisoned.
To suggest that a man is not truly free unless he can, with impunity, publicly urinate on, soil, and burn the symbol of American freedom is patent nonsense. It might just as well be argued that an employee is not truly free to pursue happiness unless he can, with impunity, insult, dishonor, and rail at his employer at work; or that an apostate parishioner is not fully free to practice religion unless can, with impunity, enter the sanctuary and shout the malediction of black mass as the priest is administering the host to the faithful.
Of course a man can do these things. What he cannot do, is do them with impunity, without consequence.
But with the flag, by SCOTUS fiat it is different. The "progressive" elites who have been busy dismantling the strong points of this nation for six decades have decreed that the flag cannot be truly honored unless it may be grossly dishonored. Employing that same illogic a militant feminist might say widespread genocide by abortion is holy and good because without it live childbirth has no value.
Far from making our flag a more robust and enduring symbol of freedom, the progressives' desecration-by-decree has devalued and marginalized it. Almost 60 years ago the Supreme Court knocked the first brick from the foundation when it decreed the commercial exploitation of the flag was constitutionally permissible. By 1989, its devaluation was almost complete and needed only one quick coup de grace, which was administered by a 5-4 decision striking down a Texas law banning the burning of the flag.
Justice Stevens, usually the most faithful supporter of the ACLU, wrote the stirring dissent in that case. This would not seem to make sense until one remembers that Justice Stevens was reared in an era when the flag was widely and deeply honored as a unifying symbol for all Americans, and that he fought for and under that flag in the Second World War alongside men who did not return, many of whom still sleep in foreign countries, but in cemeteries under US control, where the Stars and Stripes still waves majestically and pure in highest honor of their last full sacrifice.
If you want to experience the grave great value and power of the flag as earlier generations of Americans experienced it, go abroad, visit the American military cemeteries in Normandy, in Libya, in the Netherlands, and in the Philippines. It is far more difficult to sense the power on our own shores. Due to the influence and demands of ignoble and rude men, that spirit has fled its birthplace.
Nothing is made more pure or sacred by allowing rude men to destroy or stain it, and pronouncing that permisiveness "good."
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