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.
This is one issue (perhaps the only one) on which Rep. King and I disagree.
“Our Founding Fathers would have never imagined the need for an amendment to the Constitution like this,” said King.
They didn't want it. All they cared to say about it is already covered in Amendment I. Flag-burning is political speech. They probably never dreamed the people would turn into such overt nationalists as to want such a ban.
Lesser nations founded on bad principles need to protect their symbols, lest they be desecrated every hour of every day by the lowly serfs they call citizens. Our nation needs no such ban. Our nation is strong enough and good enough to weather any assault on its symbols. Throughout our history and into the foreseeable future, those 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. But, if the time should ever come when our nation is sufficiently mired in tyranny, I reserve the right to burn my flag as a symbol of my hatred of tyrannical nations. I'll likely have to wait for the tears to dry, first.
As for his point that "almost eighty percent of Americans support a Constitutional amendment banning desecration of the American flag," I'd guess the Nazi party and everything it stood for was wildly popular in 1930s Germany, too. That didn't make it right.
I agree with you 100%.
Actually you just have to look at it from a practicality issue;
Any ban on flag burning will INCREASE the number burned.
Everyone that has seen an American flag burned in person in this country, raise your hand....
I'm guessing it's nobody. It's a solution in search of a problem. And the publicity of being among the first arrested for doing this under a constitutional amendment will be so tempting you'll see a massive explosion of people doing it.
And don't kid yourself there will be severe penalties; if a penalty is imposed that makes it worse to do this than beat your wife or drive drunk, etc., the negative publicity would be too great.
A flag-burning ban would be wrong. Free speech does and should allow for it. To ban flag-burning is to slap the faces of all those who fought for our great nation and our flag.
What saddens me is that even when I point out the free speach implications to people they support this just like they supported Campaign Finance Reform.
The problem is that most people in the country are incapable of containing within their brains any concept of even the slightest complexity or subtlety.
They simply interpret being for this as being patriotic and if you oppose the amendment you support flag burning.
IF they ban flag burning, I will personally burn a flag on television news.
Agreed. "Campaign Finance Reform" flies directly in the face of the First Amendment. Shame on the congress for passing it, the president for signing it, and the supreme court for upholiding it.
Excellent analysis.
This is a bad idea which hopefully, will never be enacted.
I don't believe such an amendment is appropriate either. Even though those white stars represent the people of every state, the blue represents the Heaven's from which God looks down upon us and blesses this nation every day, the white represents the purity of intention when America acts upon it's greatest ideals and red represents the blood of those who sacrificed their lives so that we can enjoy our freedoms so many take for granted.
upholding
spell check is my friend, I know . . .
Some of those "stupid Republicans" will fight for the chance to douse you with gasoline, just to show us what great patriots and statesmen they are (nevermind that protected political speech nonsense </sarcasm>).
More circuses for the serfs.
How about something useful like a constitutional amendment that demands that judges follow the constitution when issuing decrees, not international law, nor penumbras, nor flying cow farts.
Another argument against a constitutional flag burning ban is enforcement. Wouldn't you agree that it's kind of a waste of money and time for the legal system to be occupied with countless acts of what is essentially petty vandalism (when I say petty i'm only referring to the basic material of the flag, and not of course the symbolism and history it represents).
I'm sure he's right. They never imagined that anyone would think that people shouldn't have the right to do what they wanted to with their property.
Enforced reverence for national symbols is the mark of a tolitarian government, not a democratic republic.
This amendment would put us on a par with Muslims and their precious koran. We don't quash dissent in America because it keeps dissent from building to explosive proportion.
Exactly!
I wonder where all our resident nationalist flag-wavers are hiding today...
I have. In fact, I've had a hand in burning a few. Usually at the closing campfire of one of my Boy Scout Troop's campouts or summer camp session. Of course, everyone is usually standing there in silence and saluting, but we're still burning the flag.
An open admission you're trolling?
Ah,
Of course, that brings up another issue; legally defining "descration"...
Every court in the country would be tied up trying to define it. Is it defined by whether you're saluting when you burn the flag? What about flag-clothing? An American Flag shirt is ok, but what if it's across the bottom of jeans?
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