[Prime Choice]

One question: is it legal in Tennessee to burn a flag if one does it per National Flag Foundation Recommended Ceremonies?

If one may burn the flag in reverence, but not do so in defiance, then it is not the act that is outlawed, but the attitude.

And that, my friends, runs directly counter to the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America.

[Fiddlstix]

Click the Pic

[blackie]

Hang 'em High ~ Bump!

[SolidSupplySide]

Staley, 18, is accused of taking the flag from a residence and setting it on fire.

Charge him with arson. I doubt the owner of the flag wanted it burned.

[jtminton]

Staley, 18,

While I guess he technically IS a teen still, I bet the headline would have been different if he burned a koran. They would have probably called him a "man".

[green iguana]

"This is where the drinking came in. And he's not very good at it," the father said.

Kid drank and got drunk. How would you have him improve upon that, dear old dad?

[FormerLib]

...is accused of taking the flag from a residence and setting it on fire.

Sounds like theft and arson to me.

...his Aug. 2 trial on charges of desecrating a venerated object, underage drinking, littering, evading arrest, burning personal property and theft.

Let him skate on the "flag burning" and give him the max on the underage drinking, littering, evading arrest, burning personal property and theft. Sounds reasonable to me!

[boxerblues]

Bottom line is, the kid got drunk," said Lisa Lee, his mother. "He's never been in trouble before."

He's 18, drops out of school, is an underage drinker, burns the flag...but hes not a troublemaker just plain stupid

[Realism]

Vandalism by a drunken teenager, not exactly out of the ordinary. Get him for underage drinking, vandalism, and make him replace the flag, it doesn't require a team of lawyers.

[gridlock]

The teenager was released from jail Thursday on his own recognizance while he awaits his Aug. 2 trial on charges of desecrating a venerated object, underage drinking, littering, evading arrest, burning personal property and theft.

Desecrating a venerated object? What are we placing our flag next to?

Throw the book at him for all the other charges, but the flag burning should be legal.

[Protagoras]

"There is all the difference in the world between defending the right to desecrate the flag and defending flag desecration itself. It is the the difference between a free society and an unfree society."


Roger Pilon - THE CATO INSTITUTE

Director of constitutional studies

In testimony to a congressional committee

May 23, 1999

[Rodney King]

"This is where the drinking came in. And he's not very good at it,"

Sounds like he's pretty good at it to me.

[eyedigress]

Exact story from The Daily Times.....


Maryville police arrested a man Monday on charges related to the theft of a U.S. flag from a Clark Street resident and then burning it in her yard.

Andrew Elisha Staley, 18, Chilhowee View Road, was charged with theft of property under $500, setting fire to personal property, unlawful consumption, criminal littering and evading arrest at 12:25 a.m. Monday. The Blount County Jail blotter also shows a charge for desecration of venerated objects.

Police found Staley in the front yard of a Clark Street residence Monday ``standing over an American flag that was on fire, laughing.''

Staley started running at the sight of police and would not stop when ordered, according to Maryville Police Officer Kyle Mitchell.

He told police he had taken the flag from a memorial set up by Clark Street resident Theresa Lindsay, 62, earlier Sunday.

Staley told officers he'd been drinking. There were beer cans ``all over the property and in the street,'' according to police.

Staley was held in lieu of $7,000 in bonds pending a 9 a.m. hearing July 11 in Blount County General Sessions Court.

[billbears]

Staley, 18, is accused of taking the flag from a residence and setting it on fire. His father said the teenager "has no reason for anger against the United States" and could easily have ignited a garbage can instead of a flag.

I could care less about what he did with the flag. I believe the operative word (very small one) is in the statement above. He took and burned someone else's private property, not his own. Charge him. If he burned his own, that's his business.

[SunnySide]

"Staley, 18, is accused of taking the flag from a residence and setting it on fire"

The crime is doofus Staley stole something which did not belong to him, from some ones property and destroyed some one elses property. That was not his right to do so.

[calex59]

"He was brought up in church, and he knows right from wrong," Doc Staley said.

This statement is contradictory to his actions, I.E.: Getting drunk, burning the flag.

Funny how they are always good boys and they just made the one mistake(the one they got caught at).

[familyop]

"Tenn. teen jailed for burning U.S. flag . . . on charges of desecrating a venerated object"

...good!

[Malesherbes]

"He's never been in trouble before." Now where have I heard that? Oh yes, I remember, that was said by the mother of the kid who blew himself up on the London bus.

[rogue yam]

"...he awaits his Aug. 2 trial on charges of desecrating a venerated object...

I'm going to swim against the tide a bit on this one. Do we FReepers really support state laws against "desecrating a venerated object"? Venerated by whom? Me, I'm still working out plans for a 24/7 webcast/website called www.korandesecration.com and I don't want any guff from the Tennesseeans over it.

[LibKill]

A little private a$$-kicking would have taught him better manners and saved the taxpayers the annoyance and expense.

I have followed that flag halfway around the world and back again. Those who trifle with it had better not do it where I can see it.