Posted on 06/22/2006 9:34:21 AM PDT by IrishMike
If anyone needs further proof - not that anyone does these days - that the Republican leadership in Congress is both desperate and clueless, it's the election-year revival of that mother of all non-issues: flag desecration.
The U.S. House passed this tread-worn measure last year, and the Senate Judiciary Committee approved it last week. Even though Congress has no shortage of real issues, ranging from the war in Iraq to global warming, clamoring for its attention, the full Senate will begin debate next week on a proposed constitutional amendment to solve a problem that doesn't exist.
As if that weren't dismaying enough, here's worse news: Even though the proposal has repeatedly been defeated in the past, supporters are within just a vote or two of passing this great flapping albatross of an amendment. If that happens, it would go to the states for ratification, and it's unnerving to remember that legislatures in all 50 have adopted resolutions in support.
So, once more we rise wearily to point out the obvious - a constitutional amendment allowing Congress to criminally punish the "physical desecration" of the American flag isn't needed because no one is out there burning flags. Even if they were, the First Amendment states with unmistakable clarity that Congress shall "make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech." That applies to everything from Ku Klux Klan marchers to federal lawmakers who wear stars-and-stripes neckties.
(Excerpt) Read more at registerguard.com ...
Let me interject into this vitriolic thread. Everytime I see someone burning the American flag on TV or wherever, it really pi**es me off. I mean really. It clearly defines the enemy to me.
I think this turkey is being brought up to diffuse the impact of the federal marraige amendment by those opposed to the federal marriage amendment.
It is a smokescreen.
...I think this turkey is being brought up to diffuse the impact of the federal marraige amendment by those opposed to the federal marriage amendment.
It is a smokescreen.....
THERE IS A LOT OF MERIT TO THAT.
The existence of a social contract has nothing to do with communal ownership of each and every US flag. You've gone off the deep end.
The refusal of the Republicans to even consider conference hurts them far more than it does the Democrats who will tell the voters that they were willing to negotiate. Since the polls showed that most Americans actually liked both plans, this will not help the Republicans.
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