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 ...
Scares me even more. Heck, I'd rather lose the Senate any day. But you make very valid points. I hope you are right. Take care.
You are guilty having a very disrespectful attitude.
By whom? You??
LOL!
I thought it concerned some yob who set the flag on fire outside the Republican Convention in Texas? In any case, I'm with Justice Scalia on this one: there is no flag-burning exception to the First Amendment.
Narrow interpretation of what things? What are you talking about? I bought my flag a few years ago and fly it on Flag Day and other occasions. I can do whatever I want with it.
You have no property rights in the flag flying at my house, and you couldn't articulate a claim to such rights if someone gave you cue cards with the points arranged in teh proper order.
This idea that he presents about property rights is stretching it beyond belief.
As I stated above, I believe that burning a flag could be a celebration of the very freedoms we hold dear in this country - we have the right to burn our own flag in dissent. While I don't like to see it, I believe to my core that the right to do so is a great, great thing about our nation.
I couldn't agree with you more!
Lugsoul, you are on your side of the line. I am on the other. Frankly, your side can take a hike and go back to the totalitarian sandpits where you belong.
How so ? Like I said, I would never touch your flag. Because it's your property. And I respect everyone's property rights. And I respect you enough to not call you a punk, like you called lugsol.
Now, get off my Free Republic screen ! :-)
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There's a button on the front of your Crt. Press it. I will shortly disappear.
RAGGED OLD FLAG
I walked through a county courthouse square,
On a park bench an old man was sitting there.
I said, "Your old courthouse is kinda run down."
He said, "Naw, it'll do for our little town."
I said, "Your flagpole has leaned a little bit,
And that's a Ragged Old Flag you got hanging on it.
He said, "Have a seat", and I sat down.
"Is this the first time you've been to our little town?"
I said, "I think it is." He said, "I don't like to brag,
But we're kinda proud of that Ragged Old Flag."
"You see, we got a little hole in that flag there
When Washington took it across the Delaware.
And it got powder-burned the night Francis Scott Key
Sat watching it writing _Oh Say Can You See_.
And it got a bad rip in New Orleans
With Packingham and Jackson tuggin' at its seams."
"And it almost fell at the Alamo
Beside the Texas flag, but she waved on through.
She got cut with a sword at Chancellorsville
And she got cut again at Shiloh Hill.
There was Robert E. Lee, Beauregard, and Bragg,
And the south wind blew hard on that Ragged Old Flag."
"On Flanders Field in World War I
She got a big hole from a Bertha gun.
She turned blood red in World War II
She hung limp and low by the time it was through.
She was in Korea and Vietnam.
She went where she was sent by her Uncle Sam."
"She waved from our ships upon the briny foam,
And now they've about quit waving her back here at home.
In her own good land she's been abused --
She's been burned, dishonored, denied and refused."
"And the government for which she stands
Is scandalized throughout the land.
And she's getting threadbare and wearing thin,
But she's in good shape for the shape she's in.
'Cause she's been through the fire before
And I believe she can take a whole lot more."
"So we raise her up every morning,
Take her down every night.
We don't let her touch the ground
And we fold her up right.
On second thought I DO like to brag,
'Cause I'm mighty proud of that Ragged Old Flag."
Written by Johnny Cash
(good poem for a flag thread)
This sounds like the gay marraige debate "oh no, they should be doing more important things" "they are wasting all this time" when it took, what one day?
The RP should be focusing on energy. Getting refineries on line, drilling off the coasts, nuclear power...not on a flag burning amendment.
As for energy, it takes 60 votes to accomplish anything. They don't have it. Chafee and DeWine are environmentalist whackos and the GOP probably doesn't want to expose them right now, since they are running for re-election.
This is the argument the East German Communists used to prevent their people from crossing the Berlin Wall. They said the rest of the people had joint property rights in the education of the East German people who wanted to leave and they were therefore too valuable to let go to the West.
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But wouldn't it be hilarious to see one of them accidentally set himself on fire when he tries to burn the flag?There's a great picture of just such a thing somewhere...
I am advocating freedom. You are advocating collectivist government control.
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