Posted on 06/27/2006 3:21:49 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
Flag amendment apparently stalls in Senate
By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer 11 minutes ago
A constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration went to a vote in the Senate Tuesday, apparently heading for an outcome just short of the two-thirds needed to send it on to the states for ratification.
Republicans scheduled the vote exactly one week before Independence Day and a little more than four months before voters go to the polls to elect a new Congress.
Democrats put forth an alternate that also was getting a vote. Sponsored by their party's assistant leader in the Senate, Dick Durbin of Illinois, it included much of the proposed amendment's language and would make it against the law to damage an American flag on federal land if the intent was a breach of the peace or intimidation of other people. It also would prohibit unapproved demonstrations at military funerals.
The proposed constitutional amendment fell four votes short of the 67, or two-thirds majority needed, the last time the Senate voted on it, in 2000.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I'm glad I am not the only one who feels that way....
Are your sure about that? I thought the Durbin amendment was that if you get 10 people to piss on a flag, its then ok to burn it...
What would you call the prosecutable activity? I'm not being snide, I have been over the stuff in my own head. There doesn't seem to be a conclusion to it...or I'm not smart enough to figure it out on my own.
Thank God. We have better things to do.
I'm sick of people on *both* sides who think it's their right to not be offended.
Nope not the same. However I would be a little concerned you spent $10 on a Neil Diamond album...In that case you are stealing from Neil Diamond, you are infringing upon his right (and the right of the corporation that published the album) to make a profit. Your rights to do with your property or act as you see fit stops when you infringe upon the rights of another. Pride in a symbol is going to be a little hard to define as a right.
It would be the same however if you chose to use the Neil Diamond CD as target practice on the practice range.
Acts can be speech. Sit-ins, marches, hunger strikes, these are all acts that are also speech.
(Not that it should be prosecutable, just stating the differenec in quality in one act vs. the other...)
There are similarities. People like nmh -- and he/she is by no means alone -- feel a vested interest in the flag. A type of ownership. That ownership may not be legally enforced, but it's certainly a real thing.
>>Burning a flag is NOT speech. It is an ACT.
Fine, and a flag is somebody's property, not a national landmark or a controlled substance you need a license to purchase.
If a jerk wants to burn his own flag, he has a right. If he does it next door to me, my husband and his buddies will merrily beat the crap out of him.
If you make it illegal and have to call the cops, you give the fool MORE rights to abuse, like the right not to get his ass kicked for burning the flag.
The amendment prohibits desecration -- which can be done in many different ways.
It does not explicity prohibit burning of the flag. The flag would still be burnt in an honorable fashion such as when VFW and American Legion posts dispose of unserviceable flags.
It's amazing how some threads seem to strike an emotional cord and cause a poster to virtually self-destruct. The danger of the Internet is that it can remain for years; the advantage is that the culprit is at least anonymous.
You got to be F@#king kidding, right. That moron actually said that?
Few posters self-destruct. Some are just limited by their ability to find the correct words that match their emotion. That's not a fatal flaw. Neither does it significantly undermine their position, since most folks know what they "mean."
As someone else mentioned, I suppose the issue of property rights probably comes into it.
Burning fabric which is one's own property should be nobody's business but the owner, but in this case we're talking about a symbol which represents a nation, and so burning that particular fabric with that particular configuration of color and pattern acquires political significance.
Is a flag then, as a symbol, the property of a national government by virtue of the particular colors and patterns on it and not the sole property of the owner?
I don't know - it's a strange thing, really.
But if it is the property of a national government, than that government has a duty to protect it's property - if it's the sole private property of a private individual... hmm, the act still acquires political significance and thus can be viewed as an act against the national interest...
It seems to me that there are contributing factors in this situation which are not sufficiently recognized and characterized to say one thing or another decisively>
I think it all comes down to the fact that, despite the fact that a flag is both a physical object which can be owned by a private individual and the fact that it is also a symbol representative of something beyond any one person's ownership and indeed is sort of a collectively owned thing is what makes this thing such a conundrum.
Something new needs to be added to the equation before we can find a conclusion to it, I'm afraid...
The irony being, IIRC, that the jerk who was charged with burning the flag, in the case that went to the Supreme Court, had stolen the flag off a nearby building. I guess the prosecutor wanted to showboat and never charged him with that.
Welcome to the logical gridlock I've encountered on the topic...
LOL!
Perhaps what needs to happen is a definitive definition of the flag as either personal property or national property. Then the issue would be straight forward.
But then, is that the divide between Socialism and Capitalism?
A whole new can of worms???
Arrrrgh!
LOL!
I'm off to work. Thanks for a mostly civil debate on a facinating issue...
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