As a compromise, I'll turn my bed down to half sheets.
Posted on 09/07/2009 1:16:36 PM PDT by Graybeard58
Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., is the longest serving senator in U.S. history. No senator has served in more leadership positions; as president pro tempore, he is third in the line of succession. But he will be 92 in November and is in failing health. No man lives forever, so the question arises: When Sen. Byrd dies, should Connecticut lower its U.S. flags to honor his memory?
The U.S. Flag Code permits half-staff honors "upon the death of principal figures" in the U.S. government. Sen. Byrd has been a prominent senator, but he is only 1 of 100 in his chamber and 1 of 535 in Congress. To justify half-staff honors for him upon his death would require extending it to every senator, which is not "in accordance with recognized customs or practices" as the code demands; witness, to name a few, Sens. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina in 2003, Eugene McCarthy in 2005, and Claiborne Pell and Jesse Helms in 2008. Reasonable people would defer to the code, which historically has been interpreted as leaving the decision on U.S. senators to the governors of the states that elected them.
This discussion is relevant because of the orders by President Obama and Gov. M. Jodi Rell to fly flags at half staff over the weekend for the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. By almost every measure, Sen. Kennedy was no Bob Byrd, but he got the principal-figure treatment largely because of the Kennedy mystique. In other words, because he was a celebrity senator, and at times a notorious one (Chappaquiddick, "the waitress sandwich," William Kennedy Smith rape trial, etc.)
Sen. Kennedy's half-staff honor arguably met the spirit of the broadest possible interpretation of the code, but it was undeserved, and we find it disgraceful. Selfless men and women who exhibit more heroism and character before breakfast than Sen. Kennedy ever did are dying on foreign battlefields to preserve the liberties we all take for granted. They pay the ultimate price for freedom, but get a minuscule fraction of the recognition that Ted Kennedy got simply because he was a Kennedy and a senator.
In the 1970s, people fretted about Richard Nixon's "imperial presidency." But today, a greater threat to freedom is unfolding in Washington with the ascension of the regal Congress. Members set themselves above the laws they write for soiled masses, hold themselves to darkly comical ethics rules, routinely overreach their constitutional authority, disrespect their constituents, expect kowtowing from people trying to buy their influence and demand the royal treatment around the clock throughout their service, in retirement and now even after death. Clearly, they've become too big for their boots and need to be taken down several notches before Americans find themselves fully under the heels of those boots.
Ping to a Republican-American Editorial.
If you want on or off this list, let me know.
As a compromise, I'll turn my bed down to half sheets.
Here Here.
If I had a flag pole, I’d rather not fly a flag than fly one a half staff for _______________ Kennedy.
/johnny
As with Kiner's induction, I have absolutely no say over whether Robert Byrd gets the modified or full-blown lowered flag treatment. These gestures are both honors and symbols, and always subject to grumbling.
But I do find funny a Connecticut paper's premature and unseemly concern about what to do flag-wise when Byrd dies. Doesn't Connecticut have anything better to worry about?
I can’t imagine Byrd dying until the last two or three buildings in WVA are renamed for him. And I think there are still some roads that aren’t called Byrd St, Byrd Ave or the like. And Morgantown has yet to become Byrdville. Nope. Bobby will definitely stick it out until the entire state and everything in it bears his name. Not that he’s ARROGANT or SELF-ABSORBED, mind you.
Uh....no mention of his exalted position in the KKK, I see. Just delivering taxpayer-funded pork to WVA and naming monuments to honor himself should not qualify him for any honor.
Sen. Byrd doesn’t climb on the Kennedy/McCain amnesty bandwagon....he’ll never get the democrat worship that teddy got.
Ted Kennedy pushed SEVEN amnesties into law. None was followed by a reduction in illegal immigration.
1. In 1986, Ted Kennedy’s blanket amnesty for 2.7 million illegal aliens promised a lot more enforcement but did not set any requirements for actual reductions in illegal immigration.
2. In 1994, Ted Kennedy’s Section 245(i) Amnesty gave legal residence and jobs to 578,000 illegal aliens. It was a temporary rolling amnesty primarily for extended family members of immigrants who instead of waiting in line, come on to the country illegally.
3. In 1997, Ted Kennedy’s extension of the Section 245(i) rolling amnesty was followed by an increasing flow of illegal immigration.
4. In 1997, Ted Kennedy also won an amnesty for close to one million illegal aliens from Central America. Illegal immigration sped up some more.
5. In 1998, Ted Kennedy won an amnesty for 125,000 illegal aliens from Haiti.
6. In 2000, Ted Kennedy got the so-called Late Amnesty, legalizing another 400,000 illegal aliens who claimed that they missed out on Kennedy’s 1986 amnesty.
7. In 2000, Ted Kennedy also won the LIFE Act Amnesty for an estimated 900,000 illegal aliens. It was another reinstatement of the rolling Section 245(i) amnesty...an estimated 900,000 illegal aliens. Illegal immigration accelerated.
http://towncriernews.blogspot.com/2009/08/rip-sen-ted-kennedy-1932-2009.html
Thank God for common sense, plain speaking, and The Waterbury Republican!
Thank God for common sense, plain speaking, and The Republican Waterbury! (I got that backwards, sorry.)
Thank God for common sense, plain speaking, and The Republican Waterbury! (I got that backwards, sorry.)
Since most of the state’s flagpoles are named for him it doesn’t seem like an unreasonable request.
Thanks for the ping Graybeard.
Very, very satisfying. Thanks for the post.
Excellent post. Thank you.
I guess they'll do it for anyone, including avowed socialists.
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