# Desecrate THIS, fuckwads **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 28, 2006, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desecrate-this-fuckwads/362476 "2006-06-28T12:38:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desecrate-this-fuckwads/362476/41 "2006-06-28T16:57:01Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Not to say I’m taking a position on how this particular issue should be handled. But for cryin out loud – this idea of, “Oh, how dare they consider this when there are more important issues out there…” is nonsense. It isn’t nonsense at all. I don’t think anyone here is _literally_ advocating a unitasking government. But there has to be some sense of priority. To paraphrase Moby, worrying about flag burning right now is like worrying about your leaf-clogged gutters while your house is on fire. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desecrate-this-fuckwads/362476/42 "2006-06-28T17:03:54Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > But for cryin out loud – this idea of, “Oh, how dare they consider this when there are more important issues out there…” is nonsense. If the question is whether Real Issue A should be addressed before or after Real Issue B, you are correct. If the question is whether Real Issue A should be addressed before or after Circle Jerk Display For The Peanut Gallery B, not so much. This is a textbook example of the latter. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desecrate-this-fuckwads/362476/43 "2006-06-28T17:06:35Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > This would be the first crime in history which would not punish an _intentional_ act but only what you’re THINKING about during an intentional act. I’m not sure about that. Aren’t hate crimes defined, not by what you do, but why you do it? And of course, that makes criminalising hate crimes problematic too, but at least things like racism and homophobia are bad in themselves. Wanting to protest against the United States by attacking a symbol of it is not intrinsically wrong, and indeed is the sort of thing that those who wrote the Constitution intended to protect. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desecrate-this-fuckwads/362476/44 "2006-06-28T17:08:18Z")
I don’t even find the act of flag burning “outrageous” or “reprehensible” or “stupid”, let alone something that should be legislated against. If you’re using it as a tool to protest policies you’re against, it’s downright patriotic! ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desecrate-this-fuckwads/362476/45 "2006-06-28T17:09:20Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > No, it doesn’t. Well, now that you have him wriggling in the crushing grip of reason… ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desecrate-this-fuckwads/362476/46 "2006-06-28T17:09:35Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > The Supreme Court has already decided that flag burning is symbolic expression and protected free speech. From [Texas v. Johnson](http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/texasvjohnson.html) (1989): > > It’s not a “jump” at all, it’s a settled decision. Uhh, **Dio**? I may be misremembering, but I seem to recall past occasions upon which **Bricker** has stated his opinion that the Supreme Court decision that allowed the word “expression” to be interchangable with the word “speech” in the First Amendment was in itself an error, which he would support being reversed. If i’m corect in my recollections, I don’t think he is likely to be swayed by appeals to case law that specifically protects “expression” in any form that is not speech or printed matter. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desecrate-this-fuckwads/362476/47 "2006-06-28T17:16:19Z")
And just to reiterate my opinion from the [last time](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=322349) this ridiculous shit was debated: > [@](#): > > If you think the country is threatened by the “physical desacration of the flag,” then you’re a fucking idiot and the phrase “strangled in your crib” comes to mind. If you think the destruction of a single flag has any impact on the strength of the nation, then you’re a goddamn fucking pussy, running scared from an idiot with a flag and a Bic lighter. Grow the fuck up, you stupid motherfucking mindless jingoistic assholes. Get these fucking idiots on both sides of the aisles the hell out and replace them with people who have the courage to withstand a moron with a flag and a matchbook and the brains to stand up to the dumbfucks who equate the destruction of a flag with a danger to the country. Stands the test of time, if I do say so myself. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desecrate-this-fuckwads/362476/48 "2006-06-28T17:16:31Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > Aren’t hate crimes defined, not by what you do, but why you do it? The act in a hate crime would still be a crime even without the hate aspect. The hate aspect is an aggravating factor, not the defining one. Burning a flag to dispose of it _respectfully_ would of course still be protected, even required by etiquette as it has been for a long time. Burning it with desecratory motives would be a crime. But the burning itself is not a crime - the desecratory aspect would be the defining factor, not merely an aggravating one. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desecrate-this-fuckwads/362476/49 "2006-06-28T17:28:11Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > The act in a hate crime would still be a crime even without the hate aspect. The hate aspect is an aggravating factor, not the defining one. > > Burning a flag to dispose of it _respectfully_ would of course still be protected, even required by etiquette as it has been for a long time. Burning it with desecratory motives would be a crime. But the burning itself is not a crime - the desecratory aspect would be the defining factor, not merely an aggravating one. Precisely. (Also, treating a “hate crime” as an aggrivating factor does not require any “criminalization of thought” per se; it simply requires the well-established criminalization of public terroristic threat – attacks on someone for racial/religous/etc reasons inherently includes a threat against all others of that race/religion/whatever. No such separation from thought-crime is possible in the case of the proposed amendment.) ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desecrate-this-fuckwads/362476/50 "2006-06-28T17:54:46Z")
**Bricker** 1. Saying it is a _leap_ for it to be positioned under the heading of unconstitutionality is blatantly ignoring the fact that the supreme court has already declared it so. Saying that there might be new things that they might take into consideration that they wouldn’t have then, certainly, but that’s still different from saying that the argument is hard to make. 2. Regardless of how you may feel about the flag, a true patriot doesn’t worship his country, but rather cares about it enough to specifically **not** not worship it and rather look for all the ways it is imperfect, and then to try and improve those. Burning the flag is an important symbol of the nation and burning it is a powerful act that is there for someone who cares enough about the nation to employ to bring attention to some great issue. And really that’s the only time someone does burn the flag–misguided or not. To then go and throw that person in jail for it is punishing him for caring that much about his country. ---
**Author:** ![Plynck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Plynck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plynck)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desecrate-this-fuckwads/362476/51 "2006-06-28T17:55:15Z")
> [@Palikia](#): > > US Flag code Title 4\>Chapter 1\> Sec. 8(k) > > “The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed **in a dignified way** , preferably by burning" > [@Baldwin](#): > > If this thing ever actually passes, **that’s** the day I burn a flag. Rent some tails, wear white gloves, talk like Jeeves, and you’ll be fine. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desecrate-this-fuckwads/362476/52 "2006-06-28T18:27:04Z")
What I don’t get is why the flag in particular, and I wonder what happens afterward if the flag becomes sacrosanct. Will it be terribly sensible for me to live in a nation where I can go to jail for burning the flag, yet if I craft an effigy of Lady Liberty wearing a strap-on and assless chaps cornholing an impassioned Uncle Sam, himself decked out in crotchless panties and black satin merrywidow, that’s hunky-dory? Because, really, although the flag is an official symbol, and Uncle Sam is not, the principle of respect for country would make one wonder what the next sacred cow is likely to be. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desecrate-this-fuckwads/362476/53 "2006-06-28T18:31:10Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Great. So this is the way we should run the government. > > OK. Please identify the ONE issue that requires attention, and I expect to hear you immediately attack all other government effort on any other issues as misplaced, because, after all… > > Or maybe, even though they haven’t solved the most important problem, they can still spend time on other, less important issues as well. eh? > > Not to say I’m taking a position on how this particular issue should be handled. But for cryin out loud – this idea of, “Oh, how dare they consider this when there are more important issues out there…” is nonsense. Yes. Yes. Yes. It is called Setting Your Priorities. Let’s see. We have a war (or is it an occupation now) in Iraq. We have Al Queda regaining strength in Afghanistan. We have a dipllomatic disaster with Iran. We have North Korea building a nuclear weapon capability. We have plenty of scandals and corruption cases to investigate. We have NSA and SWIFT spying on us. Etc etc etc. There’s plenty of “important stuff” to keep everyone busy, but no, they go for the cheap ploitical pandering instead. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desecrate-this-fuckwads/362476/54 "2006-06-28T18:40:50Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > The act in a hate crime would still be a crime even without the hate aspect. The hate aspect is an aggravating factor, not the defining one. Actually, I’m not so sure about that reasoning, **ElvisL1ves**. If you have a vandal spray-painting swastikas on random buildings, it’s vandalism, and usually a misdemeanor, not a felony. If, however, the same vandal spray-paints a swastika on a synagogue it’s a hate crime, and a felony - because of the hate factor. Please note, this is someone just debating a point, not speaking up in favor a flag-burning amendment. I may be a conservative, but I think that’s idiocy of the first water. I’m just as annoyed that my junior senator went along with this idiocy enough to propose a ‘compromise’ solution - making flag desecretion a crime via legislation, not an ammendment. Talk about a stupid non-issue. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desecrate-this-fuckwads/362476/55 "2006-06-28T18:48:01Z")
**Bricker** - I have read the amendment (it’s pretty short, after all), and I did shorthand ‘congress shall have the power’ to ‘this makes flag-burning illegal,’ because I can’t see what other goal this amendment would have. I notice you’re answering very, very few of the many, many questions that have been addressed specifically to you in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desecrate-this-fuckwads/362476/56 "2006-06-28T18:48:48Z")
> [@OtakuLoki](#): > > Actually, I’m not so sure about that reasoning, **ElvisL1ves**. If you have a vandal spray-painting swastikas on random buildings, it’s vandalism, and usually a misdemeanor, not a felony. If, however, the same vandal spray-paints a swastika on a synagogue it’s a hate crime, and a felony - because of the hate factor. That’s why I called it an aggravating factor. Vandalism is a crime; vandalism with hate aggravates it into a felony. > [@](#): > > Talk about a stupid non-issue. Stupid it may be, but if it sways some significant number of voters, it’s an issue all the same. > [@loopydude](#): > > if I craft an effigy of Lady Liberty wearing a strap-on and assless chaps… that’s hunky-dory? Sure. She’s French. It’s practically required. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desecrate-this-fuckwads/362476/57 "2006-06-28T18:49:05Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > Because, really, although the flag is an official symbol, and Uncle Sam is not, the principle of respect for country would make one wonder what the next sacred cow is likely to be. Burning amendments. Or just the constitution itself. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desecrate-this-fuckwads/362476/58 "2006-06-28T19:44:58Z")
> [@Sage Rat](#): > > 1. Saying it is a _leap_ for it to be positioned under the heading of unconstitutionality is blatantly ignoring the fact that the supreme court has already declared it so. Saying that there might be new things that they might take into consideration that they wouldn’t have then, certainly, but that’s still different from saying that the argument is hard to make. True enough – I should have made clear I was referring to the Court’s decision itslef as the ‘leap.’ Having now made that leap, it’s certainly a settled issue, constitutionally. > [@](#): > > 1. Regardless of how you may feel about the flag, a true patriot doesn’t worship his country, but rather cares about it enough to specifically **not** not worship it and rather look for all the ways it is imperfect, and then to try and improve those. Burning the flag is an important symbol of the nation and burning it is a powerful act that is there for someone who cares enough about the nation to employ to bring attention to some great issue. And really that’s the only time someone does burn the flag–misguided or not. To then go and throw that person in jail for it is punishing him for caring that much about his country. That’s certainly a valid approach. It’s not self-evidently the only possible method of analysis any sane person could possibly bring to bear on the issue, is it? ---
**Author:** ![Mtgman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@Mtgman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mtgman)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desecrate-this-fuckwads/362476/59 "2006-06-28T19:50:36Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Not so. > > The idea that flag-burning is protected by the First Amendment is a jump. It’s not speech. It’s not press. A jump that was made in the case “Texas V. Johnson” [491 U.S. 397 (1989)](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=491&invol=397) > [@](#): > > Of the approximately 100 demonstrators, Johnson alone was charged with a crime. The only criminal offense with which he was charged was the desecration of a venerated object in violation of Tex. Penal Code Ann. 42.09(a)(3) (1989). 1 After a trial, he was convicted, sentenced to one year in prison, and fined $2,000. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth District of Texas at Dallas affirmed Johnson’s conviction, 706 S. W. 2d 120 (1986), but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed, 755 S. W. 2d 92 (1988), holding that the State could not, consistent with the First Amendment, punish Johnson for burning the flag in these circumstances. > > The Court of Criminal Appeals began by recognizing that Johnson’s conduct was symbolic speech protected by the First Amendment: “Given the context of an organized demonstration, speeches, slogans, and the distribution of literature, anyone who observed appellant’s act would have understood the message that appellant intended to convey. The act for which appellant was convicted was clearly `speech’ contemplated by the First Amendment.” Id., at 95. To justify Johnson’s conviction for engaging in symbolic speech, the State asserted two interests: preserving the flag as a symbol of national unity and preventing breaches of the peace. The Court of Criminal Appeals held that neither interest supported his conviction. [491 U.S. 397, 401] > > Acknowledging that this Court had not yet decided whether the Government may criminally sanction flag desecration in order to preserve the flag’s symbolic value, the Texas court nevertheless concluded that our decision in West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943), suggested that furthering this interest by curtailing speech was impermissible. “Recognizing that the right to differ is the centerpiece of our First Amendment freedoms,” the court explained, “a government cannot mandate by fiat a feeling of unity in its citizens. Therefore, that very same government cannot carve out a symbol of unity and prescribe a set of approved messages to be associated with that symbol when it cannot mandate the status or feeling the symbol purports to represent.” 755 S. W. 2d, at 97. Noting that the State had not shown that the flag was in “grave and immediate danger,” Barnette, supra, at 639, of being stripped of its symbolic value, the Texas court also decided that the flag’s special status was not endangered by Johnson’s conduct. 755 S. W. 2d, at 97. > > As to the State’s goal of preventing breaches of the peace, the court concluded that the flag-desecration statute was not drawn narrowly enough to encompass only those flag burnings that were likely to result in a serious disturbance of the peace. And in fact, the court emphasized, the flag burning in this particular case did not threaten such a reaction. “`Serious offense' occurred," the court admitted, "but there was no breach of peace nor does the record reflect that the situation was potentially explosive. One cannot equate `serious offense’ with incitement to breach the peace.” Id., at 96. The court also stressed that another Texas statute, Tex. Penal Code Ann. 42.01 (1989), prohibited breaches of the peace. Citing Boos v. Barry, 485 U.S. 312 (1988), the court decided that 42.01 demonstrated Texas’ ability to prevent disturbances of the peace without punishing this flag desecration. 755 S. W. 2d, at 96. [491 U.S. 397, 402] > > Because it reversed Johnson’s conviction on the ground that 42.09 was unconstitutional as applied to him, the state court did not address Johnson’s argument that the statute was, on its face, unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. We granted certiorari, 488 U.S. 907 (1988), and now affirm. As a matter of currently settled law, flag burning, of the type normally done at protests, is protected speech. If we’re using our personal soapboxes to talk about “jumps” in what kinds of behaviors are protected by the first amendment, let me go ahead and say I find the “expressive association” version of “freedom of speech, or of the press” more of a “jump” than protecting flag burning. For those not familiar with the concept of “expressive association” it was the version of “freedom of speech” which was used to [determine that the Boy Scouts of America could exclude homosexuals](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=99-699#section1). Enjoy, Steven ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2006, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desecrate-this-fuckwads/362476/60 "2006-06-28T19:55:21Z")
So burning the flag is NOT free speech… But giving a bazillion dollars to a Senator’s campaign to “persuade” him to give your corporation huge tax breaks IS? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desecrate-this-fuckwads/362476.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/desecrate-this-fuckwads/362476.md?page=4)