Ah, but I didn’t act, did I? I said that the fine for whupping on hippie flagburners should be reduced, mere idle speculation. I hit nobody, and offered to hit nobody, but you, among others, sought to shut me up. It is a sad commentary that supposed “liberals,” people who claim to be open-minded, truly seek to muzzle ideas and words that offend them.
I have said over and over again that flagburning is protected speech. That was not enough–I must approve of flagburning, too. If I may be permitted a sweeping generalization, it seems to me that conservatives only wish to control actions; liberals seek to control thoughts.
The stench of hypocrisy in the room is quite overpowering.
From a previous gobear post: “At the same time, I suggest the penalty for stomping a hippie burning a flag should be a $5.00 fine.”
Dear Mr. gobear
Y’know, it seems disingenuous to dismiss the statement quoted above as “mere idle speculation” and to deny that it expressed a deeply felt desire.
Brush up on the reading comprehension. From what I know, hippie anarchists do not constitute a plurality of the protesters. That is, as far as I am aware, hippie anarchists neither comprise a majority of those protesting at rallies like those in Seattle, Philadelphia, and D.C., nor do they even represent the single largest discrete group.
I said nothing about knowing any protesters, reasonable or otherwise. In fact, what you’re saying is that you’ve seen some unreasonable protesters, so that completely invalidates everything I’ve seen or read regarding reasoned, articulate dissent at the protests mentioned above.
You’d seriously do much better with a brush that ain’t quite so broad.
You all say that burning the American Flag is an act of political expression, and therefore is protected under the first amendment. And I agree.
Burning an American Flag is an attempt to communicate a political idea. Everyone on the same page? And I, and perhaps the vast majority of this country understand that communication to say: “America should be destroyed in the same way that I am destroying this symbol of America”. Don’t give me all this bullshit about maybe the flag-burner meant something else by it. If I scream out “Hippie Anarchists should be summarily executed by vigiliantes!”, does it matter that under my private definitions “hippie anarchist” means “child molester”, “summarily executed” means “tried in a court of law” and “vigilantes” means “a jury of their peers”?
No, communication is a two-way street. Communication means that you send out a message and I recieve the message. If the message that you are attempting to send out is guaranteed to be understood as another message by ~90% of the people who recieve the message, then perhaps you are wrong to attempt to send that particular message.
Is it, and should it be, legal for the Klan to march? Yes. Does that mean that I have to respect the Klan for their bold and daring exercise of the right to peaceably assemble, as protected by the first amendment? No it doesn’t. I have the perfect right to believe that Klansmen are abhorent, vicious, subhuman, anti-american psychopaths. I don’t have to respect them, I can hold them in contempt.
Likewise, I can view a flag burner in the same way. You have the right to do it, and I have the right to call you abhorent and sub-human and anti-american. I have the right to say you have more piercings than brains. I have the right to say that you make my sick. And why?
You burn the flag, it means you want America to burn, just like when the Klan burns a cross it means they want blacks and jews to burn.
Hey, if the Klan burns a cross on their own property and they have a burn permit nobody can stop them. Doesn’t mean we have to celebrate them, or hold them up as exemplars of America’s freedom, or talk about how if the government made it illegal to burn crosses and wear Klan robes WE’D go out and start wearing Klan outfits and burning crosses and spraypainting swastikas on our own private property.
Good to hear, since my jaw just about dropped reading your first post, but I still can’t believe this. That “idle speculation” that the penalty for physically harming someone for exercising a right you find offensive should be reduced to a tiny little slap on the wrist seems an incredibly odd thing to come from you. There are plenty of people who would probably love to have that ability in regards to other subjects, and I’m sure you can think of at least one.
Not to mention your (And a few others) broad-brush stereotyping of an entire group’s mentality as being completely wrong and destructive. Shouldn’t you know that stereotypes aren’t always right?
No, no, no, TwistofFate, you don’t understand: gobear defines the difference between dissent and hate thusly:
HATE: When people burn flags, no matter what they are protesting about, or what point they are trying to make, they are expressing hate for America. The cause is irrelevant.
[sub](“burning the flag is an expression of hate against the US, in the same way that burning an Israeli flag or painting a swastika is an expression of hate against the Jews or Israel, burning a cross is an expression of hate against blacks. People don’t burn flags as constructive criticism. You’re living in a fantasy land if you think so, sister.” - gobear)
[/sub] DISSENT: If gobear burnt a flag, this would be dissent.
[sub](“If such an asinine Constitutional amendment WERE passed, I’d be burning flags, too.” - gobear)[/sub]
Does it sting when your words come back to haunt you?
You said that anyone who would or does burn the is using a ‘juvenile and imbicilic’ method of protest, thus categorizing the protestors as juvenile and imbicilic. Then you went on to say that the only people who’d employ this tactic are people with ‘more piercings than brains’, which leads me to wonder what exactly piercings have to do with intelligence - but you made the statement, so I asked you to explain why in your eyes many piercings equals no brains. You capped it off by telling us that anyone who would or does burn a flag is nothing more than a moron who deserves your contempt - those would be the pierced people who are being juvenile and imbicilic in their speech, no?
So, since I’ve previously admitted to being a person with more than one body piercing, and that I would burn the flag in protest of the destruction of rights you have accused me of:
Being nothing more than an attention seeker
Stupidity (since in your words, multiple piercings are correlated with lack of brains)
Being juvenile and imbicilic because you would disagree with my method of protest.
Being a moron because I would protest in a manner you disagree with.
I don’t know where you were schooled in debate, but where I come from statements like ‘Anyone who would do X is a moron.’ is called an ad hominem, and generally frowned upon in polite debating circles. I would, however, still like to know why you think piercings = moron.
And to Lemur866:
If I burn a flag, you can rest assured I’m going to be shouting from the rooftop why I’m doing it. The flag is a s ymbol of the United States of America and all the rights and freedoms therein. Many in our government would infringe and usurp that freedom for their own political gain or to increase their own grasp on power. They are destroying the very rights and freedoms that the flag stands for. A flag, on fire, is being destroyed. What I am saying is that they have, metaphorically, put a match to the flag. All of those in suits on Capitol Hill are burning the flag every single time they sign a new piece of legislation that further erodes the rights of Americans. They’re making it an empty symbol. They’re destroying what it stands for. So see it burn, and realize that the government is to thank for the flames.
I don’t care how many of you argue, you are still dead wrong.
Catsix: I already explained my comment to you
At this point, it’s obvious you’re willfully twisting what I write, so I’m done with you. Repeat, moronic person with piercings DOES NOT EQUAL all pierced people are morons, get it? Eh, you’ll ignore this post, too.
What do you mean, "Does it sting when your words come back to haunt you? " I stand by my posts–Right now, in a free nation, flagburning is an idiotic and juvenile cry for attention. Your rights are not threatened in any way. Have the secret police baned books? Have you been tortured for reading? Has the GOP outlawed other parties? Has W declared himself President for Life? No? Then why do you say
Sorry, but your posts reflect a certain political naivete. Go study real police states, like North Korea, and compare them to the US.
I already said that if flagburning were outlawed I would change my mind on the matter, but you are so intent on pushing your agenda that you refuse to listen.
You have it backwards–I know, you don’t. Lemme give you a preview of what’s coming 4/20.
Dissent: "Signs that read “Israel must end the illegal occupation of Palestine.”
Hate: Burning the Israeli flag and signs that read “End the ZOG occupation of DC and Palestine. Death to Israel.” To my mind, burning the US flag is much more akin to the second than the first. You disagree. Fine.
That is a lie. I said no such thing. I even cited examples of protest I thought admirable (althought I didn’t know W.L. Garrison had burned the Constitution, but eh, slavery days.)
When you burn the flag, it’s a slap in the face to the guys who hung that flag from the Pentagon. It’s a slap in the face to the guys who raised that flag on the WTC ruins. It’s a slap in the face, not to the government you despise, but to the citizens of this nation.
You wanna change things? Vote. Protest peacefully. Write letters to congressmen. By all means, get loud and make your will known. But I maintain that burning the flag is offensive. If torching the symbol of our nation is the only way you can express your views, then I pity your lack of articulation.
Ah, nice try to drag in the gay thing. But you made a bad analogy. I don’t want to clock anyone for holding views, no matter how offensive or stupid I think them.
Now if I did something as offensive as flagburning, such as disrupting hetero weddings and tearing up marriage licenses, then I oughta get clocked.
I repeat–burning the US flag is offensive and, while legally protected, is a despicable act.
Where do I start with government infringement upon rights?
How about the (now overruled) Communications Decency Act of 1996? And its successor, the CDA II? And the Defense of Marriage Act? And the Office of Homeland Security’s plans for National ID cards? Their failure to comply with FOIA requests about the program? The National Firearms Act of 1934? The Firearms Act of 1964? The ‘black bag search’ clause in the methamphetamine bill? The very recently proposed legal authority to monitor electronic communication without a warrant? Project Carnivore? The failed fight against public-key encryption programs like PGP? Escrowed encryption? Filing BATF Affidavit 4473 past the required date for destruction of the papers? Campaign Finance Reform?
Every one of those things inches away one of the defined rights contained in the Bill of Rights, but apparently because they’re not extreme enough to fit your standard of ‘threatening rights’, you call burning the flag in protest of those measures imbicilic. You did categorize me by saying that only a moron who wants attention but has nothing to say would burn the flag. Well, there’s a whole list of things that I could burn a flag over right now. The nature of government is that it desires power, always more power than it already has. Incrementally in bits and dribbles it’s encroaching on the rights of ordinary citizens.
Nope, W hasn’t declared himself President for life, but you are missing something if you think government doesn’t have an interest in curtailing the rights of the people.
“The Constitution is a radical document… it is the job of the government to rein in people’s rights.”
William J Clinton on MTV - 1992
Symbolic expression is just as valid as spoken or written expression. If a ballet troupe wanted to do an interpretive dance protesting the 1040 form entitled “The Nuts Cracker”, that would be perfectly all right under the first ammendment. A sculptor is within his rights to mold a Statue of Liberty in an, ahem, compromising position if he wants to protest John Ashcroft having his way with our liberties. The sculptor does not own the symbol of the statue of liberty, but it ain’t copyrighted either. He can use any symbol he wants.
The message doesn’t matter, either People can yell “Down with America!” from street corners. They can yell “Start the revolution now!” from the rooftops. They can write pamphlets on how we should all take up arms and invade Washington DC to set up an Og worshipping Oligarchy. They can also say “down with America” symbolically. They can burn the flag.
Verbal speech, written speech, and symbolic speech are all “actions”. As long as they do not directly harm another (yelling “fire” in a crowded theater or ‘expressing your disagreement’ by curb-stomping somebody), these “actions” are protected by the first ammendment.
Sax, we can not outlaw something merely because it is “disdainfull” to the general populace or because we find it “inapropriate”. The first ammendment was created expressly to prevent people from doing this - that’s the beauty of it.
And how does flagburning address any of that? (Most of what you said is inaccurate, but that’s a whole 'nother discussion.) At best, flagburning is just bad peformance art. It says nothing, it makes no arguments, it provides no solutions. It’s just an ugly act.
Ad I’mstill waiting for an acknowledgement of your willful twisting of my words.
Or at least, a “Gosh, Gobear, I totally misunderstood what you wrote and now realize you made no blanket condemnation of pierced folks.”
Paragraph (K) of Title 36, Section 176, of the United States Code states: “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.”
Flag burning is offensive when the burner intends it to be offensive. Wearing the flag as a blanket wrapped around your shoulders, as a headcovering, shelter, or clothing as well as displaying it in tattered condition and many more uses I’ve seen both before and after the events of 9/11 are also disrepectful and to some degree offensive.
Abby
Who will attend a public flag burning around Memorial day as part of a flag retirement ceremony conducted by her son for his grandfathers flag. It will be dignified, respectful and the intent is a demonstration of his gratitude and honor towards those who have made sacrifices for our country, including his grandfather.
Yeah, Abby, but disposing of a flag too tattered to display in a reverent ceremony is not the topic here. Unless you’re planning on waving the burning flag in the air in front of news cameras and screaming, “Bush is a Nazi!”, then we’re not talking about the same thing.
I am a person who would burn the flag in protest of the government’s passage of laws that destroy liberty, by your definition this makes me a moron and guilty of an imbicilic, juvenile cry for attention.
I am a pierced person who would burn the flag, which by your statement ‘flags are burned by people with more piercings than brains’ implies that I’m stupid.
Twisted your words? Not in the least. You’re just trying to worm out of them now because you made an abstract generalization about a whole bunch of people you’ve never met whose intentions and motivations you’re unaware of. I put myself up as a counter-example to that and wanted to know why you’d generalize so much, and you want me to apologize to you?
See, that’s NOT WHAT I SAID!!! But, go ahead, stay pissed off. Your mind is made up, and I shan’t confuse you with the facts.
Did you miss the point about living in the DC area, of dealing with those protesters, of hearing their slogans and their drumming and their anti-capitalist pablum?
I’m going on what I see, hear, and read, buster. You’re the one talking about imaginary scenarios and people you’ve never met.
You’re legally allowed to burn flags, but if you expect me to clap for you and approve of your actions, you’ll be waiting until the heat death of the universe.
I don’t see any recognition in there that though you disagree with flag burning as a form of protest, the protestor might be an intelligent person who has an actual message.
Do you acknowledge the possibility of an intelligent person with a legitimate message burning the flag or not? Because as it stands, your statements indicate that you do not. What you’ve done is categorize everyone who burns a flag in protest of anything as a ‘moron’ using a ‘juvenile and imbicilic method of protest’ for ‘attention getting’ by people ‘with more piercings than brains.’
Have you personally met every single person who has ever burned a flag as symbolic speech? If not, how can you declare that absolutely no person who burns the flag is an intelligent person with a legitimate message?