The proposed anti-flag-burning amendment is profoundly idiotic, and on such a multitude of levels, too.
Pragmatically, such an amendment would only encourage people to burn flags. Making something illegal is hardly the same as making it stop- yet even this concept seems beyond the intellect of the imbeciles who are clamoring for this stupid Amendment.
Legally, an Amendment to protect the flag from fire will do nothing to prevent someone from wiping their ass with it, will it? A broad prohibition of “desecration” of any kind is unlikely to be legally binding. The idea of what is and is not “desecration” is largely a matter of taste, and according to Chief Justice Rhenquist of the Supreme Court, it is futile to try to legislate taste (Ref: The People vs. Larry Flint). Is Madonna desecrating Christianity if she wears a big crucifix while fondling herself? Who knows? It’s a matter of personal opinion. Who is going to enforce silly and ill-defined “anti-desecration” laws? If I have a pair of flag-patterned underwear, will I be hurled before a federal district court if I have an “accident” while wearing them? What if I try to use a flag to smother a small fire (like Kramer did with the Puerto-Rican flag in the penultimate Seinfeld episode)? What if my flag store burns down because of an errant cigarette? Will the Amendment open the door to hundreds of statutes defining exactly what you can and cannot do to a flag?
Historically, the greatest threats to democracies have traditionally been nationalist zealots who have shrewdly wrapped themselves in the flags of their republics- not the clueless political zeroes who choose to burn them instead. An amendment to “protect the flag” will perhaps make the flag-burners arrestable, but it might just also pivotally play into the hands of those who would aim to subvert the nation from within. Sanctioning and protecting the social contracts made by a nation to its citizens is not equivalent to embracing its cloth symbol. One requires a solid commitment to prudent leadership and responsible governance. The other essentially boils down to a lot of talk and flag-waving.
Constitutionally, such an amendment would be an epitome of style winning over substance. In a vain attempt to prevent the nation’s physical symbol from being desecrated, these morons are willing to introduce a breach in the Bill of Rights- the most sacrosanct contract ever guaranteed by the republic to its citizens.
Logically, introduction of the amendment would constitute an admission by the republic that its citizens would have a valid recourse in desecration of the flag to begin with. A flag that needs an amendment to protect it from the people it purports to represent isn’t even worth wasting a match on. The flag Amendment would itself desecrate the flag!
Motivationally- what is the motive behind the Amendment aside from an emotional appeal to “protect our flag” from unnamed villians who would burn it? How does burning the flag endanger the republic or the nation anyway? Who, among the nation’s citizens or residents, would be protected or sanctioned by such an amendment? Nobody. The sole purpose of the Amendment is to confer additional powers to the government previously disallowed by the First Amendment: the power to criminalize flag-burning. Even the silly 18th Amendment (Prohibition) was promoted for what were ostensibly altruistic purposes- to keep people clean and sober, to remove the scourge of drunkenness from the nation. This proposed Amendment has no purpose other than to stifle one particular form of hated speech. Or to hear its moronic supporters say it, “to protect our flag”; they have never even bothered to make any pretentions otherwise. Traditionally the purpose of Constitutional Amendments has been for the people to place restrictions upon the powers of government. This Amendment will reverse that trend- it will grant the government additional powers that were previously denied by the people. And it will seriously compromise a document that has functioned well in protecting civil liberties for two centuries- all this just to keep people from burning the flag.
Although it is so logically bankrupt, the anti-flag-burning Amendment appears to have enough votes in the Senate. Many of these Senators and Congresspeople should really know better, but they are pandering to the most deplorable of public instincts in order to secure their reelection.
Being an aging veteran, I’ll weigh in with a resounding NO to an anti-flag burning amendment and also a resounding NO to any laws prohibiting free speech.
If you own a particular piece of cloth, you can do with it what you will; I support, and defend, your rights under the Constitution.
Evidently a group in Congress doesn’t. This is obviously an errant attempt to get many people to vote for some scoundrels who don’t really have platforms.
I don’t care if the amendment goes through or not, BUT. Burning a flag as a protest is disgusting. I do not have to justify my opinion., because of the solders that carried the FLAG in to the battle I can do that. Those soldiers held the IDEAL which the flag represented holy to them, for which they would die for. Thence you are not desicrating the nation, rather the memory of the brave sons who gave the ultimate sacrifice for you.
Sorry about the flame here, just that I feel strongly about this…and I am not a US citizen… It is a red maple leaf that flies in my flagpole!
I think it’s terrific. Lesse, the United States is facing such crises as:
How to ensure access to health care for the huge number of uninsured?
How to determine the line between protecting citizens and allowing them to bear arms without restriction?
How to deal with AIDS, the homeless, the growing numbers of destitute.
How to cope with the ageing population and the strains on social security, housing, health care, and other social needs that the changing demographics will inevitably produce?
… I think it’s just wonderful that Congress thinks the highest priority for amending the Constitution is to prohibit flag-burning.
Flag-burning was a form of protest against the Viet Nam war back in the 60s and early 70s. Why this concern for something that has been out of fashion for twenty years?
I weigh in with Monty here. Any politician who wraps him/herself in this issue doesn’t have a platform.
The good news: I gives you more time to study the positions of all the opponents.
Personal rant: Keep yer friggin’ hands off the Constitution!
Aren’t most of the US flags made in Japan or China and then sold here?
Frankly, I think you can burn, wear or do whatever you want with it in the privacy of your own home. However, in public or public display, there are laws.
Handy: the laws against burning the flag as a public display are what’s at the core of the issue. Apparently, some folks (politicians) think it’s better to wrap themselves in the flag and deny others their rights under the constitution than actually, as CK said above, do something along the lines of their jobs.
Personally, I am very much opposed to burning flags. Not cuz I love my country, or any other country, but because its just childish and outright mean. But when Americans begin burning their OWN flags on their OWN land, what kind of message do you people think THAT kind of picture sends to our friends and enemies abroad? If we can burn our flag, then sure can the Iraqis, the Chinese, the Japanese, and anyone else in the world who becomes mildly ruffled by our nations presence in the world. And that just isnt very nice. In fact when they do it, it is downright hostile not only to our country but to us citezens especially. But, though you can always find someone in the US ready to burn our own flag, I never see protests on the tv where americans are publically burning Cuban flags or N Korean flags or, for that matter, ANY flag but an american one? Why? I think it must be because down under we must realize that sort of behavior is an outgrowth of hatred and that actual innocent people can be affected by that kind of behavior. But we never give into those considerations when its a question of our own flag. There is always someone with a match ready when its our own flag that’s to be ignited. So, what freedoms are we really preserving in all this? It seems to me all we are doing is encouraging anti-american demonstrations and anti-american sentiments in the rest of the world. And who is that good for? Its just more hate in the world, regardless of who its directed at.
Well, you may be thinking that when someone in Iraq or Iran or wherever sees a bunch of Americans burning an American flag, it sends a message that our country must be despicable because these people are burning its flag and they’re even Americans so it must be really bad!!! The message that is also implicitly sent, however, is that you can burn this country’s flag in this country without fear of reprisal. You can burn an American flag in Iran, but that really doesn’t say much. You sure as hell can’t burn an Iranian flag in Iran. To see people burning American flags in America without being arrested sends a much more powerful message about the freedoms in this country and its tolerance of dissenting opinion, especially when compared to most foreign nations who like to burn our flag.
I’m not sure I follow. I mean, they can burn it whether we can burn it ourselves or not.
Well, it’s certainly not as nice as a backrub with warm baby oil and a big fat kiss with some tongue action. But that hardly qualifies it as a worthwhile target for a Constitutional Amendment.
No you can’t! It happens so rarely that the media is drawn to a burning flag like moths to a flame. It always draws good news ratings because seeing a flag burned makes so many people angry as hornets. People like WWII veterans tune in to it and lose their minds. In fact, the inevitable media attention is probably the only real reason why people burn flags. An anti-flag-burning amendment would only exacerbate the situation.
Well that’s a good question. I can think of several reasons immediately:
Wal-Mart doesn’t sell them. And wherever they do sell them, they’re expen$ive- too expensive to casually be setting on fire all the time.
Nobody even recognizes those stupid flags anyway. Think of the foreign flags you can identify. Canada, Britain, Japan, Italy, France… all are countries we’re on hunky-dorey terms with. The typical American Joe Sixpack would recognize the McDonald’s corporate flag before he’d recognize even some of those five. Maybe you HAVE seen a Cuban flag burning (Cuban-Americans burn them sometimes in protest of Castro’s regime) but you didn’t recognize it. A flag that isn’t very recognizable won’t make such a political impact upon being burned. But everyone knows what an American flag looks like.
Nobody cares if someone here burns a foreign flag- except maybe the news services from that country, which would hardly be interested in the story anyway if they are influenced otherwise (e.g. Serbia’s state-controlled media). The American media couldn’t care less. No veterans are offended. No constitutional amendments can be proposed. A foreign flag burning can only be considered a waste of airtime.
The American government does not distribute Cuban/Iraqi/Serian flags and actively encourage its people to burn them. This is not the case in most countries where you see American flags being torched.
Now you’re sounding a bit like the people who are blaming Marilyn Manson and South Park for the Littleton massacre. It’s a nice warm fuzzy sentiment but there’s little evidence to indicate that Americans are more sensitive about our expressions of hatred than are people in the rest of the world.
The fact that many foreign governments encourage their citizens to burn American flags undoubtedly has much more to do with it than individual scruples.
See above. Flag-burning only seems as prevalent as it actually is because of the media’s fascination with it.
In not passing childish Constitutional Amendments to ban forms of speech and dissent we find distasteful, we are preserving your freedoms and mine, and the freedoms of generations of Americans to come. The First Amendment is one of the most cherished freedoms we have. Now people are arguing that we should introduce a precedent-setting limitation in it. Perhaps someday the First Amendment will be riddled with exceptions and constraints. It would be a foul legacy to leave to our inheritors.
The act of flag-burning may certainly introduce more hate into the world. I do not recommend that people burn flags. But the last thing we need is an Amendment to the Constitution prohibiting flag-burning!!!
Uh, okay, Lipochrome. Calm down. Nobody’s thinking of setting YOU on fire, okay? It was just an opinion as based on my own experiences. If there werent two sides to this debate then there would be no debate.
I must confess that this issue makes me really upset. It wouldn’t, if there was no chance that the anti-flag-burning Amendment would pass- but the political climate in Washington has been looking quite good for it recently.
In the interest of presenting both sides of the debate, here are some pro-Amendment URLs:
The “main” URL is www.cfa-inc.org .
There is also http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/6199/ . The entries in his own guestbook are mostly biased against the Amendment. (Warning: This is one of those badly done Geocities pages, and it has the “Star Spangled Banner” play on it as a MIDI file.
This thread reminds me of something horrible I witnessed back in about mid-2002. I was at a major get together reunion sort of party and everything was going great. That is until somebody threw a hissy fit over a conversation about how the government runs things. So what they do is, they rip the flag which mounted on the wall off the wall and stand on the stage and burn the flag with a cigarette lighter and rant on about how they hate how the government runs the country and how they hate the country in general. It made me want to throw up everywhere! :mad::mad::mad::mad:
The place for some strange reason didn’t have smoke detectors, and they can’t be fitted now, as the place has long since been demolished and the place we were at was a 19th century built hotel. I felt I had to get the story off of my chest, as I was reminded of it after seeing something on TV where a flag gets burnt.
I personally think very strongly indeed that there should be capital punishment for people who dare to burn the state flag! :mad:
The *state *flag? Which state? How long ago did this happen? Do you often have flash-backs which induce you to resurrect thirteen-year-old conversations instead of starting a new one?
The United States flag. And I don’t have flashbacks, I was just told that it is the proper forum etiquette to search for and add to an existing thread about something, rather than starting a new thread on the subject. I apologize sincerely if resurrecting this thread has caused you any annoyance or upset.
You were misinformed. We want to avoid seven simultaneous threads about last night’s episode of the Whatever Show, or multiple threads rehashing something currently in the news, but the resurrection of zombie threads not needed.