Which is why, again, I don’t support the amendment.
Look, all you would-be flag-burners. If you want to take your First Amendment rights and stage the political equivalent of my toddlers’ temper tantrums, knock yourself out.
It doesn’t mean I have to respect these outbursts. And I regard, and shall always regard, flag burning as a tactic of those who want to provoke rather than inform.
Well, duh.
You can’t inform unless you have attention. A pissed off audience may ask why the fuck you just burned the flag and that gives you your chance to inform. Most of the incidents where flags have been burned in public were to draw attention to a cause, not just to piss people off.
Enjoy,
Steven
Just out of curiosity, are there any actual statistics on how prevalent flag desecration is in the United States? How often does it happen, anyway? I don’t exactly go out of my way to avoid political rallies and the like, and I haven’t ever personally witnessed a flag being burned. Does the federal government keep track of these incidents, as they do for less serious crimes like rape and murder?
Whatever the actual annual figure is these days, I’d like to go on record with the prediction that, should such an amendment ever manage to get passed, the incidents of flag desecration in America will immediately increase by at least two orders of magnitude. If there were fifty public flag-burnings per year in the past, then post-amendment there will be at least five thousand.
Not that I think this should at all deter the fine legislators who support this amendment, you understand. In fact, I’m so impressed with their upstanding patriotic vision that I think the Constitution should be amended right now to protect these guys from having feces thrown at them. Not that it’s happened yet, but it could someday, and can we really take the chance that someone might decide to display their contempt in such a fashion? Yes, the country has laws against assault, but no current laws exclusively protect our anti-flag-burning representatives from being drenched in poo. “The states shall be empowered to specifically prohibit the hurling of fecal matter at any public offical who endorsed the Anti-Flag Desecration Amendment.” Something along those lines should do the trick nicely. They deserve that sort of recognition, for all they’ve done.
P.S. Well said, Sen. Bob Bennett! I’m glad you’re cool with stem cell research, because we may need to clone you in the future.
Okay, I’ve sat for a minute and I’m cooler now. Thanks, Captain America and Mr. Moto. Some misty civics class memories confirm that you are right. I can go back to just being pissed about what an incredible waste of time it is to even discuss this stupid amendment.
Well, I think most of us agree that a finishing school is rather a waste of time, doesn’t seem to have done Ms. Hilton any good, and Ms. Clinton did quite nicely with a simple, homespun degree from Wellesley.
I have to admit that I’m disappointed. We were just learning how to finish knitting doillies and next week we’re learning how to lie still while our husbands kiss us. After all, kissing is a sin, but it is necessary to become pregnant.
If I leave, I guess I’ll have to start screwing my husband like the commoners.
Sorry, just cleaning the blood out from underneath my fingernails. 
You are more or less correct. If two statutes or two provisions of the Constitution address the same subject matter, the courts must read them so as to give effect to both to the greatest degree possible, but if they are directly in conflict and that’s not possible the newer provision is assumed to invalidate the older one on that point.
But seriously folks, or as seriously as one can take something so breathtakingly stupid…
Which flag? They’ll have to define that, won’t they? Rigorously. Is an old 48-star, outdated flag still subject to veneration? Hows about those little American flag toothpicky things they put in bad drinks? Can I not sew an American flag replica on my jeans? Can I if it has 10 stripes? If they are green and yellow?
An amendment that permits such a law does not insure that it can be written in a manner that positively assures constitutionality. Even if they pass an amendment that permits a law to be written, it still has to be a law that passes muster in terms of applicability, as quibbled above. And they simply can’t do that! The law would be 10 volumes long to cover each and every such quibble.
And what about the Big 10? You know, the one that starts with “Thou shalt not place any other gods…”, etc? , Now, IANA ;j , but doesn’t that mean that you cannot place anything on the same level as God? That you cannot venerate such secular symbols? I believe that it has long been established in Jewish law that under certain circumstances, desecrating even the most venerable of symbols is permitted, because people are holier than things. (A viewpoint I find entirely rational.)
I don’t have time to cover all the ways that this stupid, doctor says I may only have about 40 more years to live…
hear hear.
IANAL, but after looking at the text of the Eighteenth Amendment (Prohibition) here , it seems that there is a difference.
In the current proposed amendment, it states that Congress may prohibit physical desecration of the Flag (i.e pass a law). In the Eighteenth Amendment, it states that the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors is prohibited. The second section then states that Congress may enact a law to enforce the amendment.
So, it seems to me that the current proposed amendment isn’t actually saying “flag burning is prohibited” (which, IIRC, is what SCOTUS has previously declared unconstitutional) but that Congress may decide to pass a law that states that “flag burning is prohibited” which would bypass the unconstitutionality (is that a word?) of such a law by adding to the Constitution that such a law is allowable, thus taking away the argument from SCOTUS.
While I personally agree with the Congress of that era that the Eighteenth Amendment was a damned stupid idea (thus the passage of the Twenty-first Amendment), they at least seemed to have a more valid legal footing than the current proposal does. The current proposal is directly written to circumvent SCOTUS, thereby affecting the checks & balances system.
While I realize that many of our congresscritters seem to think this is a Good Thing{tm}, THIS is the true “slippery slope”, IMHO.
And the holiest people are those those heroes that died defending our freedoms on September 11th, 2001:
What an ASS!
The purpose of the amendment is to remove First Amendment protection from the act of desecrating a flag.
Tex. Penal Code Ann. 42.09(a)(3) managed to define the offense of desecration of a venerated object. Gregory Lee Johnson burned a flag in violation of that law, and the Supreme Court vacated his conviction on First Amendment grounds.
That defense aside, I don’t know what the barrier to conviction would be.
No. It’s directly written to amend the Constitution to remove flag burning from the realm of expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment.
The Supreme Court’s job is to interpret the Constitution. Congress and the states have the power to change the Constitution. There is no violation of the doctrine of seperation of powers.
Oh, ok then. I with draw any objection I may have had to this law, then. 
If this actually passes, think how encouraged they would be to pass the anti-gay marriage act or whatever they choose to call it.
Every time this stupid issue comes up, I always have to wonder exactly how the law is going to define what constitutes a “flag.”
Would it be illegal to throw away paper plates with flags on them? if not, can we burn them in public demonstrations? What about a flag with 51 stars? How about a blank swath of cloth with the words “American flag” on it? No matter how it’s defined, it’s going to be possible to go right to the fringe of the written law and make the same symbolic statement with no legal consequences. I certainly intend to do so if such an anti-American law ever gets passed. That’s the problem with trying to ban symbolic statements. Symbolism is fungible. A symbol for a flag is as good as a flag.
The fact that it would be held as permissable to destroy old flags for disposal purposes really underlines the fact that this is an attempt to pass a thought crime. It’s not burning a flag per se that would be criminalized, it would be what you’re thinking about while you burn it.
The cheap exploitation of the “pain” of veterans is a huge crock of shit as well. Firstly, burning the flag does not harm anyone, and no one, not even veterans, has a right to not be offended by someone else’s opinion.
Moreover, burning a flag is hardly the only means by which one can offend a veteran. If emotional pain for vets is going to be seriously proffered as an argument for banning flag desecration, then how can we justify allowing those same dirty hippies to call veterans “baby killers,” or to say “Fuck America?” Should it be a crime to chant “Osama?” Why single out one non-violent expression of dissent (an expression which can still be easily made symbolically by some other means anyway) but still permit any other vile insult that anyone can think of.
Getting upset about flag burning is like being afraid of people sticking pins in voodoo dolls. It’s magical thinking. It’s almost childish in its simplistic, superstitious naiivete. I’ve never understood it.
Never been to Wellesley, have you?
I think the amendment is a spectacularly bad idea, for the reasons that people have already mentioned. But, if it passes, I think the opportunity would present itself for some creative protests. The flag printed in Doonesbury is a good start. How about printing up American flag toilet paper and sneaking it into every bathroom in the U.S. Capitol? (Yeah, like the members use the same bathroom I could get access to.) Paint the flag on the steps in front of every door, would any congressman dare walk on it? Make a flag out of the 50 state flags sewn together and burn that. Let’s use our imagination, folks.
May I bear your children?
This should keep an army of lawyers busy for years drafting the actual statutes. Maybe they’ll never actually be able to finish!