I have a hard time believe many liberals would get upset about burning any book (other than related to censorship) or any images. Burn a photo of President Obama? Stupid, but acceptable political protest.
:dubious: Yes, who can forget the resounding political success scored by President George H. W. Bush when he spoke out against flag-burning in the wake of Texas v. Johnson in 1989?
As we all know, of course, the resulting constitutional amendment for flag protection and incarceration of flag-burning protestors generated a surge of popularity among patriotic Americans that swept Bush to re-election in 1992.
What I’ve always thought was a little odd about the whole debate is that according to the old Flag Codes, burning it is the proper way to dispose of an old flag. In fact, I believe there was an etiquette custom of burning any U.S. flag that touched the ground.
Hillary Clinton’s reasons for twice wanting to criminalize US Flag burning with jail terms were summed up by supporter Dianne Feinstein
*The flag’s special symbolic status, she said, makes its desecration different from holding a sign denouncing the president. Burning an American flag in anger, she said, is “conduct, not speech” because the flag is “the symbol of our democracy, our shared values, our commitment to justice, our remembrance to those who have sacrificed to defend these principles.” *
And by doing so to the American flag, they are proving themselves to be total assholes, ignorant of, and not caring about, the fact that this country acknowledges their right to do so. Try doing that stupid shit in other countries and see how far you get.
“flag burning” in this context is basically short-hand for desecrating the flag. If a troop of Boy Scouts are respectfully retiring a worn, old flag (by burning it), it’s a safe bet they’re not the intended targets of Hillary Clinton’s anti-flag-burning crusade. I assume any actual law written would include other related offenses like deliberately stomping on the flag, smearing shit on it, etc., and would be written to include some language about doing so disrespectfully, etc.
FWIW, I think burning the flag in protest is incredibly disrespectful, but like using racial slurs or doing other way-over-the-top offensive things, I have no desire to see it criminalized.
Another example of American Exceptionalism. Personally, burning the flag in protest is not my thing. (Unless it was prohibited, then I’d be first in line at the flag burning extravaganza).
The main thing that helps is if you understand just how sacred the American flag is in America. Our shared history is short. So we’ve put a whole lot of ceremony into the flag. Churches even have big flag celebrations. A lot of what it means to be American is tied up into that flag.
And, given encounters I’ve run into, we connect our military with that flag, and the military apparently have the importance of the flag drilled into them even more. And we Americans think very highly of our military, as they are those who fought for our freedom. And that freedom is our national identity–again, due to a lack of history.
I actually wound up calling a vet un-American because he wanted to stop all the protests where people take a knee during the national anthem. That should tell you the ceremony and importance we put to the flag and the ceremony behind it.
So, given all that importance, burning it has a lot of meaning. We make it important, so burning it–denying that importance–is a big deal.
If you burnt a German standard in Germany, people would shrug; if you burnt a Union Flag in Britain no-one would notice.
Except just maybe for the Daily Mail, if it was the Daily Mail’s time of the month.
Other countries that don’t legally prohibit desecration of the national flag include Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Norway, and Romania. I’m not sure why anybody thinks the US would be better off throwing away its constitutional principles to quit that prestigious club.
The whole flag-burning thing is a distraction tactic and has been for decades. Nowadays, it seems to mostly be done by people who want to make a video that goes viral on You Tube. :rolleyes:
Meanwhile, we have plenty of REAL problems, like our president-elect, for instance.
Thank you for at least trying to answer the question instead of answering the question that most people assumed was being asked. So what I’m understanding from you saying this is that there is no actual point to burning the flag besides calling attention to yourself, and demonstrating your contempt for the nation that it represents. There’s no underlying motive besides a desire to express a very harsh opinion. They are willing to go to extreme depths to show their displeasure, and want to make sure that they are understood by those who view the protest as having the utmost contempt for the subject of the symbol.
Of course, that doesn’t explain to me why they would want to show such contempt while still inside the country. It seems to me like they are provoking their own misery intentionally. I fully understand why people don’t like the idea of desecrating a symbol, but I thought there was something more going on here because it quite frankly still makes absolutely no sense to intentionally provoke people like that unless you want to be hated. Which makes sense if you’re an actual enemy of the subject of the flag, but not so much when you’re a citizen unhappy with your current (or future) government. Surely there would be better things to burn that are representative of the target of your ire than a symbol that encompasses a nation you belong to and whose course you are trying through your actions to correct.
Yes, I would find fault with any gathering of people calling attention to themselves in some way that was not particularly open about what it was they wanted such that they desired the attention. I wouldn’t generally complain, I’d just walk past without having any clue what it is they wanted, the opposite of what I would think they were intending by making the demonstration.
An Iowa man was arrested Thursday and was charged with desecrating the U.S. flag after hanging it upside down beneath a Chinese flag in protest at his home.
*The Fort Dodge Messenger reported that Homer Martz, an Army veteran, of Somers, put up the flag to protest an oil pipeline being built without his consent next to a well that supplies water to his home. *
Martz said he didn’t know he was breaking the law. According to Iowa code 718A, Martz was charged with a misdemeanor because he tried to "publicly mutilate, deface, defile or defy, trample upon, cast contempt upon, satirize, deride or burlesque, either by words or act, such flag, standard, color, ensign, shield, or other insignia of the United States, or flag, ensign, great seal, or other insignia of this state.” Foxnews Aug 2016
Sounds like the same moral panic of Wilson’s time, a hundred years ago.
See, when people chant that what they want is JUSTICE – and that when they want it, is now – they can have an actual and specific point even though they’re using incredibly general language to do it. Sometimes they use it to mean “let this or that prisoner go free”; sometimes they mean “jail this or that killer”. You can use it to mean any one of a number of things; but the point is, one can be meant.
(Likewise, when Trump supporters chant LOCK HER UP, they have a particular individual in mind; even though folks can’t literally get that from the chant itself, somehow they manage to figure out that Hillary Clinton is being referenced. Yes, even though rather a lot of women get referred to as “her”. It’s like magic!)
And so, the flag: if someone wants to protest a particular action of the government, they can do so by burning a flag; they can also do so by chanting about “justice”. Granted, either of those is general rather than specific – but either of 'em can still be pressed into service of a specific point.
“Hell, no; we won’t go.” Won’t go where? Won’t go to the ice-cream parlor? Won’t go to a movie theater? Of course, when people chanted that we knew damn well what they meant; we couldn’t tell from the words, the words are hopelessly general, but that doesn’t matter; they had a specific point, which they conveyed with a general expression. One can do likewise by burning a flag.
Not everyone who gets upset wants to revoke citizenship but people do get upset. For instance when an art student in Chicago painted a picture of the late Mayor Washington dressed in women’s undies several Democratic alderman went to the exhibit with policemen and had it confiscated.
When a naked statue of Hillary was unveiled in NYC during the campaign it only lasted three hours before an enraged women destroyed it.
And yet, you routinely make “babes in flag thongs stuck up their asscrack” calendars, and wear flag-based paraphernalia which other countries leave for the tourists or for big sports matches. Different countries have different ideas about what “respect the flag” means.