I have to admit I’ve gotten shamelessly patriotic about this country since 9-11, but I oppose the flag-burning ban just passed by the House. If some nitwit wants to burn the flag of the nation that since its birth has most protected (almost always) his right to do so, let him. One of our great freedoms is the freedom to be a jackass.
Obviously, this does not mean I think such things as the 9-11 memorial should be hijacked by people with the same reactionary mindset.
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Did you see this?
http://politicaltherapy.blogspot.com/2005/06/white-house-proposes-printing-quran-on.html
I agree.
A person should be free to burn anything he owns, permitted he’s not endangering others. To argue otherwise is to not believe in property rights.
And others have pointed out that flag-burning provides a useful barometer to indicate the nut cases.
Then again, the 1989 decision reasoned that this was a First Amendment issue, rather than property rights.
The SCOTUS doesn’t seem too damned concerned about property rights.
Sorry, Roger, it’s on my mind today.
Hey, if I fire up a pile of leaves in my yard I’m gonna get a fine slapped on me pronto.
Can’t we have the best of both worlds? Let the moonbats burn the flag so’s we can ID them and put a black sedan full of Burly Boys on their tail and haul ‘em into court and take some of their allowance away.
To be honest I don’t think it matters one way or another. Sorta like gobbin hockers on the street – makin’ it illegal doesn’t stop it, so why bother worryin’ about it.
Well, depending on where you live, you may need a burn permit, and that seems reasonable to me.
I agree with you on the flag-burning amendment. Of all the things that threaten the nation, imbeciles burning the flag are not high priority. This is a piece of symbolic legislation and it’s stupid. What really troubles me today is that 5-4 Supreme Court decision that erodes — no, that’s too weak a word — eviscerates property rights. A godawful decision. Any developer or major corporation that can soft sell or grease a county commission or city council can now effectively and legally run people out of their homes and that’s insupportable. Godalmighty I hope Janice Rogers Brown makes it to the court.
Hmmmm.
“Well, depending on where you live, you may need a burn permit, and that seems reasonable to me.”
That’s close to what I favor. I’m in favor of requiring a flag burning permit that is to be issued by that state’s local DMV, Dept. of Motor Vehicles. Make it cost $50 or so. The cost itself is irrelevant really. The real key is to make people go through DMV.
There is no hell on earth like the DMV.
Well, Ed, that makes things a little difficult if you have a more legitimate reason for wanting the permit.
My mom lives out in the countryside, and she burns her yard waste once a year or so–fallen branches, trees she took down, leaves, etc. (She usually includes her canceled checks, too.)
Please don’t inflict the DMV where it is not needed.
They didn’t run this one by Loki/Shiva. This type of mental midgetry occurs when representatives are left to “think” for themselves. The citizenry should come up with an amendment stipulating that all legislative business is to be conducted between Jan. 20 and April 20. Cut congressional pay by three-quarters and let the clowns get back to work with Ringling Bros.
Stupid – just plain stupid. Don’t focus on the seditionists within the opposition party, oh no, heaven forbid that one speak ill of them.
I feel very strongly about the symbolism of the flag. That said I am against this admendment, when someone burns the flag you immediately know he/she has nothing to say.
As to an earlier comment, it seems we are going to live in a country where I can’t burn my flag, but I can get a crooked politician to take your flag and flagpole away and give it to Pfizer.
Ed,
I like your style!
Bostonian,
In some places, such as where I live, there ain’t no permits for burning yard debris. There’s no need to do so either as “they” come and take it away from the curb, but the point stands. If one is not allowed to burn stuff than the flag should not receive special treatment – from that perspective it should be no different than “stuff”. Make the moonbats go burn their flags wherever folk are allowed to burn other “stuff” and make them get whatever permits are necessary and, like Ed suggested, make the moonbats go through the DMV to do so. Of course, then they might actually register to vote while they’re there… shhh!
When all is said and done a “Flag Burning Amendment” will have virtually zero effect upon life in these United States whereas, as David points out, today’s SCOTUS ruling might have quite an large impact. Perspective!
As long as it’s limited to permits specifically for flag burning, Ed’s idea has definite possibilities.
Note:
You might say this is legislators beating back judicial overreach (you might say you wish they would do it more often). You might say such decisions are properly made by the peoples’ elected representatives. I’m just saying, you might.
Today’s SCOTUS decision is one of the worst in a long line of putrid decisions. I’ve spent many years in the real estate development and contracting fields. The developers (almost) always win and the common good has little to do with it. Feh.
The system of private property is the most important guaranty of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not.
Bostonian,
I’m not free to burn anything I own – at least not at any place of my chosing. I used the example of leaves before but I am not free to clean out my closets or attic or whatever, deposit the unwanted stuff in a burn barrel and set it on fire.
There are probably a half-dozen statutes in place that could/would be enforced if one of my neighbors chose to call the police. And I wouldn’t be protected one little bit by claiming “free speech” – that I was symbolically breaking with my past self represented by the old clothing I was burning.
I think spending the effort and money pursuing this ammendment is downright silly – we have far more real and pressing issues I’d prefer our government spent it’s time on. But if it were to pass it would not be the end of free-speech as we know it; it would simply be another silly law that nobody obeys, at worst, and the end of idiotarians making one form of stupid “statement” at best. No measurable effect upon life.
The clincher is that a flag burning ban would make us more like the French.
French face jail for insulting the flag. By Charles Bremner in Paris.
The Times, 15 February 2003, p.25.
ANYONE who jeers at the Marseillaise or insults the Tricolour may be jailed or fined for “offending against the dignity of the Republic” under a new law that symbolises President Chirac’s promise to impose order in France. The legal protection for the national anthem and flag is part of a package of “internal security” measures that will become law next week amid strong public support but criticism from civil rights groups and intellectuals.
Some of the French opposed this law because it would make France more American. Heh.
Well, I think it’s insulting, too, (part of our general self-loathing) but what are we going to do, shoot all the nuts who will immediately go out and torch a flag?
The flag is only a piece of cloth; the idea behind it is the touchstone of our civilization.
Here’s the basic difference between us and the French. Old Glory is a mere symbol of our great republic and while we revere it as such, its destruction doesn’t diminish us at all.
Our republic cannot be offended by the acts of self-loathing vandals because our republic is composed of we, the people of the United States and as such our dignity is God given and innate. We don’t depend on a piece cloth fashioned in the shape of stars and stripes to bestow dignity upon us.
As Bostonian points out, in its 1989 decision in Texas v. Johnson SCOTUS argued that flag-burning was a form of symbolic speech and thus protected by the First Amendment.
I don’t like this at all. The flag is a symbol and not the actual republic “for which it stands.” I wish Congress would get a grip.
And I meant to add, since 3/4 of the states will need to support this amendment we can hope it dies out.
It’s interesting that it took the USOC until 1989 to find that flag burning was political speech. Their ruling overturned many state statutes barring the practice. It’s not really a states rights issue, but it does grate given the rampant activism of the court.
Michael Medved argues interestingly that the flag amendment should be seen as a symbolic strike against judicial activism. I like the general direction of this thought but would prefer a more dramatic gesture, like overturning Roe.
I think that flag burning is both despicable and also political speech protected by the first amendment. I also find a discrete ass whupping for flag burners to be political speech. Such speech is time honored in my neighborhood, and flag burning is exceeingly rare.
As BeckyJ pointed out, this flag burining silliness will need to pass through the amendment process. It really is unlikely to succeed but there will be ample time to make one’s opinions on the topic very clear to one’s state legislatures.
I encourage all and sundry to go and review today’s Kelo decision by the SCOTUS. Seriously, go figure it out. If you own property anywhere near areas that might have high commercial value and/or near any area that might be deemed “in need of economic revitalization”, your right to continue to own that property at your pleasure has just been very seriously compromised.
I’m still struggling to get a handle on this one but every indication I have so far suggests this may be one of the most impactful decisions taken in a real long time.
Folks out in the hinterlands have been screaming about this issue for a long time but the folks in the hi-density areas finally have to consider this issue.
“Then again, the 1989 decision reasoned that this was a First Amendment issue, rather than property rights.”
The above is factually correct. The rhetorical question is: When did the definition of “speech” come to include arson?
This is a lousy measure because it’s too narrow. We need to restrict judicial over-reach such as forced this stupied amendment.
The way to do this to amend the constitution in such a way as to allow supermajority legislative action to establish a rational definition of free speech which excludes “expressions” of dissent like arson.
RiverRat,
I think “arson” is the burning of someone else’s property, or the burning of one’s own property, with intent to defraud the insurance company.
I agree that “speech” has been defined extremely broadly.
Bostonian,
I think an argument can be made that burning a flag is more than the simple distruction of personal property. A national flag is more than cloth, dye, and thread. You can buy the makings or the finished product but you can’t buy a national symbol. It belongs to the nation as whole and the nation, imo, has the right to legislate it’s protection.
Sorry,
destruction and “as a whole”
Gotta wonder why they’re doing it. I mean, I’m the type to slug someone burning a flag, and yet I’m against this insane amendment.
Kalroy
They’re perfectly free to burn a flag. I’ll even help them tie it around their head.
An Amendment? Silly congresscritters, amendments are for grownups!
The last time this came up, or maybe the time before, or… Anyway, burning is actually the proper way to dispose of a US flag.
Roger:
I agree with most everyone about the silliness of the flag burning issue. I use it as a easy method to detect idiots. Anyone who is ignorant enough to burn the American Flag is someone i feel free to ignore because the act is the first sign of political retardation.
The SCOTUS decision is chilling.Eminent Domain has always been with us but todays verdict takes any sense of restraint from the government. There was always abuses but the need to provide some idea of the inability of the private market to provide the service(railroads, highways etc, ect) has been tossed aside.It has been reduced to if the government wants your land, you have no legal standing to stop it.
This may help Justice Brown with any further confirmation battle. One of the favorite attack lines of the left was a speech that she made that supposedly attacked Roosevelt. What she was protesting was the SCOTUS dimunation of property rights. She correctly pointed out that our founding fathers held property rights the equal of freedom of speech and she was warning about the creeping idea that property rights were a lesser right. Todays decision proves her Cassandra prophesy correct.
Knucklehead:
I heard this idea somewhere today in regards to today’s SCOTUS ruling. The city of D.C. should decide that the 9 homes of the curent Supreme Court members could be better used by other private parties and take them away from them.For the betterment of the whole of course.
“One of our great freedoms is the freedom to be a jackass.”
No one should better understand this than our politicians.
this is all about politics, nothing more.
Dems have made Koran “desecration” a criminal offense, bowing essentially to the legal standards of other, muslim nations (as a good many liberal Supreme Court Justices want).
OK, here’s the counter-attack by Republicans. We’ll see your Koran Desecration and raise you a Flag Burning.
Just recently a group of Muslims in NYC had a flag burning and stomping to “celebrate” 9/11 and the terrorists in Iraq, bin Laden. These are compelling pictures to run against Dems, who politically can’t vote for it without alienating their base.
It’s also a trap for Hillary Clinton. She’ll have to vote against it, imagine the pictures you can run (angry Muslim Flag burners and stompers with pictures of bin Laden, Piss Christ and John Fleck’s Jesus on a toilet, plus Hillary or whoever gets the nod). This is all politics and no policy.
Jim:
I agree with about the political aspect of this idea. I got this second hand but I heard that HRC has announced that she will vote against any constitutional ammendment but will vote for anti- flag burning legislation. Since she knows that the courts have already declared this idea unconstitutional it will get tossed out. If true this would be her I voted for it and against it moment.
I’m opposed to this amendment but how is this any different than the so called “hate crime” laws. That’s the prosecution of speech. If someone spray paints “I Love Lucy” on a Synagogue they get prosecuted for vandalism, if someone spray paints a swastika on a Synagogue they get prosecuted for a “hate crime” (unless of course you’re a Muslim wait and see it’ll happen) that’s prosecuting speech. The lefties on the “supreme court” of the US find a law outlawing flag burning, which is also a “hate crime”, unconstitutional but not the other “hate crime” laws. What Congress should do is pass an amendment that’ll eliminate the”supreme court”.