Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Flag Burning -- Again

The House today passed a Flag Burning Amendment. You know making it illegal to burn a flag as a political statement.

Now they are unlikely to get enough votes in the Senate.

But let me state my position. I'm a vet. I honor the sacrifices of our vets. One of the most important things I fought for is the right to disrespect America and its symbols. Patriotism must not be mindless. It must not be mandated by law. It must be earned (you listening Washington?).

The Amendment would read: "The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States." So now according to the Constitution the flag will get treatment equal to Korans in Gitmo? Why am I not impressed? Why would I want enforced reverence? How is desecration going to be defined? The courts are not full enough with drug offenders? We need to add flag offenders? The charge? Insufficient reverence? Surely you are joking?

If this gets made into law, the night before this goes into effect, I'm going to burn every flag I own. And I will not salute that flag again until the Amendment is repealed.

The Flag Burning Amendment in my opinion is unAmerican. And so is every Representative who voted for it.

Charles of LGF agrees totally. The Captain is in some agreement but thinks we have too many judge granted rights. He need to get out his Declaration and read it to find out where rights come from. Eugene Volokh has an opinion.

Here is a bit I wrote for the comments:

I predict if this passes you will only see flags at government functions.

Who would want to display a flag and risk being brought up on charges?

Raise the cost of flag waving and you get less of it.

See what will happen is that the moonbats will report desecrations done inadvertantly by flag wavers.

End result. Only governments will display the flag.

You can see it coming.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Norman Thomas:
If you want a symbolic gesture, don't burn the flag; wash it.

I understand your sentiments. Will Rogers, having rolled numerous times in his grave, is undoubtedly laughing from his lofty perch.

jj mollo said...

Why not the day after?

M. Simon said...

jj,

And give the Congress cowards a case to prosecute?

Some laws I break. Some I prefer to ignore.

This may be one of those cases.

I hope I am making myself perfectly clear. :-)

M. Simon said...

I predict if this passes you will only see flags at government functions.

Who would want to display a flag and risk being brought up on charges?

Raise the cost of flag waving and you get less of it.

See what will happen is that the moonbats will report desecrations done inadvertantly by flag wavers.

End result. Only governments will display the flag.

You can see it coming.

M. Simon said...

bjornski,

Just leave the link. I will turn it into html for you.

Or go here CE Design - HTML Cheats for some hints.