Making Flag Burning Illegal

[quote]mertdawg wrote:
OK, put simply

  1. When John Kerry says he is morally against abortion but would not vote against it BECAUSE he believes in seperation of church and state, I HAVE NOT RESPECT FOR HIM whatsoever.

  2. When a conservative proposes a law to prevent the “DESICRATION” of the flag, FOR POLITICAL REASONS, HE shits on the flag.

How did these messed up SOBs come to represent us?[/quote]

In this case Hillary Clinton is the conservative.

Here’s an interesting quote from the esteemed Hillary Clinton: ‘I support federal legislation that would outlaw flag desecration, much like laws that currently prohibit the burning of crosses, but I don’t believe a constitutional amendment is the answer’

It is all stupid pandering.

[quote]Marmadogg wrote:

The courts would not have to decide on everything if our elected officals were not so lazy and trying to keep their repective jobs at all costs.

[/quote]

This is very true. And what they can’t get the courts to do, they often try to delegate to “expert agencies,” so that the SEC or FTC or whichever agency can be the bad guy and do the regulating.

I think it has most to do with them wanting to avoid accountability on anything, which we shouldn’t let them get away with in our system.

[quote]mertdawg wrote:
You may be right, I’m not sure. I’ve heard moderates say that freedom of speech was intended to allow public criticism of the government without fear of imprisonment. Others who say that it was intended to protect ones right to state an opinion, but not their right to choose the precise time, place or form of the statement of the opinion. And then there are those who say that clearly the framers of the constitution intended the right to bear arms to give the general public the military means to overthrow the government if necessary.
[/quote]

The framers were certainly concerned both with the ability of the citizen to speak out against his government as well as the progress of the “useful arts.” To those who think that free speech has a “time and place,” the amendment says that congress “shall make no law” abridging freedom of speech or of the press. None. Not one. No “free speech zones.” No “free speech times.”

And with regard to bearing arms, I leave you with Thomas Jefferson: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots
and tyrants.”

Yeah, that’s pretty much the way the law stands, although the logic behind it is flawed IMHO.

We don’t have hate-speech laws per se. While personal insults, e.g. saying to someone “You are a stupid fattie,” are not protected political speech, saying “I think fat people are stupid” is protected political speech, as it’s a general statement. So there can be laws that restrict the former, but not the latter.

Going to what nephorm’s point was, the Supreme Court has held that it is legal for a legislative body to tack on additional penalties based on motivation, i.e. the hate-crime laws, but this only applies to actions that are already illegal. For example, they can give a stiffer penalty for a battery if they find the perpetrator was beating the victim because the perpetrator didn’t like people of the victim’s race. To get technical, they have to find that the “hate” was a proximate cause of the crime.

HOWEVER, they can’t make something otherwise legal to be illegal simply due to the motivation. For example, if it’s legal for me to put up posters somewhere, they can’t make it illegal to put up posters there because my posters say mean things about fat people (or whomever).

And they definitely cannot make it illegal to say or otherwise communicate an idea simply because they don’t like the idea – no matter how unpopular, wrong, harmful, etc. the idea is.

[quote]nephorm wrote:
And with regard to bearing arms, I leave you with Thomas Jefferson: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots
and tyrants.”

[/quote]

But do you want Billy Bob down the street playing with flame throwers and rocked launchers?

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:

swivel wrote:
bb can you expand on this ? i’m not up on politics but i’m trying every chance i get to gain better understanding. i’m assuming from the “context clues” that there is legislation in place which prevents hate-speech while restricting 1st amm. freedoms ?

nephorm wrote:
I’m not BB, but I’ll take a crack, here. Legislators cannot, because of the 1st amendment, make hateful comments illegal. What they can do, apparently, is make penalties stiffer for people who seem to be motivated by hatred for a minority or protected class. So if I kill a guy on the street, it’s one prison term. If I kill him while screaming racial epithets, it’s a different prison term, and I’m being charged with a “hate crime.” The speech is not criminalized per se, but in combination with another crime, it exacerbates the offense. Make sense?
[/quote]

I always hated those laws.

“I am going to kill you. But its not so bad because I don’t hate you.”

The “law” the House of Representatives passed is the first step toward a Constitutional amendment to specifically make burning the flag illegal. It needs to go through the entire amendment ratification process, including 2/3 approval in the Senate and with 3/4 of the state legislatures signing on.

[quote]Professor X wrote:
I don’t agree with the act. However, the moment we start making actions we don’t agree with illegal simply because we don’t agree with them, the easier it will be to eventually make further restrictions on any action that whoever is in power doesn’t agree with. [/quote]

Professor X has hit it on the head. It is not the act of burning the flag that is at stake here, it is the God given right to protest what your country is doing, sometimes through any and all means necessary. If they can ban this, than where does the right to protest go? Will they ban protests that are too large, saying they are un-American? Lets not forget that the first things to come down in the Revolution were the statues of George III. The men pulling them down were, by law of the land, traitors and rebels. Were they un-American?

The flag is a symbol of an idealized America, an America where certain things like the Patriot Act and the Downing Street Memo never happen. To me it seems that our country is heading straight down the shitter, and there is a lot more to worry about than passing a law that bans something that, essentially, is just a form of protest.

Who here wants to get rid of social security?

We don’t have time for that! People are a-burn’n flags.

[quote]mertdawg wrote:
OK, put simply

  1. When John Kerry says he is morally against abortion but would not vote against it BECAUSE he believes in seperation of church and state, I HAVE NOT RESPECT FOR HIM whatsoever.[/quote]

This is not a church and state issue but a libertarian issue…think about it.

[quote]mertdawg wrote:
2) When a conservative proposes a law to prevent the “DESICRATION” of the flag, FOR POLITICAL REASONS, HE shits on the flag.[/quote]

are you saying that a politican is $h!ting on the flag if he proposes a law to prevent the flag’s desicration?

[quote]mertdawg wrote:
Who here wants to get rid of social security?

We don’t have time for that! People are a-burn’n flags. [/quote]

Social Security is for another thread.

Congress should pass a law that prohibits the federal government from supplementing Social Security as when it stops running a surplus in 2042. This will ensure benefits will have to be cut while retirement age will have to be raised until this program loses favor with the American public at which time it can be abolished.

I know this view will not make me popular but this is how I feel.

Letting politicians fundamentally change SS will increase deficit spending and line the politicans PACs.

[quote]mertdawg wrote:
nephorm wrote:
And with regard to bearing arms, I leave you with Thomas Jefferson: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots
and tyrants.”

But do you want Billy Bob down the street playing with flame throwers and rocked launchers?[/quote]

When you sacrifice liberty for safety you get neither.

[quote]Marmadogg wrote:
mertdawg wrote:
OK, put simply

  1. When John Kerry says he is morally against abortion but would not vote against it BECAUSE he believes in seperation of church and state, I HAVE NOT RESPECT FOR HIM whatsoever.

This is not a church and state issue but a libertarian issue…think about it. [/quote]

That would have been a “valid” argument, but he’s the one who mentioned seperation of church and state.

If he or she is using it for political purposes it is using the flag inappropriately.

Some things have prices. The right to free speech also has a price… because you might hear or see something you don’t like.

So, if they pass this law, whats to stop you from making a flag that has the wrong number of stars, and burning it instead? Or, will they eliminate flag burning in general? Can you burn the confederate flag?

[quote]Marmadogg wrote:
mertdawg wrote:
nephorm wrote:
And with regard to bearing arms, I leave you with Thomas Jefferson: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots
and tyrants.”

But do you want Billy Bob down the street playing with flame throwers and rocked launchers?

When you sacrifice liberty for safety you get neither.
[/quote]

Nonsense. When you sacrifice liberty for safety, you get less liberty and more safety. If you get neither, then you have not sacrificed liberty for safety, you have screwed up.

why is something like this a partisan issue ?

it seems the real issue here isn’t about the piece of cloth but about control ?

seems to me the best way to stop flag burning is to have a national flag burning day to celebrate and demonstrate our political freedoms. after all how many hippie skankers are gonna be firing up ol’ glory once they see dick frickn cheney doin’ it ?

Larry, you are so missing the point…

[quote]mertdawg wrote:
I always hated those laws.

“I am going to kill you. But its not so bad because I don’t hate you.”
[/quote]

a love-crime. frickn hilarious !

Dig the avatar Swivel. Go Sox!

This is false patriotism.

The people we need to be concerned about are not the ones who burn flags. We need to be concerned about the people who want to burn the constitution.

The constitution is what makes America what it is, not the flag.

The men who fought at Lexington and Concord weren’t there because they were dying to have someone design a new flag.

They were there to stand up for their rights and fight for their freedom.

The constitution is what defines our rights and protects our freedom.

This shows how little the politicians think of our intelligence and for good reason. We keep letting them get away with trying this kind of bullshit.

The 6 out of 10 people who don’t vote are in fact making a vote. They are saying that niether of the parties represents them.

I blame this in big part on the news media. The media’s relentless pursuit of scandal has reduced our political choices down to the point that there are few to no good choices.

There are many competant people who do not run for office because they don’t want every little detail of their personal life dissected in the press.

We should form a nonpartisan political action committee dedicated to seeing every one who votes to make flag burning illegal replaced.

What we need in this country is a revolution in our thinking.