We have flags flying at my house. Until very recently we had two "porch sized" ensigns at the front of our house. Some people think that's an excessive display of patriotism, flag waving and/or a sign of rampant Republicanism. Y'all know me well enough to figure that I don't give much of a fuck about that. I like the flag, I respect it, I am proud to fly it in front of my house and I fully and completely believe that excess is good.
Anyway, we are down to one now as the other had achieved a tattered state. What to do? It was one of those all weather nylon types made to stay up and out for years at a time. I couldn't toss it in the garbage can. I wouldn't be comfortable thinking about it sitting inside a pile of refuse for a couple hundred years. Fortunately, precedent, custom and even law came to the rescue:
United States Code Title 4, Section 1, Item (k): The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning.
I folded it up into the Widow's Triangle and we said the Pledge of Allegiance. Lovely Wife did a chorus of The Star Spangled Banner. Just the first bit of course, that sucker is murder on the voice. Then I put it in our burn barrel and we all dove aside to avoid the toxic fumes and spitting bits of molten plastic. It was a really nice moment and I think the kids picked up something from it.
Now our Congressmen, apparently lacking any real work to focus on, are busy making it possible for me to be arrested for doing this. H.J.Res. 10 changes the constitution to allow legislators to make flag burning a crime. A crime as in penalties, fines, jail time.
They've been trying to do this for a long, long time. It has been either ignored or struck down by the Senate every other year since 1995. Now they think that there are enough Senators willing to pass the amendment. They feel confident that enough states will ratify it as well. This is mainly because they will present it as protecting the flag and not as altering the constitution to remove a subset of our rights. They will most assuredly not make any sort of note to clarify that the actual actions that are being prohibited will be determined at a later date.
They couldn't pass laws against flag burning, because that violated constitutional protections.
They couldn't pass an amendment against flag burning because there is slightly too much sanity on The Hill.
So they went the back route. Make a generic amendment that creates a brand new set of illegalities possible and then pass laws on the state level to flesh them out.
I have two things to say to these vigilantes against sanity and freedom. First, keep your fucking hands off of my Constitution. Second, just fuck off period.
(Hat tip to Lovely Wife)
I think a much more sensible amendment to the Constitution would be one that guarantees the rights of property owners over private interests.
But that would actually be doing some good, wouldn't it! No, no, can't have that. Let's instead amend the Constitution to criminalize the actions of a few stupid individuals who need to spend a year in North Korea to figure out what freedom is all about.
And chip away at our personal rights just a little more.
IMHO, the best way to deal with a protester burning the flag is to thoroughly kick his/her ass. Such people should have the right to spit on, burn, or otherwise desecrate the flag if they feel like it; however they also should have the right to experience the painful consequences for behaving like an idiot.
Here's a link to today's Gwinnett section of the AJC that pretty well sums up my feelings on the subject:
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/gwinnett/0705/07badie.html
When I was a boy scout, we did that to an old flag. If I recall, there's an actual ceremony to it all. I think we tore the stripes off, then tore the stars from the blue feild, then burned it.
But not before singing a few rounds of Kumbayah.
All a bunch of BULLSHIT about a freaking piece of FABRIC!No matter what it stands for or means to one,its STILL just a DAMN flag.I wish some people would be just as concerned about real shit thats going on,as they are about a piece of fabric.Ok,I better hide under a rock now for saying this.....
Agreed. Simply nothing else to say to that.
well done; well said.
This is patriosim gone mad. What will come next? A curb on speech against what the government is doing? One may not disagree with the sitting president?
Not a good step, not a good step at all.
Major BS.