I understand that many of my conservative friends – and even Arlen Specter, the hypocritical bastard – are in favor of the proposed amendment that the Senate will start debating today on criminalizing the burning of the American flag.
But in a nation born of dissent, it seems to me that passing an amendment that would contradict one of the main things the flag represents is not only wrong but does an injustice to those who fought and died to protect it.
I know I’ll get a lot of flack for that last statement. But how meaningful can a heroes’ death be if we place a limit on what he died for? Must we also pass an amendment saying that this religion or that religion is outlawed? Should we amend the Constitution to prevent the New York Times from publishing all secrets? Perhaps we should have an amendment that outlaws lobbying? Or that limits demonstrations against the government?
We’d never think of amending the Constitution for any of those things. Even the New York Times, arrogant and self righteous though they may be, must be allowed to decide whether or not to publish information that may harm national security. We don’t like it. We believe they did it because, at bottom, they disagree with the government’s contention that we are at war and that publishing secrets gives aid and comfort to the enemy. But in the end, they must not be prevented from making their own judgments in such matters because to limit their decision making also puts prior restraint on their ability to publish. That is de facto censorship and cannot be allowed in a free society.
Living in America ain’t easy. This is a country that re-invents itself every few years, putting enormous strain on people to adapt. But there must be some things in America that should never change. And one of those things is the right to dissent in any way that does not harm another person or their property. Putting restraints on how someone dissents is the same as limiting their ability to disagree. Yes there are better ways to dissent than burning the flag. But who are you or I to tell anyone else that?
Burning the flag is hurtful, stupid, and reveals the dissenter to be more interested in provoking people than in making a statement against the government. But there’s no law against being an idiot. If that were the case, most politicians would be thrown in the slammer. Here’s Arlen Specter supporting the flag burning amendment:
Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, compared the measure to Supreme Court decisions banning so-called “fighting words,” slander, libel, obscenity and pornography involving children. As such, he said, it has no “social value.”“Flag burning is a form of expression that is spiteful or vengeful,” the five-term Pennsylvania Republican said during the debate. “It is designed to hurt. It is not designed to persuade.”
This from a man who has been on the Administration’s case over the NSA intercept program because of his own extraordinarily narrow interpretation of privacy rights. All of a sudden, he wants to radically broaden the definition of “fighting words?”
If we outlawed all political speech that wasn’t meant to persuade, we’d have to tape the mouths shut of every politician in the country, starting with Specter. And how in God’s name did child pornography get into the debate over flag burning? And who said that child porn had any connection whatsoever to the “fighting words” doctrine?
Specter and the Republicans in the Senate are pandering, pure and simple. I don’t mind it so much when they push something like the so called Marriage Amendment that hasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of passing. That kind of pandering is constitutionally harmless just because it will never pass. (Whether or not the issue is hurtful to gays is another issue entirely). But political posturing in support of this amendment that would limit the way people dissent is a different story. Mucking around with the Constitution for political gain is wrong. I felt the same way about ERA, the balanced budget, and the abortion amendments. Fooling around with the Constitution is deadly serious business which is why it has been amended only 17 times since the Bill of Rights became law.
I think this is the third post I’ve done on this issue and each time received varying rebukes from my readers for believing both flag burning and amending the constitution to criminalize it is wrong.
Hopefully, I won’t have to write another for a long, long time.
UPDATE
The amendment, needing two thirds to pass, fell short of passage by one vote 66-34. Here are the gory details.
Would it have passed 37 state legislatures and made part of the Constitution? That’s something I hope we never have to find out.
2:38 pm
I see flag burning as grave desicration. And I agree with Sphincter on the issue that it is designed to hurt. It is designed to push emotional buttons and is quite effective at pushing mine. That flag is all many have left of a loved one. To burn that flag is to pee on the graves on people’s friends and family who died defending their community and other people such as JFK who have inpired this country in great deeds (Kennedy inspired us to reach for the moon).
Maybe when that flag no longer drapes the caskets of our heroes, you can convince me. In the meantime, burning a flag is a slap at everyone who has one of those pieces of cloth in a tri-corner frame somewhere in their home reminding them of a loved one.
2:48 pm
I agree that idiots should be allowed to be themselves but my complaint would be that any response to the provocation has been outlawed. 50 years ago if someone was provocative you could straighten it out with some bare knuckle justice. But since this has been outlawed, these left wing light weights are enboldened.
2:57 pm
I am a firm believer in the First Amendment’s protection of free speech and I feel that an action such as an Amendment banning burning the American Flag to be contrary to the letter and intent of those protections.
But at the same time, I see bites being taken from the First in this day of politically correct thought and speech. How can you champion Free Speech and support actions that limit and/or punish hate speech. Yet we see it every day. How can you be a supporter of Free Speech and support convictions for hate crime. In these instances, thoughts along with actions are being questioned and punished to the detriment of the First Amendment.
You want to punish someone for desecrating the flag? Then where do you draw the line for the next “sacred” image or icon that requires such protection? The Koran? The Bible? We have to be careful of the path we take lest it lead to destinations never envisioned.
3:03 pm
Rick is completely correct. If some idiot burns the flag, he in no way infringes on anyone’s rights. Let him do it and ignore him.
3:32 pm
How about defending a free press while you are at it?
4:23 pm
I believe the only reason why flag burning is an effective form of protest is that it considered taboo. If you take away that effect by making it legal, its damage is greatly decreased.
pc,
define free press. a press that is completely free? that would be contradictory. the goal for all news firms should be objectivity. everyone has opinions and they should respected. however, it is in the best interest that Americans know the facts but as long it is free from bias. It should be the people that infer their biases. when a form of news media only displays news from one point of view it ceases to be media, it becomes propaganda. The New York Times just like Fox Radio is a propaganda vehicle. Unfortunately, it is only acceptable to lampoon Fox Radio as such.
5:04 pm
I hope this amendment goes up in flames (pun intended). This isn’t a conservative agenda. This is a Republican agenda. I’m so sick of this campaigning at the cost of my liberties. Our Founding Fathers have to be rolling in their graves at the very idea of this.
5:22 pm
Rick,
I don’t agree with the notion of amending the constitution to prohibit flag-burning, but let’s examine the mentality that underpins these kinds of initiatives.
We live in a country where people can be prosecuted for not only committing crimes, but what goes on inside their heads when they do. I’d bet good money that if someone decided to protest illegal immigration by burning the Mexican flag, someone (ACLU) would demand they be prosecuted for committing a hate crime.
It all goes back to the header motto on my site – all animals are equal, yada yada yada.
But it’s probably not that complicated – advocates of this amendment are probably just pandering.
5:26 pm
I too am against the flag burning ammendment.
It is a wrecking ball where a claw hammer will do.
Use local law to put the pinch on these idiots.
-”Do you have a burn permit sir?”
-”Public urination is against the law, you are under arrest.”
-”You cannot do that here with out a permit.”
-”You are disturbing the peace.”
-”I am going to have to take you into protective custody, before that group of good al’ boys beats the tar out of you.”
-add your own…
FAR too much is being done at the Federal and State levels that should be local.
Keep it simple and donw give the idiots a rallying cry.
Rob
6:37 pm
I hope this amendment goes up in flames (pun intended). This isn’t a conservative agenda. This is a Republican agenda.
So, where does one register for The Conservative Party ?
7:12 pm
Rick says:
.
Does it really matter “why†they did it? Are there extenuating circumstances to committing an act of treason?
You say that the NYT has a right to publish without hindrance anything they desire. Fine, the AG has the right to prosecute the publisher, the editor, the reporters and even shut the joint down.
This is not a rhetorical exercise about the freedom of the press. The NYT have been wormeating for a good long while now and because of that freedom, nothing has happened to hinder this right. When national security is harmed and Americans are put at risk, that right should lead them straight to a super-max. Or would you feel better about such a prosecution if we’re attacked by any alphabet terror group that slipped through that compromised highly classified operation?
7:16 pm
I agree with you on this one, Rick. That’s probably no comfort to you, given that I’m a liberal, but I do admire and respect you for taking a principled position that is consistent with your belief in freedom.
Well done.
7:20 pm
The flag amendment is not fundamental. The true damage that the left has done is to blur the distinction between speech and action.
You and the government can sure as hell regulate actions. You kill someone, they will prosecute. The left has destroyed the old understanding that “they can’t prosecute for what your thinking…” PC and “Hate laws” certainly prosecute you for what you’re thinking. They eviscerate the right to be private and secure in your thoughts and papers.
We need an amendment that say Only Speech is speech, and is protected.
Actions masquerading as “symbolic speech” are actions and can be enjoined.
Flag desecration, offensive actions masquerading as speech ar not speech, offensive clothing or non clothing displays, are actions and can be enjoined.
As a hypothetical example of the absurdity of “symbolic speech” I could wish that someone would kidnap the four members of the Mass Supreme court who have decided for the other 300 million Americans what its marital laws will be. This would ordinarily be a crime but and strip them naked (to insure it protected pornographic speech, (sarcasm)), before coating them with a coat of tar and the contents of a feather pillow before tying them to a fence rail and leaving them to be gleefully photographed by the tipped off Celebrity Press.
Now that action is no longer a crime of kidnapping and battery; but it is now arguably protected “symbolic speech” with a long tradition of known as “tar & feathering”.
This is pure insanity.
This is the fundamental subject for the Amendment which along the way cures Flag desecration and so many other offensive abominations.
7:30 pm
The flag amendment is not fundamental. The true damage that the Left has done is to blur the distinction between speech and action.
You and the government can sure as hell regulate actions. You kill someone, they will prosecute. The left has destroyed the old understanding that “they can’t prosecute for what your thinking…” “PC” and “Hate laws” certainly prosecute you for what you’re thinking. They eviscerate the right to be private and secure in your thoughts and papers.
We need an amendment that says: Only Speech is Speech, and is protected.
Actions masquerading as “symbolic speech” are A-C-T-I-O-N-S and can be enjoined.
Flag desecration, other offensive actions masquerading as speech are not speech, wearing of offensive clothing or non clothing displays, are actions and can be enjoined. These are not “symbolic speech”, ther is no such thing.
As a hypothetical example of the absurdity of “symbolic speech” I could wish that someone would kidnap the four members of the Massachusetts Supreme Court who have decided for the other 300 million Americans what its marital laws will be.
This would ordinarily be a crime but strip them naked (to insure it protected pornographic speech, (sarcasm!)), before coating them with a coat of tar. and the contents of a feather pillow, before tying them to a fence rail and leaving them to be gleefully photographed by the tipped off and gleeful Celebrity Press.
Now that action is no longer an actionable crime of kidnapping, and battery; but it is now arguably protected “symbolic speech” with a long tradition known as “tar & feathering”, It si symbolic speech.
This is pure insanity.
This should be the fundamental subject for the desireable Amendment, which along the way cures Flag desecration, and so many other offensive abominations, when you consider the effect.
8:27 pm
These people who want to jail journalists or have the gov. shut down newspapers must be young and/or have no education in history.
It is such a twisted vision on America, one that no one twenty years ago ever would have expressed. 30 years ago, we all read how they did that stuff in the soviet union…communist Russia and China. Never would it happen in America. Even during Watergate, never was there serios talk about jailing journalists.
If that flag amendment had passed, I would have burned the first flag ever in my lifetime. Not because I would enjoy it, but because of my need to defy those who are debasing and destroying what once made America the greatest bastion of freedom in the world. Those days are now gone. Let’s pray we get them back.
9:48 pm
Rick said, “Even the New York Times, arrogant and self righteous though they may be, must be allowed to decide whether or not to publish information that may harm national security”.
Justice Holmes said, “The Constitution isn’t a suicide pact”.
I’m with Oliver Wendall
1:32 am
[...] Or maybe Hatch should think about the wrath of the voters. Across the political stripes, the call is the fight over this amendment was a waste of time. Some things don’t change. American values have a resonance with Americans, even if Republicans claim September Eleventh changed everything until the end of time. Opponents said the amendment would violate the First Amendment right to free speech. And some Democrats complained that majority Republicans were exploiting people’s patriotism for political advantage in November’s midterm elections. [...]
2:22 am
Colin Powell, as quoted by Senator Patrick Leahy, said it best.
3:24 am
Flag Desecration Amendment Rejected By Senate
From the AP:
constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration died in a Senate cliffhanger Tuesday, a single vote short of the support needed to send…
7:09 am
Joe, you can burn that flag anytime you want in front of my house. I have a fire hose ready to aim at your head.
11:07 am
I will agree to allow any idiot to burn the flag if no says anything about the first Marine, Soldier, Sailor or Airmen who kicks his butt for doing it. That’s free speech.
11:36 pm
And I have a gun I’ll aim at yours if you do, tough guy.
But thankfully, there is no need to burn a flag now that the constitution has been spared descration by the gop pandering hypocrite losers.
12:15 am
=?utf-8?Q?LET=E2=80=99S?= TORCH THE FLAG BURNING AMENDMENT
Right Wing Nut HouseI understand that many of my conservative friends – and even Arlen Specter, the hypocritical bastard – are in favor of the proposed amendment that the Senate will start debating today on criminalizing the burning of the …
7:43 am
Great response to this flag burning nonsense from fighting Democrat Jim Web… seems George Felix Allen Jr and his fellow want to be’s may be well advised to back off when attacking highly decorated veteran on matters of patriotism! No swift boating this time pal! ROFLMAO
http://www.webbforsenate.com/#
8:01 pm
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5:35 am
Flag-burning amendment dies in U.S. Senate
A constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration died in a cliffhanger vote in the Senate yesterday, one vote short of the support needed to send it to the states for ratification.
1:01 pm
Nice!