A couple of quick thoughts.
Flag Burning is the GOP's "Gay Marriage" for the 2006 election cycle. Don't let them get away with this.
What are we talking about?
Forget whatever the people behind this want to sell you. This is a very simple issue.
This is a partial repeal of the 1st amendment right to Freedom of Speech as afforded to us by the Constitution of the United States of America.
(Much More Below)
This is coming from the same people who claim that we should not be able to limit the amount of money that corporations give to political campaigns because that would be an infringement of the very same right.
In the US Code regulating the Flag of our country, it says that the only way to retire a flag is to respectfully burn it.
So, we now have a distinction between burning a flag as a means of retiring it from service under the regulation of federal law and burning a flag as a means of making an ideological statement.
The difference here is motive.
The same people pushing this amendment oppose hate crime legislation because it stiffens penalties based upon what a person's motive was.
Yet they are in favor of the Flag Burning Amendment.
This is a cheap ploy to create an issue to divide the country in time for the mid-term elections.
People will see through it. People will not stand for it.
The very idea that we would repeal the first amendment to gain some short term political ground is simply disgusting.
We have real problems in this country. We have real problems abroad. And the leadership of the Republican Party feels the need to waste their time, energy, and resources on this? This can be counted among THE LEAST PRESSING ISSUES in the history of the Senate.
And do you know why?
Aaron Sorkin said it best through the voice of fictional President Jed Bartlett.
After having listened to 50 people tell him why they supported the Flag Burning Amendment, Bartlett replies, "Well, thank you for your time and your concern, but as I've been listening to all of you for the last hour, I felt the need to ask: Is there some epidemic of flag burning that I have not been made aware of?"
This is not a remedy for any existing problem. It's a wedge meant to destroy the unity that's forming against this fascist regime and their policies.
And those of you out there who want to prove a point by showing these fascists that they can't tell you what to do, listen up.
The moment you burn one flag to just to show you can, they win.
Shout and Scream. Protest in the Street. Don't you burn a flag. The media will never stop playing the tape, and then the amendment will pass the state legislatures because of local politicians' collective fear of paying a political price in the short term.
Don't be fooled. If this passes, the federal government will use it as evidence that political speech can be limited. Any form of speech the party in control wants to deem as anti-American and inflammatory will become a crime, pointing to the Flag Burning Amendment as the rational.
- Don't let anyone get away with calling it anything other than a repeal of the first amendment.
- Don't start burning flags to prove points.
- Don't let anyone call you un-American for not supporting this.
- Ask everyone what form of political disagreeable speech is next.
This is "Gay Marriage" for the 2006 election cycle. Shut it down now.
-The Oklahoma Hippy
Update [2005-6-22 23:20:23 by SenatorX]:
Look, I understand the inclination to rebel by doing the very thing they don't want us to, but this is about pragmatism.
Close you eyes and remember the way Dean was treated in the week following the Iowa Caucuses. Now add a burning flag to it.
There will be no debate. There will be no reasoning. There will only be gut wrenching emotion and new calls that the left hates America.
But they'll have an image to go along with it.
I know it's bullshit. You know it too. But that won't keep the 80% of the population who pays no attention at all save for what's on the Tee Vee from foaming at the mouth.
This really is a case where not to engage in the activity really is in our best interest.
I emplore anyone and everyone reading this: Don't go there.
Please reccomend to spread the word if you agree that to suddenly start burning flags plays into the goals of the fascists.