A couple of quick thoughts.
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.
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?
Because, despite what some will have you believe, there is no epidemic of flag burning going on.
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.
This is "Gay Marriage" for the 2006 election cycle. Shut it down now.
-The Oklahoma Hippy
"As I have said in the past, 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..." Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
ReplyDeleteIs she a fascist as well or just succombing to political pressure? For the record I also do not support the amendment, for whatever that's worth, but does the fact that she would support federal legislation banning flag descration also make her a fascist? (putting aside the fact that any federal or state law banning it for purposes of suppressing a message would be unconstitutional after the Supreme Court case of Johnson v. Texas)
The point here isn't that they want to protect the flag.
ReplyDeleteIf they wanted to protect the flag, they could pass a law against flag desecration just as she said. But of course, it would get over turned because we have the first amendment.
You could of course pass a law that required flags to be made of flame retardant material.
But that's not the point either.
There is no flag burning going on. This is an attempt to divide the country for political purposes timed to coincide with the mid term elections next year.
Dividing the population of your country against itself as a means of holding on to power is wrong.
Add to that the remarks of Karl Rove saying that liberals' motives is to get our troops killed points to the fact that "liberals" are being made into the new enemy.
And to answer your question directly, no, that doesn't make her a fascist. That makes her a panderer. She doesn't want to appear to be on the wrong side of the issue, so she's on both sides.
The people who are manufacturing this division are the fascists.
-The Oklahoma Hippy
The 1st Amendment has worked just fine for 200 yrs. Anyway do you really want the courts deciding what desecration is? Is it a dirty hat, a these colors don't run t-shirt (they run and fade) torn and hanging over "Joe's" beer belly. Where does it stop.
ReplyDeleteIt's the "missing rich white girl" smokescreen of Congress. I think they need to get to work.