Flag Burning Amendment

If you really like the flag, you should be proud to live in a country where you can say "Everybody here has the right to burn the flag if he wants to, but they're not! Look around, and you'll see it flying everywhere." You shouldn't have to make a constitutional amendment for something 99.99% of the country would never even think about doing. Flag burning isn't really rampant in this country, you know.

Plus, a law against flag burning would be completely useless. People will find ways to desecrate the flag if they want to besides burning it. Then you'll have to pass laws against cutting the flag up into little pieces, against eating the flag, against throwing mud at the flag, against putting the flag on the ground and stomping on it, against flying it upside-down, etc etc etc. And what constitutes a flag anyways? Would it be legal if it had 12 stripes and wasn't really the American flag? Or how about this flag? Can I burn a picture of the flag? Can I burn a picture of a burning flag, to show my distaste in anti-Americanism? Can I melt a plastic flag?

I'm not saying I want to do any of those things (even though I really don't like the current US government, I'd prefer to just talk about it because burning flags does nothing but piss people off). But this flag burning amendment flies in the face of the basic human right to freedom of self-expression. You should be able to express yourself however you like so long as you don't harm anyone else or anyone else's property. If you don't like flag-burning, don't burn flags or hang around people who do. Besides, people are still at liberty to burn the Seal of the President, to burn a pile of the 50 state flags, or to burn an effigy of the Statue of Liberty, so these attempts to silence dissent are not only contrary to the very freedoms the American Revolution was fought for, they're pointless.

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You're contradicting yourself if you think this amendmant is wrong!!

The american flag represents our rights, freedoms, and constitution. If you think it should be ok to burn our flag, then you're basicly saying its okay for our freedoms to be burned away.

not when the country no longer stands for what the flag does...i don't see why burning one should be illegal. i wouldn't do it in the first place.

Good call, pisshead. It actually took alot out of me to post that. America isn't even free anymore :-P

Don't get me wrong, I like bush and alot of what this country stands for. But it just seems like its one freedom after another thats being taken from us. Including the most recent one today, our right to our own property. :-P

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Originally Posted by pisshead

not when the country no longer stands for what the flag does...

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i think thats bullshit man. i dont think you actually realize how free you are...i bet if you posted all this shit in saddam's day in iraq, theyd hunt you down and skin ya...you dont have it bad at all here in the USA. It could be alot fucking worse.

makor01, you're partially right. America is one of the most free countries. My mom's co-worker who lived in russia, she came to america and first walked into a supermarket and saw all the food in that store, and that you could select whatever you wanted from it, she fainted. She never even dreamed of a freedom like that. That is why america is so great.

But on the other hand, America is going down the drain too. If you can disagree with that, look at what alot of this website and NORML stands for. The patriot act basically fucked the shit out of our freedoms, and the government is getting more and more powers, and we're losing more and more of our freedoms. The government is hiding certain things within other bills being passed so they can manipulate our country.

We are no longer in control of our country, the government is. And the government is no longer the people.

this morning's supreme court decision on eminent domain is very telling of the direction this country is taking.

that's not something to be excited about.

I bet it'll be overturned by congress soon. Hopefully.

OH, AND I'D JUST LIKE TO POINT OUT THAT IT WAS THE LIBERAL JUSTICES WHO MADE THIS RULING, SO HAHAHA YOU CAN'T BLAME IT ON BUSH THIS TIME!! :D

There was a federal law banning the desecration of the flag from 1968 to 1989. 18 USC 700 stated: "Whoever knowingly casts contempt upon any flag of the United States by publicly mutilating, defacing, defiling, burning, or trampling upon it shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both."

It was later amended to include: "The term 'flag of the United States' as used in this section, shall include any flag, standard colors, ensign, or any picture or representation of either, or of any part or parts of either, made of any substance or represented on any substance, of any size evidently purporting to be either of said flag, standard, color, or ensign of the United States of America, or a picture or a representation of either, upon which shall be shown the colors, the stars and the stripes, in any number of either thereof, or of any part or parts of either, by which the average person seeing the same without deliberation may believe the same to represent the flag, standards, colors, or ensign of the United States of America."

So basically, burning a photo of the US flag was deemed to be the same as burning an actual flag and carried the same punishment. Luckily, the Supreme Court struck down the law in the case of Texas v. Johnson.

I'd be interested to read the exact text of the Amendment as passed by the House. It wouldn't suprise me if it made, say, American flag boxer shorts or cutting a flag-themed cake illegal, as the old law did.

If this isn't completely ridiculous, I don't know what is.

And as an aside, why is it that the people whose religion bans idolatry are the ones so up in arms over the symbol of the US? I realize that there isn't a direct connection between the First Commandment and burning the flag, but I do see it as being an ironic parallel.

The flag is just a flag. It's not the nation. Stop worshipping it.

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Originally Posted by bhallg2k

The flag is just a flag. It's not the nation. Stop worshipping it.

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Yeah but that flag does represent this nation and should not be burned. There are other "productive" ways to protest, burning our flag is not one of them.