Surprise! ACLU takes both sides of flag issue.
ACRU: Press Ignores ACLU Flip-Flop on Flags
Jim Broussard explained his action by saying, “I took this flag down in honor of my country with a knife from the U.S. Army. I’m not going to see this happen to my country. I want to see someone fight me for this flag.”
The Reno police recognized that the flag display in this case was wrong. But they took the position that the US flag code is “advisory” because it has no “criminal enforcement requirements.”
The ACLU entered the fray, against the position of the veteran. In a statement the Nevada ACLU said, “If the federal flag rules were mandatory, they would clearly violate the First Amendment, which protects every American’s right to speak and express themselves, including their choice of flag to display.”
The ACLU had the chutzpah to add this, “In 1989, the Supreme Court held that we even have the right to burn our own flag.” In that case, the ACLU got the US Supreme Court to rule by a narrow margin that it is freedom of speech for an American to burn an American flag.
Let’s assume that is true. What is the message in burning a US flag? Does it mean “I hate America”? Or, “I hate Americans”? Well, what would be the message if this veteran had not merely rescued the US flag from misuse, but had removed and burned the Mexican flag? His real message was “I respect America.” But had he destroyed the Mexican flag, would it have meant, “I hate Mexico”? Or, “I hate Mexicans”?
The ACLU defends the destruction of the American flag, for the message it conveys. On the other hand, in this case, they are protecting the Mexican flag from disrespect.
As ACRU points out, if a flag is used in a demonstration of hatred for your country, it is protected by the First Amendment. If a flag is involved in a demonstration of love for your country, the ACLU will reflexively take the other side.
Now, of course there are distinctions — this guy did remove the Mexican flag from private property. American flags that have been stomped, burned and spat upon are typically (I don’t have the empirical evidence of this, but am willing to concede that this is likely) purchased or created by the people who hate the very country, so blessedly free, that allows such infantile biting-of-the-hand-that-feeds and has the ACLUs of the world call it “free speech.” (I am pretty certain, though, that the ACLU would defend the “rights” of flag burners even if those flags were procured by other means.)
ACRU does make a good philosophical point about the ACLU’s position that the American flag may (MUST!!!) be burned, but the Mexican flag must be respected. I wonder if this position explains the ACLU’s relative silence on behalf of the students in this case. Gotta “respect” the flags of terrorist organizations I guess!
I am personally opposed to a flag burning amendment and think that spoiled brats should be able to treat their flags however they choose as long as no one is endangered by the act. (Para exemplo: The Very Reverend Barack Obama shouldn’t just have the right to remove his “phony patriot” pin, but stomp it into moondust…what do I care?) It just says so much about such people and it says even more about the freedoms with which we are blessed. Such cretins should be on display like a baboon’s nasty red rear-end and should be prepared to be ridiculed without sobbing Dixie-Chicks-style that they are being “censored” because others are actually exercising their own right to speak about their soggy Pampers actions.
I wonder how the ACLU squares their position that this patriot was trespassing on someone else’s property and compromising that person’s “rights” when the ACLU does everything it can to make sure that millions of people who would fly another flag above our own are able to trespass in our country and trample our rights as a sovereign nation.
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Posted by Greg Scott on October 11, 2007 8:38 am
» Filed Under 1st Amendment, ACLU, News
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2 Responses to “Surprise! ACLU takes both sides of flag issue.”
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Syndicate Me
Glib, you hardly post anymore and this is the best you can muster?
I doubt you’ll find a single instance of the ACLU defending theft. This is really pretty simple. I can do as I wish with my flag. You can do as you wish with your flag. I can’t touch your flag. You can’t touch mine. The color and pattern of the dyes in the flag are irrelevant in this matter.
Thanks for noticing my absence JM!
I probably should have researched a little better before I made the above statement and offered the benefit of the doubt to the filthy hippies who hate our country.
In fact, in the 1989 Johnson case, one the ACLU lauds as a great victory for free speech, Johnson STOLE the flag he burned. Game. Set. Match. Sorry bro, you lose this one pretty badly.
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/PDF/FirstReport.Flag.Desecration_FINAL.PDF (Page 15)
Did you, by any chance, read what I wrote regarding treatment of one’s own flag? Pretty much what you wrote in your last few sentences. My point was ACLU double-talk, not the issue of flag destruction itself.