To desecrate or not to desecrate the flag, what is the answer?
Posted on June 27, 2006
Update: No flag burning amendment.
As the senate debates Flag Burning Amendment, one has to search where one’s position is on the issue of desecrating the flag. Desecration could be tearing, stomping, burning, or defacing the flag.
When I heard the uproar opposing the amendment, my mind went back to last year, June 2005, when a group of American radicalized Muslims produced a video that showed its members on a New York City street corner stomping on U.S. flag and then ripping it apart while declaring dominance over America.
In the video, released by the New York-based Islamic Thinkers Society, was the group pushing the envelop? The group said their demonstration was “in response to the desecration of the holy Quran by the Crusaders & Zionists at Guantanamo Bay,” an allegation based on a retracted Newsweek story.
William Teach at The Pirates Cove made a good observation:
It is against the law to kill a bald eagle, which, besides being endangered, is a national icon. If the (New York) Times can claim that burning a Flag is protected Free Speech, why couldn’t I claim that I should be able to shoot a bald eagle as Free Speech (not that I would, mind you)? Or, burn the New York Times building as a protest against their anti-American articles? Isn’t that Free Speech? Or just a violent action, designed to make one feel better, but harm and offend others in the process?
Whether an individual or group desecrates a U.S. flag by ripping, stomping, or burning, one has to ask, “Is it an appropriate gesture of our freedom of speech?” Or, have we missed something in the translation of what freedom of speech means? What does freedom of speech mean to you?
Please let me know your position on the issue.
For more on the desecration story out of New York City last year, please visit the archived article: U.S. Muslims desecrate American flag
Cross-posted at: The Bosun Locker
Technorati Tags: America … Old Glory … US Flag … Flag Burning … Constitutional Amendment … Senate … Freedom of Speech … Desecration … Reactionary … Protest … Flag Desecration
» Filed Under 1st Amendment, ACLU, Activist Judges, History, News, PETITIONS, Supreme Court
Trackback URL
Comments
13 Responses to “To desecrate or not to desecrate the flag, what is the answer?”
-
Affiliations
The Giants
-
Donate
Steal Me
Our Store
Click the design to visit our store and help Stop the ACLU!
More blogs about the ACLU
While I love our nation’s symbol we must be very careful when we make such an ammendment. Perhaps even the President inadvertently has desecrated our glorious flag (according to the proposed ammendment) in the past.
Isn’t illegal to burn most things in a public forum to begin with?
AShiningCity,
Thank you for your comments. It may be a slippery slope for an amendment. And, as you pointed out we really have to be careful.
We are also living in different times. 30 years ago, I would not have imagined some Islamofacists ripping and tearing a flag in NYC with citizens looking on.
Of course if someone stepped to stop them, the person would have been arrested. And the PC police would have had a heyday.
The real issue at hand is flag desecration. Is desecration a violent action, designed to make one feel better, but harm and offend others in the process? When is enough is enough?
Hope to hear more from other readers.
I’m for the ammendment. I think it should go further however. Maybe I’m just a patriotic facist though.
Thanks Jay. Appreciate your patriotism.
I was in the military for 30 years + (continuous service) and have come to the stark realization that the country is much different now that when I first went on active duty.
What was right 30 years ago is now challenged by the ACLU and many times upheld as politically incorrect and wrong.
Needless to day, I hold our flag as a symbol of our great nation. Got to weigh the slippery slope with the constitution, bill of rights, and what is good for the country.
First off. Thank you Bosun for your service to our country. People like you have helped to make this nation great.
I must, however disagree with anyone who supports the amendment:
http://shiningcityatopahill.blogspot.com/2006/06/flag-protection-amendment-watch-out-mr.html
AND
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/blog/2006/06/burning_the_constitution.html
“Got to weigh the slippery slope with the constitution, bill of rights, and what is good for the country.”
Agreed, But then we need to go back to the “bill of rights” and read what they say and not what we want to read into them.
The first two amendments are a good case-in-point.
Our “freedom of speech” in the past seventy years have been expanded while our “right to keep and bear arms” have been restricted.
Rights once considered inviolable by most, are now sacrificed on the ‘political alter’.
We, as a nation, respected the dead at one time, regardless of politics,race,religion or any other ideologies.
Now graves are desecrated, vehicles do not pull over for processions, hats are not removed and funeral services are used to espouse hate speech and politics.
William Teach’s example using the bald eagle is a good one (although they are no longer endangered)and can be expanded to include our national monuments. Try defacing one, claiming free speech.
If our rights are precious enough to fight and die for, so are the symbols, icons and monuments that represent and celebrate them.
The Constituion of the United States does not give us rights, it outlines them. It is just a piece of paper,albeit, one of the most protected pieces of paper in the world. Try to burn it.
Thank you for your response. I guess the Senate could not get 67 people together to vote for the ammendment. So, its ok to burn a US Flag.
“Maybe I’m just a patriotic facist though.”
Mr. Stephenson, I’d say you’re half right.
But seriously, between the defeat of this amendment and the Supreme Court’s decision in Randall v. Sorrell (the Vermont campaign finance case), this has been a pretty good week for the First Amendment.
” Or, burn the New York Times building as a protest against their anti-American articles? Isn’t that Free Speech? ”
The supreme court has addressed this in the context of draft card burning.
The proposed amendment just gave congress the right to regulate flag desecration.
If I had anything against it is that it should allow states to makes laws regulating flag desecration.
The biggest objection I have is I would rather make an amendment limiting the time a federal judges sat on the bench.
Jason Sonenshien,
What is liberal doing cheering for the big business win in Randall v. Sorrell. I supported the law just because it had the possibility of limiting big business interest like George Soros, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and all those other elites out to exploit the people. I always thought liberals supported the poor and now you tell me they just want to use them for political advantage.
Any person(s) seen in any act defaming the flag of The United States unless the flag merits proper disposal, proper disposal being placed in a military furnce and burnnt with full honors. that said back to the point any person seen defaming the flag without proper reason should be brought upon on charges of treason which is a fed offense.
they should also be required to serve a mandatory term in the military