what, nobody noticed the Senate actually voted in favor of free speech and common sense?

[acroyear]

Well, 1 vote over 1/3rd did, anyways.

The other 1 vote less than 2/3rds disgusts me right now, but at least they've been shamed for a few months longer...

Comments

[jocelyncs.livejournal.com]

My heart just lurched when I saw the headline. Much too close. Here I am sitting in a Constitutional Law lecture, feeling sick to my stomach.

How long until freedom becomes a joke?

[thewhitedragon.livejournal.com]

See, for me this is a rough subject. On one hand, I believe that if you disagree with the country you have every right to make your stance known - including burning a piece of cloth that was most likely printing in China and sold in bulk. Free speech. Freedom to peaceful protest. Making your point crystal clear.

On the other hand, if you dislike the country so much, why are you still living here?

I believe that our government is extremely flawed, but we have the most freedoms promised to us over any other country in the world. Unfortunately people abuse these freedoms on a regular basis. To me, burning a flag is a statement of disagreement but it is also saying that you don't want the freedoms our forefathers promised us. I don't believe that burning a piece of cloth makes one either patriotic or treasonous - you're burning a piece of mass-produced fabric and not the constitution itself or the rights contained on it.

I do find it rather disrespectful to do this, but then I find the act of leaving a flag outside in the rain equally disrespectful. [shrug] My father always used to pull ours in the second it started to rain and he never let it hit the ground.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

The right to be disrespectful is a fundemental right, and a necessary one. Had we not been willing to be disrespectiful, we wouldn't have done wonderful things like getting arrested (and hung) for burning King George III in effigy, etc etc.

I don't care who the fuck doesn't like it. A fucking piece of cloth is not worth destroying the rights our founders fought the revolution for in the first place.

The right to live in this country comes with it the responsibility to suffer the slings and arrows (in words and deeds, provided you're not physically threatened or injured) of those who either don't give a damn, or give too much of one. If you can't take the idea of someone being disrepectful, YOU move to Iran or China, the only two countries in the world that have anti-desecration clauses in their constitutions.

Did we really want to join that crowd, which also in the past included Nazi Germany?

[thewhitedragon.livejournal.com]

The right to be disrespectful >is< a fundamental right - you're brook no arguments from me over that. I'm all about free speech. The right to be offended (or think something is disrespectful) is not constitutionally protected. The truest patriots are often those who oppose the current government because they are doing something offensive to the populace.

I'm completely against turning this into an amendment, make no mistake in assuming that. I was, however, taught that the flag is the symbol of our freedom... a physical representation of our country. I was taught to respect that symbol because without the freedoms we have we would be no better than people in Iran or China where the government oppresses it's citizens.

I think of the flag in relation to freedom like Catholics think of the cross as a symbol of their religion. Even if I don't agree with the policy each represents, those symbols are deserving of my respect.

So you see my "dilemma"? Burning a cross (in a non-racist aspect) is offensive to me. Burning a flag is offensive to me. I personally could do neither desecration, but I would never make it unconstitutional for others to do them if it was done in peaceful protest.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

and I was taught that symbols are just that: symbols. They are symbolic of the real thing but never mistake it for the real thing.

this is the reason, at the heart of it, that the 10 Commandments banned idolatry - the people (as the golden calf showed) were too easily swayed to worshipping the thing they could see rather than the God they couldn't. the puritans were seeing the same thing happen in the Catholic-derived Anglican church: the emphasis on gold, perfumes, crosses everywhere - it was all "out there" so that nobody needed to look within where Jesus told us to look (many modern evangelical churches, particularly Jehova's Witnesses have this same problem - its as if Luke 19 never existed).

Patriotism should never be enforced by law, but that is precisely what this amendment would have done.

and finally, even the term "desecration" implies a sense of the "Sacred" and in itself is a gross violation of the establishment clause: it creates a grounds for worship of the state.

remember that other country that once had a flag-burning clause in its constitution? :)

[thewhitedragon.livejournal.com]

enough. enough. enough.

I said I find it disrespectful. My opinion. Laws are not based solely on my opinion. I want the freedom to be able to burn flags kept however, I find it distastful.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

(yes, "YOU" was the general you, not you mr. w. dragon specifically)

[javasaurus.livejournal.com]

The flag stands for many things, including our freedoms. Which is more important, the symbol, or the idea it represents? A vote to ban flag-burning is far more disrepectful of the flag than actually burning it.

good point.

[dawntreader]

irony, that.

[thewhitedragon.livejournal.com]

again... I agree. eesh. I'm only saying that >I< find it disrespectful, not that I believe it should against the law.

it's my upbringing. *shrug*

[javasaurus.livejournal.com]

Sorry, didn't mean to team up on you! If I had seen your reply above (the one starting The right to be disrespectful >is< a fundamental right - you're brook no arguments from me over that), I wouldn't have posted, but I think we were typing at the same time (look at the times on the posts).