Posted on 01/19/2009 2:54:19 PM PST by vaper69
If anyone is interested. Look up the flag code. It used to be law, but is no longer enforceable. Burning the flag is NOT illegal in and of itself. Lighting a public fire without a permit is - in many places. Which frankly, should be applied everywhere. I can't burn a book in the street where I live,but they'd let me burn a flag. That's ridiculous.
The flag code should be reinstated. You should be burning the flag, or symbol, that represents the branch of government you are having issue with. While having a public burning permit, of course. You should not be burning the symbol of your guaranteed rights.
Technically, if you burn the flag in protest, you are protesting your very right to protest. Our flag is a symbol of the nation, and its people, not its government. There is no symbol, color, or pattern on Old Glory that stands for the executive, legislative, or judicial branches of government.
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The U.S. flag code IS law; it just has no criminal penalties associated with violating it.
As far as penalties for burning a flag, I’m sorry, but I have to agree with the opponents on that one. God is sacred. The U.S. flag is secular. Certainly it should be respected - in fact, as a Cubmaster, Scoutmaster and Assistant Scoutmaster these last 16 years I’ve taught quite a number of young men just how to do that. But it’s not God. And as a symbol of our rights it must come second to those rights themselves. Now, burn someone else’s flag and you’ve committed a property crime. Burn your own and my quarrel with you must exclude a legal one.
“Lighting a public fire without a permit is - in many places. Which frankly, should be applied everywhere.”
That I can see. Creating a hazard, etc.
“Public flag burning, like on the courthouse steps with prior notification to media, is incitement to violence.”
And yet in your tagline you critize Islam, one of the chief complaints against which is it’s propensity to commit acts of violence against women, Christians, etc. on the pretext that it is the nature of men to not be able to control themselves under certain circumstances. Burning a flag in public is a call for attention and a statement of political opinion, but it is not a request to commit violence against either their person or someone else’s. And people who lack the self-control necessary to avoid violence when they see a U.S. Flag burning are either mentally unstable or have the emotional age of a child.
Fools abound. Were we to start striking every one we meet our arms would wear out soon. I don’t ask you to suffer fools gladly, but suffer them we must in a civilized society. It’s free speech, not incitement. Start banning flag burning and you stand shoulder-to-shoulder with those who would ban criticism of homosexuality in the name of “hate speech”.
The courts have even defended flag burners who were burning stolen flags. That too qualifies as “protected speech”.
The law is a ass and filled with activist dork judges.
Try burning a rainbow flag at a gay pride parade and you’ll probably be cited under some kind of hate crime statute.
Possibly. If it did happen it would be an interesting test case.
You’ll find that burning a cross on your own property is probably NOT protected speech.
Don’t expect consistency from the courts or city councils.
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