Posted on 11/13/2004 11:34:12 PM PST by BellStar
American Legion Commander Thomas P. Cadmus has excoriated U. S. Senate leaders for failure to schedule a vote on a constitutional amendment to protect the flag. “Your inaction sends a message,” he wrote in an open letter. “The flag you are willing to drape over the caskets of our heroes, military and civilian alike, isn’t important enough to protect on our own soil.”
Action is considered unlikely during the lame-duck session, but the story could be different next year with a new party alignment. Partly because of his opposition to the amendment and charges of obstructing Senate votes, Sen. Thomas Daschle, the Democratic leader, lost his re-election bid in South Dakota.
You're welcome. True, the RNC and some Republican leaders need to be cautious about certain issues that reduce the appeal of the GOP yet at the same time, they GOP can't try to be everything to everyone. The Rats fell into that trap and lost focus, lost principles, and thankfully lost elections.
It's an area where dissent is healthy.
If you can stop me from lighting my cigarette, why can't I stop you from buring my flag?
I wouldn't want to see poor flag burners inhale toxic burning ink used to stain the stars and strips into each flag. It could harm them. Maybe if we came up with harmless burning ink it would be ok.
I've never yet met a reformed flag burner. It needs looking into.
My coffin will have the American flag on it. I have no desire to stifle free speech as that flag represents just that. There are multitudes of laws currently in place that infringe on our constitutional rights and A flag amendment will probably also cross the constitution.
With the above in mind, I'd prefer we protect the flag and protect and create our icon.
Thanks, I agree. There are no simplpe solutions for "defending freedom." It's all too tempting to bypass the limits on state power that the founding fathers imposed. And the dangers are very difficult to predict.
Ugh, burning is not speech. The legislation has to do with burning flags not those other things you mention.
Where was American Legion Commander Thomas P. Cadmus when that traitor Kerry was running for POTUS?
And I will be glad to fight for your right to free speech and expression in doing so! The Lefties always howl about their right to do anything they want, but they also howl when others decide it is their right to offer consequences...
As Robert Bork points out, the SJC ruling regarding the flag overturned precedent back to the founding fathers. Nobody prior to Griswald would have contended that flag burning was constitutionally protected, no more than sodomy.
I'll donate $200 to FR if you can produce links from verifiable news stories about ten actual incidents of flag-burning-as-protest within the US this year.
How about the day Kofi ordered the flags at the Un be flown at half mast to honor Arafat?
What if the timing & the election had be a bit different; and President Kerry were to order it {nation wide}?
What if he, then, fired jewish-american government workers that refused to honor Arafat?
Here are 5
Police in Vermont Probe Flag Burnings and Thefts
NewsMax.com Wires
Thursday, July 8, 2004
MONTPELIER, Vt. – At least five American flags have been found burned in public places in the city since mid-June, and several residents have reported their flags missing, police said.
Though no solid leads have developed, police Chief Douglas Hoyt said "it's entirely possible" the incidents are related.
Story Continues Below
Desecrating a U.S. flag is not a crime, but the perpetrator could be prosecuted for theft or damaging someone else's property, Hoyt said.
In one of the incidents, two mutilated flags were wrapped around an Ethan Allen statue at the Statehouse. In another, a U.S. flag was placed on a church's Virgin Mary statue and set on fire.
A flag found Wednesday draped on a building had the stars burned out and the phrase "Stop the Corruption." Some of the missing flags were displayed by the city for Independence Day festivities.
© 2004 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Editor's note:
THUNE CHALLENGES DASCHLE ON PROTECTING FLAG
Rather than protecting the flag, Daschle wants flags fire-resistant
RAPID CITY AND SIOUX FALLS – Scoffing at Senator Tom Daschle’s proposal to make flags with fire-resistant material, South Dakota Republican Senate candidate John Thune called on Daschle to “join the vast majority of South Dakotans who support a constitutional amendment to protect our flag from desecration.”
Thune was joined by veterans during news conferences in Sioux Falls and Rapid City in
supporting a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow Congress to protect the American flag from desecration.
Daschle told the Associated Press earlier this week that the flag protection amendment is a “political ploy.”
“Rather than working to protect the American flag by voting for a constitutional amendment, Senator Daschle has publicly declared we should just make fire resistant flags,” Thune said. “Once again, Senator Daschle says one thing in South Dakota and does something entirely different in Washington, D.C.”
The Boston Globe reported on December 1, 1996 that Daschle “scoffed at the importance of amending the Constitution: ‘When was the last time you saw a flag burned? Why not just make the flags of fire-resistant material?’”
As South Dakota’s lone member of Congress from 1997 to 2003, Thune cosponsored and voted for three proposed constitutional amendments to protect the American flag from desecration. Conversely, Daschle has voted against amendments to protect the flag four times.
Daschle has publicly stated he opposes the flag protection amendment because he does not want to amend the Bill of Rights in the Constitution. Daschle has cosponsored 37 proposed constitution amendments since being elected to Congress 28 years ago in 1978.
The Senate will be voting on the flag protection amendment soon.
I'll give ya three actual incidents cited in that story. Keep lookin'
It was one of the biggies, thats for certain.
This issue should worry all Americans. Are we drifting toward a point where dissent is prohibited by law?
I am not going along with the statists on this issue. A lot of other Americans are quite wary of the implications of this zeal, as well. If you don't mind raising the hackles of a large number of freedom-loving Americans, then by all means continue to try to use the Constitution as a vehicle for the suppression of liberty.
That would set a new precedent as well.
I see what you're getting at but I don't want the government making smoking illegal either. Just because the Nanny State movement commits a wrong doesn't give conservatives a reason to commit a wrong.
I wouldn't want to see poor flag burners inhale toxic burning ink used to stain the stars and strips into each flag. It could harm them. Maybe if we came up with harmless burning ink it would be ok.
I've never yet met a reformed flag burner. It needs looking into.
Yep - more government programs are needed to protect and reform the brainless.
There are multitudes of laws currently in place that infringe on our constitutional rights and A flag amendment will probably also cross the constitution.
With the above in mind, I'd prefer we protect the flag and protect and create our icon.
Like I said - just because the Left has no respect for the Constitution, gives the Right no excuse to violate it.
BUMP!
How do make the distinction between forms of expression - forms of protest. Legislation against burning the flag is the government stating that only some forms of protest are allowable.
That is not freedom.
I have been wrestling with this for decades.
Do I rejoice in knowing a personal right is preserved never to be tested, that when exercised, turns my stomach, insults my pride, and is an act specifically reserved to denigrate my country and belittle my family's way of life?
Or do I rejoice in knowing my Democratic Republic has accepted or maybe excepted a specific right for the preservation of national honor and civil rest?
For it or against it, no patriot is going to stand by while some jerk torches a flag. So, the question is who goes to jail? The flag burner or the patriot who gave him a beating for exercising his 1st amendment?
If you said both, we all win! Don't we?
Burning the flag is an obnoxious, emotional punch to the stomach - and that's part of the reason such protesters do it. If it is their own flag, as in purchased and owned by them, the only laws broken would be any burn ordinances in the area.
The fact that the flag can be and is a center of protest or expression, even when burned, points to the strength of commitment to the ideals behind the first amendment. We as a republic are strong enough to allow such emotionally laden protest against our own government. banning such protest is an acknowledgment of weakness - weakness in our belief in freedom and weakness in our ability to endure dissent in a democracy.
The flag burner should be shamed for destroying the symbol of freedom the was created and defended with blood. The 'patriot' that wants to ban a freedom should feel shame for being willing to abolish the same freedom the flag and shed blood represent.
So in answer to your question, "If you said both, we all win! Don't we?" - both would lose.
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