Wed 22 Jun 2005
Can you guess what Republicans in Washington are working on right now?
AP > House Approves Flag-Burning Amendment
(via Drudge)
Wed 22 Jun 2005
Can you guess what Republicans in Washington are working on right now?
AP > House Approves Flag-Burning Amendment
(via Drudge)
June 22nd, 2005 at 4:18 pm
It isn’t the flag that makes America great… it’s the power of our ideas. They’ve taken the symbol of a great nation and are turned it into a golden calf.
June 22nd, 2005 at 11:17 pm
Golden calf? Get real. We simply don’t want people, on American soil, desecrating the symbol of the power of our ideas. It isn’t the worship of a false idol - it’s the protection of our one symbol of the sacrifices made in defense of our ideals, one of which is freedom of speech. Is that paradoxical? Not really. Freedom of speech does not include the freedom to slander or defame and burning the flag is most definitely slander and defamation of America. Why is that so hard for some Democrats to understand?
June 23rd, 2005 at 1:11 am
Sorry, freedom of speech. One should “symbolically” be able to express her/his anger toward the American Government. And what about wearing it as clothing? Or what about having a dirty and tattered flag on one’s car antenna? Freedom of speech. Different meanings, but a right we all have.
June 23rd, 2005 at 7:10 am
I think my atheist liberal friends really miss out when they discount the Bible. No matter what your faith it has so many powerful ideas that can be used in everyday life. For me one of the most powerful is the one brought down by Moses in the book of Exodus. The faith he was teaching was a faith rooted in the power of ideas. Thoughts. God’s grace doesn’t come from a stone. It doesn’t come from kneeling before a statue. It comes from ideas… values. Respecting His rules. Following His examples. That is a very simple and yet radical idea.
Every time we torture someone to protect ourselves we are burning the flag. Every time someone lies to justify war they are burning the flag. Every day we let even a single person rot in a jail cell without due process we are burning the flag.
Withouth our shared values the flag is nothing more than a colored piece of cloth. You want to protect it? Start fighting for what it stands for.
June 23rd, 2005 at 8:36 am
Torture, lying about the Iraq Liberation Act, and false imprisonment are wrong and unAmerican. They need to be fought against but, no, those things do not burn the flag. Taking a lighter and setting it aflame burns the flag. It slanders and defames every person who has fought and sacrificed to protect the radical idea that is America. Yes, fight for what the flag stands for. And protect it from desecration whether protection is codified in law or not.
June 23rd, 2005 at 9:17 am
Well… I can see that allegory is wasted on this crowd. I’ll get real literal than.
By making it unconstitutional to burn the flag you destroy the very ideas that the flag represents. You make it meaningless. It is no longer a symbol of freedom and democracy. You’ve turned it into a symbol of hypocrisy. We believe in free speech EXCEPT when we don’t like what you have to say. We believe in freedom as long as you don’t do anything that offends us.
Words have power. Ideas have meaning. If you believe in them, fight for them. If you value your flag you will fight to defend the ideas behind it. I treasure nothing more highly than my right to have this debate right now. That’s what our flag means to me. That’s why I fight for the values that it represents, even if that means defending the right of some idiot to burn the flag.
If you love America but not the values that founded it what do you really love?
For me that idea is the cornerstone of Judeo-Christian values. It is what fueled the founding of this nation. The choice. The right to bite into that apple. The freedom to choose heaven or hell. That beliefs that truly matter cannot be instilled at the point of a sword and they cannot be distilled down to a physical object. It is a power that cannot be destroyed by burning a book or nailing someone to a cross or by slaughtering millions. The only way it can be destroyed is when we forget what it means.
(BTW, if burning the flag were slander and defamation why do you need a Constitutional amendment to outlaw it? Take them to court. Sue. Obviously it isn’t. )
June 23rd, 2005 at 10:55 am
BTW, I agree with you about not needing a constitutional amendment. Nominating and confirming judges who won’t create new rights and laws out of thin air http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/printer_friendly.pl?page=us/491/397.html would be a first step in remembering what the flag means, America and the values that founded it.
June 23rd, 2005 at 11:13 am
BTW, in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been testing out using biblical references in my political writings. How do you think it’s working?
Being a big fan of the fire and brimstone sermon it gives it all a very different feel than the I feel your pain style of Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton.
Some, including Paul Hackett believe that it has no place in politics. I can respect that position, but I disagree. I believe that there is so much power in the ideas, and they have had such a profound effect upon our civilization, that its a shame to abandon it all to right. They opened the door… I’m just walking in
June 23rd, 2005 at 11:36 am
Howard Dean dives into this, BTW.
June 23rd, 2005 at 11:41 am
Hey, they like to throw the Bible around to suit their needs…turnabout is fairplay. God doesnt just belong to them.
June 23rd, 2005 at 12:24 pm
Be careful that you don’t get thwapped on the noggin when that door swings back the other way. Throwing the bible around sucked when Jimmy Carter did it, it sucked when Bill Clinton did it, and it sucks whenever W does it (which, if you check the record, has been far less than his two Democratic predecessors).
I agree with Paul Hackett.
Leave the religious terrorism to the jihadists like Jean Schmidt.
And then defeat them at the polls.
June 23rd, 2005 at 1:33 pm
Citing the Bible is religious terrorism? That sounds a bit much to me.
> …it sucked when Bill Clinton did it…
From where I’m sitting it looks like it worked pretty good for all three of them.
Me… I fight for what I believe in and I fight to win. Why should I tie one hand behind my rhetorical back just because it makes a few people uncomfortable? We fight on a landscape and this is the landscape we are fighting on. Get used to it or get used to losing.
June 23rd, 2005 at 2:06 pm
Interestingly enough, I just got this email:
June 23rd, 2005 at 11:25 pm
Yes - interesting.
But just so there’s no misunderstanding, Hackett supporters will not be helping him win this election if they publicly insist that hell is run by someone named man-on-fire and that man-on-fire is Jesus. This is the Ohio 2nd district… not Berkley.