Last Saturday I sat in the local arena while President Trump voiced an initiative to create a federal statute against burning the 'American Flag'. He wants a 1 year jail sentence for anyone convicted of burning their own flag. Immediately I thought.. Where was this guy when the Supreme Court followed Justice Scalia's lead and issued an affirmation of freedom of expression regarding what someone does with their own flag? We're not talking about destroying other people's property or even starting a fire in city hall. This proposal strictly criminalizes the act of 'desecrating a specific nation's banner, just because of the meaning attached to that banner. In 1989, I thought Scalia was a disaster pick for the Supreme Court when he issued his ruling. Now I've come to see the essential constitutional requirement of forbearance when someone insults my republic in this way. It's essential to who we are, that we extend that liberty for some ungrateful idiot to do such foolish & spiteful things. |
But I also recall how states & municipalities took things even further and created more laws about wearing garments which resemble the US flag. Is it disrespectful to wipe your mouth with a flag napkin? How about using the flag as a sweatband or towel?
What about a kid stomping on his flag-emblazoned skateboard? If I crash into a vehicle with a US flag design painted on it, have I desecrated it?
And then I read that the greatest insult folks recoil from is when someone burns a flag. So how does an obedient subject retire the tattered flag? Yep, He's supposed to respectfully burn it. But that's okay because he has love in his heart when he retires it. the flag is still reduced to a pile of ashes whether by a protester's flame or a loving patriot's torch. But only one of them gets a federal conviction...?
Here's what I read from another sarcastic source..
What about a kid stomping on his flag-emblazoned skateboard? If I crash into a vehicle with a US flag design painted on it, have I desecrated it?
And then I read that the greatest insult folks recoil from is when someone burns a flag. So how does an obedient subject retire the tattered flag? Yep, He's supposed to respectfully burn it. But that's okay because he has love in his heart when he retires it. the flag is still reduced to a pile of ashes whether by a protester's flame or a loving patriot's torch. But only one of them gets a federal conviction...?
Here's what I read from another sarcastic source..
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