Good article on the proposed flag-burning Amendment

[Goofball]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13487935/site/newsweek/

This about summed it up for me:

Note: The other countries that have banned flag burning include Cuba, China, Iran and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

Come on, Republicans. Is that really the company you want to keep?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

By Jonathan Alter
Newsweek
Updated: 2:44 p.m. PT June 22, 2006
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June 22, 2006 - The phrase “litmus test” is in bad odor for good reason: politicians should be judged on a variety of positions, not just one. But deep down, nearly every voter has at least one litmus test—an issue so personally important that a politician who fails the test is forever tainted, or at least excluded from consideration for the presidency.
Story continues below ↓ advertisement ad_nw('2');dcmaxversion = 9dcminversion = 5DoOn Error Resume Nextplugin = (IsObject(CreateObject("ShockwaveFlash.ShockwaveFlash." & dcmaxversion & "")))If plugin = true Then Exit Dodcmaxversion = dcmaxversion - 1Loop While dcmaxversion >= dcminversion


I inherited my one litmus test from my father, Jim Alter, who flew 33 harrowing missions over Nazi Germany during World War II. My father is not just a veteran who by all odds should not have survived. He is a true patriot. His litmus test is the proposal to amend the Constitution to ban flag burning, which will come up for a vote next week in the U.S. Senate. For dad—and me—any member of Congress who supports amending the Bill of Rights for the first time in the history of this country for a nonproblem like flag burning is showing serious disrespect for our Constitution and for the values for which brave Americans gave their lives. Such disrespect is a much more serious threat than the random idiots who once every decade or so try (often unsuccessfully) to burn a flag.
Our understandable outrage at flag burning shouldn’t turn our brains to mush. “I feel the same sense of outrage, but I would not amend that great shield of democracy [the Constitution] to hammer a few miscreants,” Colin Powell said when the issue last came up (his position has not changed). “The flag will be flying proudly long after they have slunk away.” Powell argues that a constitutional ban on flag burning is a sign of weakness and fear. Note: The other countries that have banned flag burning include Cuba, China, Iran and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
John Glenn, another of the thousands of combat veterans against the amendment (they have banded together in a group called Veterans Defending the Bill of Rights), notes that “those 10 amendments we call the Bill of Rights have never been changed or altered by one iota, not by one word, not a single time in all of American history. There was not a single change during any of our foreign wars, and not during recessions or depressions or panics. Not a single change when we were going through times of great emotion and anger like the Vietnam era, when flag after flag was burned or desecrated. There is only one way to weaken our nation. The way to weaken our nation would be to erode the freedom that we all share.”
Actually, even during the Vietnam War, flag burning was rare. By one count, there have been only 45 such incidents in 200 years, and fewer than half a dozen since it was outlawed in 1989. Should the Constitution be amended, however, the incidence of flag burning is expected to surge as a form of civil disobedience. What began as a phony issue designed to prove patriotism (usually on the part of those who never served, the primary sponsors) could become a real concern.
The flag-burning amendment, which already passed the House, is apparently just short of the 67 needed in the Senate. With one or two absences, the amendment would be approved. It would then go to the states for ratification, where its chances for approval appear good.
On the Republican side, all senators except Robert Bennett of Utah, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky favor the amendment. The rest (including those who should know better, like John McCain and Chuck Hagel) are apparently in favor of trivializing the document they swore to uphold. Banning flag burning, in the words of Justice Antonin Scalia, “dilutes the very freedom that makes this emblem so revered.”
By Jonathan Alter
Newsweek
Updated: 2:44 p.m. PT June 22, 2006
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June 22, 2006 - The phrase “litmus test” is in bad odor for good reason: politicians should be judged on a variety of positions, not just one. But deep down, nearly every voter has at least one litmus test—an issue so personally important that a politician who fails the test is forever tainted, or at least excluded from consideration for the presidency.
Story continues below ↓ advertisement ad_nw('2');dcmaxversion = 9dcminversion = 5DoOn Error Resume Nextplugin = (IsObject(CreateObject("ShockwaveFlash.ShockwaveFlash." & dcmaxversion & "")))If plugin = true Then Exit Dodcmaxversion = dcmaxversion - 1Loop While dcmaxversion >= dcminversion


I inherited my one litmus test from my father, Jim Alter, who flew 33 harrowing missions over Nazi Germany during World War II. My father is not just a veteran who by all odds should not have survived. He is a true patriot. His litmus test is the proposal to amend the Constitution to ban flag burning, which will come up for a vote next week in the U.S. Senate. For dad—and me—any member of Congress who supports amending the Bill of Rights for the first time in the history of this country for a nonproblem like flag burning is showing serious disrespect for our Constitution and for the values for which brave Americans gave their lives. Such disrespect is a much more serious threat than the random idiots who once every decade or so try (often unsuccessfully) to burn a flag.
Our understandable outrage at flag burning shouldn’t turn our brains to mush. “I feel the same sense of outrage, but I would not amend that great shield of democracy [the Constitution] to hammer a few miscreants,” Colin Powell said when the issue last came up (his position has not changed). “The flag will be flying proudly long after they have slunk away.” Powell argues that a constitutional ban on flag burning is a sign of weakness and fear. Note: The other countries that have banned flag burning include Cuba, China, Iran and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
John Glenn, another of the thousands of combat veterans against the amendment (they have banded together in a group called Veterans Defending the Bill of Rights), notes that “those 10 amendments we call the Bill of Rights have never been changed or altered by one iota, not by one word, not a single time in all of American history. There was not a single change during any of our foreign wars, and not during recessions or depressions or panics. Not a single change when we were going through times of great emotion and anger like the Vietnam era, when flag after flag was burned or desecrated. There is only one way to weaken our nation. The way to weaken our nation would be to erode the freedom that we all share.”
Actually, even during the Vietnam War, flag burning was rare. By one count, there have been only 45 such incidents in 200 years, and fewer than half a dozen since it was outlawed in 1989. Should the Constitution be amended, however, the incidence of flag burning is expected to surge as a form of civil disobedience. What began as a phony issue designed to prove patriotism (usually on the part of those who never served, the primary sponsors) could become a real concern.
The flag-burning amendment, which already passed the House, is apparently just short of the 67 needed in the Senate. With one or two absences, the amendment would be approved. It would then go to the states for ratification, where its chances for approval appear good.
On the Republican side, all senators except Robert Bennett of Utah, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky favor the amendment. The rest (including those who should know better, like John McCain and Chuck Hagel) are apparently in favor of trivializing the document they swore to uphold. Banning flag burning, in the words of Justice Antonin Scalia, “dilutes the very freedom that makes this emblem so revered.”

[yesdachi]

I don’t like the idea of making it illegal but I don’t like flag burning and I don’t think anything good can come from it. If you are that pissed at the country, leave. IMO you shouldn’t be able to hate a country so much that you are willing to deface its flag then enjoy the benefits that its burned remains represent.

[Aenlic]

Burma, now called Myanmar is another country which has outlawed flag burning.

Do we really need to join the club that includes such noted members as North Korea, Iran, Cuba and Myanmar, just because some people are offended by political expression and apparently didnt get the point behind the "stick and stones..." singsong most of us learned as children?

[Tachikaze]

Like other fascist US Constitutional amendment proposals, this one limits citizens' rights. The Constitution was written to set and limit governmental powers and ensure citizens' rights.

The only amendment that ever passed that limited rights was the prohibition of alcohol, and we all know where that went.

A flag is just a nationalistic symbol, not a religious icon.

[Lemur]

Doesn't it bug anybody else that burning is the correct way to dispose of a flag?

And who burns flags at protests in the U.S. in this day and age? And why on earth is Congress wasting time on this?

[drone]

What Tachikaze said. The amendments should state citizen's rights, not citizen's limitations. If they want to ban flag-burning, they should do it the old fashioned way, by stacking the SC.

[Tachikaze]

I forgot to add this nice quote.

"Polluting the Constitution is far more dangerous than burning the flag"

[yesdachi]

And why on earth is Congress wasting time on this?

Ding Ding Ding! Don’t we have about a trillion other issues of importance that could be being worked on?

[Big_John]

i'm surprised that this proposed amendment hasn't been tabled for consideration in 2008.

[Lemur]

Very amusing facts about flag-burning in the U.S.A.:

The Citizens Flag Alliance, a group pushing for the Senate this week to pass a flag-burning amendment to the Constitution, just reported an alarming, 33 percent increase in the number of flag-desecration incidents this year.

The number has increased to four, from three.

The naive among us may have trouble appreciating how four flag-burning episodes would constitute a constitutional crisis. But the men and women of the Senate, ever alert to emerging threats, are on the case.

So Congress wants to spend its time and energy combatting four flag burnings per year? Dear Lord. We should end their salaries and make them work second shift at Starbucks if they have that kind of time on their hands.

Or maybe we just need to whack them on the nose with a newspaper and say, "Bad Congress! Bad Congress! Look at the mess you made! Bad Congresss!"

[yesdachi]

Or maybe we just need to whack them on the nose with a newspaper and say, "Bad Congress! Bad Congress! Look at the mess you made! Bad Congresss!"

All in favor say aye… Aye. The Aye’s have it.

Whack, smack, smack, whack… and stop spending money WHACK!

[solypsist]

flag burning and immigration are the gay marriage (i.e. the "classic wedge" issue) of this election term.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..........

[Kralizec]

Don't you have Mexicans now, too? At least the Republicans are innovating.

[Aenlic]

I don't think the illegal immigration issue counts as a traditional "wedge" issue that the Republicans or the Democrats can use to stir up their base. It's a mash of varying views, with the President actually on the wrong side from his base on this one. Bush is trying to straddle the fence, because he knows that the Hispanic vote put him in office just as surely as the base did. But a crackdown on illegal immigration is a loser in certain states and a winner in others. Look at Schwarznegger in California trying to tip-toe through that mine field. In Idaho, it looks like a hardliner on illegal immigration is set to win a Republican primary against his incumbent opponent who supports Bush's non-amnesty amnesty. In some states the Democrats are walking just as fine a line.

The whole idea of a guest worker program was a clear loser from the outset; but Bush tried it anyway. The hardliners think it's amnesty; and the amnesty in 1986 was a complete screw-up. The core of the Republican party is not about to agree to amnesty, and many moderate and conservative Democrats in non-Hispanic populated states agree. You've lost the argument, sensible or not, when your opponent can paint the gist of the issue as "if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it's a duck." It's a mistake rather uncharacteristic of Karl Rove; and I can't help but wonder if maybe his being involved in the whole Plamegate affair might have led to his being unable to prevent this one.

[Xiahou]

So Congress wants to spend its time and energy combatting four flag burnings per year? Dear Lord. We should end their salaries and make them work second shift at Starbucks if they have that kind of time on their hands.

Or maybe we just need to whack them on the nose with a newspaper and say, "Bad Congress! Bad Congress! Look at the mess you made! Bad Congresss!"

Both of those options sound good regardless.

[Pindar]

Flag Burning Amendments are by their nature non sequiturs.

Or maybe we just need to whack them on the nose with a newspaper and say, "Bad Congress! Bad Congress! Look at the mess you made! Bad Congresss!"

This is the proper response.

[Lemur]

I don't think Congress is hearing me properly ...

The U.S. House of Representatives last week quietly allowed a plan to move forward that would raise members' salaries by 2 percent to $168,500.

No no no! Bad Congress! Naughty Congress! Oooooh, I just want to give them a time-out in their kennel.