Can we count on the states to dismiss it if Congress lets us down? Or is that going to be worse?

6/27/2006 8:50:32 PM

No one thought it would happen, this was just a discussion of its merits.

The fact that you didn't figure that out makes me sad.

6/27/2006 8:50:58 PM

^^
well remember, 48 of the 50 states had anti-desecration statutes on the books when Texas v Johnson was decided.

if it makes it out of Congress, an amendment's got -7- years to get past 38 out of 50. and there are 31 red states as of 2004.

---

Quote :

"GrumpyGOP: tell me none of you think this is going to happen. Please. Just to restore my faith in your collective competence."

smcrawff basically beat me to it and the fact it failed in the Senate by only 1 vote (66 - 34) is disturbing enough... 

6/27/2006 8:58:21 PM

nobody's daddy died in korea for this flag.

a) he died for liberties, including the freedom to burn the flag
b) this flag was MADE in korea ok

if there were a The Flag someplace in the world, like there's a The Constitution, then i would perhaps outlaw burning that. it's ok to burn copies of the constitution. it's also ok to burn any old fucking flag.

6/27/2006 9:12:48 PM

I just take solace in knowing that if I ever decked a guy for burning a flag, no onlookers would come to his aid.

6/27/2006 9:21:43 PM

ive never burnt a flag.

i dont particularly care for people who i see burning flags.

one time i witnessed some loser burning a flag on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, with a bunch of skanks cheering him on. If someone woulda punched him in the mouth, i probably would have cheered been secretly happy.

...

that said, im bout go burn a damn flag in the public square just to piss off these assholes who want to amend the constitution.




[Edited on June 27, 2006 at 11:03 PM. Reason : ]

6/27/2006 11:02:56 PM

Quote :

"and the fact it failed in the Senate by only 1 vote (66 - 34) is disturbing enough..."

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This bullshit has been talked about before during comparable political situations. It won't pass. Not in seven years, not in a million. Just like we won't ever put a constitutional ban on abortion or gay marriage.

The only reason it's being brought up right now is as a distraction. I'd bet big money that a lot of the senators voting in favor only voted that way because they knew it wouldn't pass and they knew that it'd appease some people and they knew that it would take the heat off of other things.

This will not pass.

6/27/2006 11:37:44 PM

1. This amendment will not pass.
2. If somebody wants to burn the fucking flag, they can burn the fucking flag.

Now, onto whether or not a person is "wrong" for burning the flag...it all dependes on what exactly the flag means/symbolizes to that person...

6/27/2006 11:51:24 PM

I know the Republicans are going to attack the Democrats on this issue, and will probably call them unpatriotic and other assorted things. However, 14 Democrats did vote for the amendment, which means 3 Republicans did not. In a way, you could blame those 3 for not having this pass.

6/28/2006 1:33:10 AM

We burned flags all the time in Boy Scouts

6/28/2006 3:22:58 AM

Probably been said by this point, but:

How often are flags burnt in protest? Is it at a rate where the legislative body of our government feels as though it is the biggest issue that they need to focus on?

6/28/2006 7:28:06 AM

Quote :

"but only if you're incapable of distinguishing the difference between destroying your own property versus destroying government property. "

i tried to pick a public building to refute Arab's claim that "any self expression should be legal"

but you just picked what you wanted to attack from my post and ignored the point i was making, gg

6/28/2006 9:12:49 AM

Quote :

"and there are 31 red states as of 2004."

We don't all support that amendment. Some of us reds are libertarians that just don't want to waste our votes on libs. So we're against the amendment.

6/28/2006 9:47:36 AM

and some people like me dont think you should burn flags

but are not for the amendment

6/28/2006 9:52:57 AM

^^
true -- but how many of you are in the state legislatures of those 31 red states?

libertarian-leaning Republicans don't hold many legislative seats anymore...

6/28/2006 11:20:52 AM

would venture to say that if it did pass, a large majority of the states would actually vote to pass this as well. This transcends red v. blue, right v. left. 66 voted for it, only 54 Republicans in congress. Plus, when you have these types of issues, including abortion or gay rights, the old people come out in droves to vote.

6/28/2006 1:17:39 PM

If it ever passed the courts would take case me it.

6/28/2006 1:34:52 PM

they can't dispute a constitutional amendment, that's why they're trying to pass the amendment. only another amendment could reverse it.

6/28/2006 1:43:55 PM

^ I was gonna say that but I have no idea what ^^ said at first.

If it's in the constitution, the courts can't do shit.

6/28/2006 1:54:41 PM

except if they want to limit "freedom of expression" with fighting words, slander, libel, not being able to yell fire in a crowded place, not being able to donate more than a certain amount of money to a political campaign, etc etc etc

6/28/2006 2:53:34 PM

except all of those laws can be challenged in courts.

6/28/2006 2:55:38 PM

they're still exceptions to the freedom of expression part of the 1st amendment

6/28/2006 3:02:30 PM

but they're not amendments to the constitution. the supreme court and the legislature both have the power to change or strike down these laws. this will not be the case with the flag burning amendment. the only reason it is being suggested as an amendment is just BECAUSE it has been viewed as unconstitutional by the ussc.

6/28/2006 3:11:58 PM

and also constitutional by the SC.

So.. when you have a conflict, take it to the people. Plus, I'd rather my legislatures make the law (I elect them) than a 9-person aristocracy that is immune to the rational thought of the populace.

6/28/2006 3:50:24 PM

also immune to the irrational thought of the populice

6/28/2006 3:52:06 PM

eww. lice.

6/28/2006 6:50:04 PM

SWEET I finally made a successful thread!

6/29/2006 1:00:25 AM

Spray painting a building is vandalism.

Punching someone is assault.

Shooting in the air probably breaks some ordinance law.

Burning your own property at cost to you breaks no laws unless you attempt to fraud, hurt, or damage other properties.

You see how that works?

6/29/2006 1:11:54 AM

donating more than a certain amount of money to a political campaign is?

i figure you'd call that "expression, therefore it should be legal"

?

6/29/2006 1:21:54 AM

see how this works twista: if you think that law is unconstitional you can challenge it all by your little self. it can go up through the courts.

if there were a campaign contribution amendment, then you'd actually have an argument.

6/29/2006 1:26:01 AM

my argument is to SandSanta who claimed that burning a flag should be legal because its a form of expression

which would be fine except there are other forms of expression like donating to a political campaign that are illegal

so explain that one

6/29/2006 1:28:03 AM

I mean you're really grasping at straws here.

And by the way, donating to a campaign is not illegal.

6/29/2006 1:29:50 AM

you know you can only donate a certain amount right

i guess you dont

6/29/2006 1:31:00 AM

Quote :

"which would be fine except there are other forms of expression like donating to a political campaign that are illegal"

Quote :

"you know you can only donate a certain amount right"

Does not compute.

6/29/2006 1:32:45 AM

maybe if you knew that campaign donations had legal limits, which seems to completely contradict your opinion that "...form(s) of expression...should be legal", you would be able to compute that

or maybe you could again claim i was grasping for straws, while you criticize my verbage while ignoring the content

now i know im treetwista and therefore i only enter soap box threads to ruin them and act retarded

but seriously you lost this argument, just quit while you're not too far behind

6/29/2006 1:41:43 AM

Quote :

"maybe if you knew that campaign donations had legal limits, which seems to completely contradict your opinion that "...form(s) of expression...should be legal", you would be able to compute that"

Please explain to me how having limits on campaign contributions some how limits a person's freedom of expression.

Especially since campaign contributions aren't illegal, and those limits are fairly high.

6/29/2006 1:43:53 AM

because you cant donate as much money as you want

aka you cant express yourself as much as you want

and you already said expressions should be legal

Quote :

"but seriously you lost this argument, just quit while you're not too far behind"

6/29/2006 1:44:58 AM

But you are expressing yourself when you donate.

6/29/2006 1:45:54 AM

Quote :

"I'm pretty sure you can read what I said and understand that expressing one's self should not be illegal."

6/29/2006 1:48:04 AM

I mean I understand that you somehow think that because there's a limit on donations, then that somehow means there's a limit to freedom of expression and you want me to concede that fact so that you can then stretch your argument but your assumptions are incorrect.

There's no metric on expressing your ideas. Donating money to a candidate would be showing support for that candidate, even it that were illegal, other methods of showing support to your candidate wouldn't be. You have no point.

6/29/2006 1:52:00 AM

I think he has a point. Not being able to spend X amount of dollars on advertisements amounts to not being able to express yourself X dollars worth. The really horrible thing about that law is that it prohibits arguably the highest form of free expression, namely political speech or dissent in campaigns. That is the most important time to be able to get your ideas out. The campaign finance reform ala McCain-Feingold has not eliminated the corruption it was ostensibly intended for. No, instead people on both sides of the political spectrum have found other novel ways to spend the money. It's just muddied the waters even more as to what exactly is legal. It should all be legal so we can stop playing games.

Anyway, TreeTwista10's bigger point is simply that many forms of speech are already restricted. There are many examples besides campaign finance laws, although it's a good example.

[Edited on June 29, 2006 at 2:20 AM. Reason : .]

6/29/2006 2:19:20 AM

name an amendment to the constitution which expressly limits freedom of expression.

6/29/2006 2:22:31 AM

Well if I want to express my dislike of the federal government by not paying any income tax then 16th amendment says that congress has the power to take my $ anyway.

Anyway, at least they were trying to change the law by amending the constitution. What's so bad about that ? If the congress approves and the states approve then we ought to be able to change our laws to prohibit something stupid if we want. In america the people ultimately have the power, not the supreme court. If we want to change our laws ( which the SC has just done in a wink-wink ad-hoc way in the past, see abortion for example ) then we can pass an amendment to accomplish that, it's not bad, it's just the healthy functioning of our system of law.

6/29/2006 3:12:55 AM

hooray for amending the constitution to limit our rights!!!

three cheers!

6/29/2006 3:18:59 AM

the fucking govt says its illegal for me to burn flags?

who do they think they are! i love burning flags! i cant express dissent any other way!

6/29/2006 9:15:25 AM

wow. just...wow. 

6/29/2006 9:44:50 AM

tgd. just...tgd.

6/29/2006 10:08:50 AM

If someone drew an american flag onto a sheet of paper and burned that, would that be as bad as burning a regular flag?

6/29/2006 10:23:51 AM

There's no subcategory of expression. If you support a political party, or candidate, there's no law preventing you from doing so. You can't possibly logically argue that supporting an ideal equates to giving money, and because you can't give infinity money then that means you're not allowed to support said ideal. That that somehow means you already can't express yourself, so we should go ahead and make flag burning illegal. Thats the stupidest attempt at a conclusion I've ever seen in Soap Box.

6/29/2006 12:21:20 PM

maybe we should allow you to burn 1 square inch of the flag but no more

that way you still have the freedom to express yourself

kinda like how you claimed being able to donate some amount of money to a campaign is expressing yourself even though there are LEGAL limits of how much you can donate

you wouldnt have a problem with that would you

6/29/2006 12:25:41 PM