The Republican controlled US Senate, after weeks of focusing it’s august attentions on such critical issues as gay marriage and the repeal of the estate tax is about to take up what some feel is another burning issue that requires the immediate attention of a country currently embroiled in two wars in which our citizens are being slaughtered daily, deeply in debt to foreign interests, under the grip of rising unemployment, crime, poverty, and lacking even basic health care for more than 35 million of it’s people. The burning issue du jour is the desecration of Old Glory.
There were three, (3), THREE, instances of flag desecration in this country last year says the Citizens Flag Alliance (CFA), a group that, according to their web site consists of over 140 national organizations who are tirelessly working (providing campaign contributions) to stop this tidal wave (3) of flag desecration that is sweeping the nation. Three (3) instances and that’s just this year, so far, up to right now. As of today, three.
I recognized many of the organizations listed on their web site, I even belong to one of them. I belong to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, but the VFW didn’t consult me before announcing their support for this thoroughly misguided and potentially repressive attempt to amend the Constitution of the United States in order to address a non existent problem.
Another name featured on their web site is former Republican Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham who I’m sure is continuing his patriotic pursuits from his prison cell. I’m amazed that our Reps and Sens have time to spare from their busy schedules. I.m not sure what’s closer to Duke’s heart , Old Glory, Jesus, or the piles of tax free greenbacks he amassed while performing his patriotic public service in the US Congress.
Senate Majority Weasel, Bill Frist, is pushing this issue hard in an attempt to unite his wacky conservative base before the mid term election in November. Apparently it’s very important to the Barking Moon Bat Wing of the Republican party to announce where it stands on non existent problems and offer legislative non solutions to them to as further proof of it’s incompetence in performing it’s duties of government in an election year. After the wars, the economy, the energy crises, the rampant political corruption of the last six years, no additional proof is required.
A non solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.
The amendment:
“The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States”.
Notice, if you will, that this amendment does not make desecration of the Flag illegal, it simply says that congress shall have the power to prohibit such acts.
A Red herring, and in a moment of candor the Majority Weasel himself let this slip:
The flag is a symbol of the Constitution, he said. “If we can recapture the flag, we can begin the march to recapture our Constitution” against court decisions that take away the rights of Americans to own property, pray, post the Ten Commandments and nativity scenes, say the Pledge of Allegiance and define marriage……
I love the smell of witches burning in the morning.
I served in the Marine Corps in Vietnam in the sixties, the idea of flag burning is abhorrent to me and I am not one who worries over much about symbolism.
I’ve never witnessed a flag burning or other act of desecration against Old Glory and I’m approaching sixty two years on this planet, I have seen such acts performed on television but ninety nine percent of those instances took place abroad, in places, and among people who don’t seem to have the same respect for America as I do, or the kind of respect for America and it’s institutions shown by, say, Randy Cunningham.
Our Majority Weasel, who supports his bumbling President so strongly on Iraq and accuses the Democrats of a cut and run mentality has two sons at just the right age for service in Iraq or Afghanistan where Daddy is all too willing to serve up the offspring of other Americans on his altar of oil. I would have much more confidence in his good faith if he had a child serving in harms way but in this matter he, along with many in his party, and I’m sorry to say, in my own, is able to ignore the symbolism of the lack of service of his family but is overwhelmed by the symbolism of the burning of Old Glory.
Frauds, Flimflam Men, Charlatans all, with nothing to serve at the public table but Red Herring.
On the fifteenth of June Medal of Honor recipient Bob Kerrey had this to say about the proposed amendment:
Unfortunately, enthusiasm for this amendment appears to have grown even as flag-burning incidents have vanished as a means of political protest. The last time I saw an image of the U.S. flag being desecrated in this way was nearly 20 years ago, when the court issued its decision. Thus this amendment — never appropriate in the oldest democracy on earth — has become even less necessary. But necessity is not always the mother of legislation.
And this:
If our First Amendment is altered to permit laws to be passed prohibiting flag desecration, would we like to see our police powers used to arrest an angry mother who burns a flag? Or a brother in arms whose disillusionment leads him to defile this symbol of the nation? I hope the answer is no. I hope we are strong enough to tolerate such rare and wrenching moments. I hope our desire for calm and quiet does not make it a crime for any to demonstrate in such a fashion. In truth, if I know anything about the spirit of our compatriots, some Americans might even choose to burn their flag in protest of such a law.
And finally this:
Real patriotism cannot be coerced. Our freedom to speak was attacked — not our flag. The former, not the latter, needs the protection of our Constitution and our laws.
In yesterday’s Washington post there was a letter to the editor from Brooks Minnick a military retiree with 21 years on active duty:
It’s ironic, when we are battling repressive nations, cultures and religions that would seek to undermine and destroy all that we stand for, that we would demonstrate weakness in our own moral character by seeking to impose repressions of our own.
Whether over Fort McHenry in Baltimore, a battlefield in Gettysburg, a rocky hill on Iwo Jima or a desert outpost in the Middle East, the flag has always flown in proud defiance. When someone burns or desecrates one, there will always be another to rise and fly in its place, and very likely a patriot with even stronger resolve to hold it higher.
Last week I read an article posted on My Left Wing by teacherken in which he writes:
Lest any reader think the confrontation I request is not important, I want to you think seriously of the consequences. The proposed amendment would be the first constitutional limitation of the First Amendment rights which are so basic to our system. That amendment begins with our religious liberties because the Founders understood how religion could be used to suppress liberty, because they knew the recent history not only of England and the Continent, but also of the early settlement of this nation. The other four freedoms of the First Amendment are essential guarantees that we need in order to fully function as “we the people” – the true sovereigns of this nation. Restrict our political rights and we will cease to live in a democratic republic.
As the above entry would indicate I don’t do scholarship, I piss and moan, sometimes effectively sometimes not so much, therefore I’ll give the final word on this to teacherken at My Left Wing. Please read his article,linked below,carefully.
Bob Higgins
Worldwide Sawdust
I draw a line in the sand. Will you stand with me?
