The Anti-Flag Burning Amendment

The Anti-Flag Burning Amendment

-or-

My Pantaloons Have Been Disgraced

I am not sure how this all got started again. It seems to come along a couple of times every decade, doesn't it? Somebody gets all hot and bothered about flag-burning and how it is a bad, unpatriotic, anti-American thing, and it is something to which a stop ought to be put.

Let me begin by asking - do we have a flag-burning epidemic here in the USA? Have there been a terrible lot of lunatics running around, pulling down the very patriotic US flags that fly over Denny's restaurants and Post Offices and burning them? Has there been a run on US flags at Lowes, with subsequent flag-caused conflagrations in public spaces? I'm thinking not, but please clue me if I'm way off base with this.

I should also say that I'm a veteran of the US Armed Forces - a Marine, to be precise. I love the USA. I love our flag. I would never intentionally disgrace Old Glory or treat it with less than the respect that I feel it deserves. I'm a patriotic guy, and I'm pretty much of the unpopular opinion that if people hate it here, they should try to change things to something they do like, or leave. I think Michael Moore needs a swift kick in the whiney, crybaby, ass, and yes, I think he does hate the USA.

I also treasure our Liberties. We fought hard for them, some 200-plus years ago, and we ought to consider keeping them around. We in the USA are unique in the world, pretty much - our Liberties are better than anyone else's. Sorry France, sorry England. Love ya, but your freedoms are way second-class compared to those of the USA. See, our Liberties are not derived from the government and promised to the people. Ours come from the people and we specifically forbid the government from interfering with the rights we defined. That is a fundamental, and I think important distinction. Rights that are given can be ungiven. We instead have never ceded to the government the right to curtail ANY of our rights, except where we have specifically permitted it.

The famous "Bill of Rights" about which our friends in other countries have heard about until they want to puke do not give us citizens any rights. No. Read it again, I'll wait. Are you back? OK, good. What the Bill of Rights does is prohibit the federal government from interfering with specific and defined rights that we citizens reserve for ourselves in perpetuity. That's right, prohibit. Don't believe me? READ IT AGAIN. The Bill of Rights does not say "You citizens have the right of free speech." No. It says "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech..." Are we clear? How hard is this to understand? I'm a conservative, and thus, much less intelligent than my liberal friends (just ask them), but even I get this. Congress is forbidden means Congress is forbidden. Q.E. FREAKING D.

So, some time ago, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS for short) said that burning a flag is a protected expression of speech - it is a statement. Some clot-heads would argue that the Framers of the Constitution meant actual words spoken into the air as the only definition of 'speech', but what then of printed words? What of pictures and photographs? Are they not also saying something? And if they're speech, then so are demonstrations of anger, dismay, shock, horror, and so on. As long as you don't interfere with other Constitutional rights, then light that flag up, brother. Have a weenie cookout on flags. Knock yourself out. And no, Johnny, you don't have the Constitutional right not to be offended, so get over yourself.

Do I like it when people burn flags? Hell, no. If it is people in other countries, I don't care much. They usually can't get a real flag anyway, so they draw the wrong number of stars and bars on a sheet and burn that, along with a caricature of some current US president that looks like a giant Ken doll. I figure they're entitled to hate us if they want, God knows we only give them a bazillion dollars a year in aid to hate us, I'd hate us too. And anyway, the heat from the fire is pretty much a good locater for where the Sidewinder missile we fire from offshore should go. OK, just kidding on that last part.

When it is people in the USA who burn flags, I figure they're either severely fashed about something that matters to them, or they're wackos. Since I'm often fashed and pretty much of a wacko myself, I can dig that. I'm not the flag-burning kind of wacko, but I guess we wackos can give each other some space here.

No, I don't like it when people burn the flag of the USA. But I shrug and get on with my life. I can't make anyone honor the symbols that I hold dear. And if I could - do I want fake respect for my patriotic symbols? I mean, come on. It's a flag. Cloth and dye, some thread holding it together. The meaning it has is the meaning I give it, in my own mind. Those who honor it with me are my brothers and sisters in patriotism and this mutual respect for our symbol draws us together, but that feeling would not vanish if the flag were suddenly destroyed.

It is a symbol. If it could be harmed by someone burning it, it would not be a symbol anymore.

Is any of this sinking in?

Anyway, since it has been decided by SCOTUS that the government can't stop people from picking up dog poop with a US flag if they want to, the only way to change that would be to introduce another amendment to the US Constitution.

You see (and a lot of you lot don't), you can't pass a law forbidding something that the Constitution and Bill of Rights says you can't pass a law forbidding. The only way to get your forbid on is to amend the Constitution yourself. Which we do here in the USA from time to time, but it is a very Big Deal.

Passing the enabling legislation in Congress is only the first little baby step. Then it has to go to each state in turn, be debated and voted upon, and only if two-thirds of the 50 US states pass it, does it get tacked on to the US Constitution. According to Wikipedia, "over 10,000 Constitutional amendments have been proposed in Congress since 1789; in a typical Congressional year in the last several decades, between 100 and 200 are proposed." But the US Constitution has only been amended 18 times since it was created, and only one amendment directly counter-acted another.

So what do you think the chances are that there will actually BE an anti-flag burning amendment put before the states, let alone that it will pass and become a new amendment to the Constitution? I'd put it somewhere less than than the chance that Bill Gates will send me his entire wealth in a single check to thank me for my public service, and somewhat more than the chance that I'll regain my sanity this decade.

And that, finally, exhaustingly, brings me to the point of this screed. Thanks for hanging in there.

Do you think, my intelligent and smart and wonderful droogies, that the members of Congress are somehow not aware of the facts of amendment proposals? Do you suppose that they are clueless to the concept that nothing they do about this matters even a little bit?

OK, they're pretty much a pack of ravening wolves and pretty stupid in general, I'll give you that. But they ain't quite that dumb. They know perfectly well that this is nothing but talk.

Incendiary talk. Puffery. A chance for them to look good by being all patriotic and stuff, and a chance to make the Other Side look like unpatriotic communists or something. Who would take a stand against an anti-flag burning amendment? Why, a commie who hates his mommie, that's who! Rotten old mommie-haters. Boo! Boo!

Well, since we've established that none of this fooferaw matters in the slightest, then what's it all about? Just trying to make a few political points shy of an election? No, no elections in sight for a while yet.

This, my friends, is what they call a red herring. There is something going on in the magician's other hand, and we're being distracted with this divisive foolishness.

If you ever hear a politician expound on the need for an anti-flag burning amendment, please take note:

1. There is no flag-burning problem at present.
2. There never was a big issue with flag burning.
3. It is a terribly divisive issue.
4. Nobody in their right mind is in favor of burning flags, even the people against the amendment.
5. Make sure your hand is firmly on your wallet.

The chances are about 100% that it is not your flag, it is your pantaloons that are about to be disgraced by having been groped by the government's dirty fingers yet again.

It is not about flags. It never was.

Smooches,

Wiggy