So, what do you think of the Anti Flag-burning Amendment that was approved by the House today by a 286-130 vote?
Yes, I know it faces a fairly steep climb through the Senate, then a 3/4 passage by the states. Still, it won a pretty clear passage in the House, and “Red” states seem likely to approve it. So, its effects could be felt within a couple of years.
A couple of points of clarification, in case the Mass Media Podpeople haven’t been all that clear (although the AP seems to be playing this one pretty straight, so far). The amendment (H.J. Res 10) would simply give Congress the authority to make flag desecration (not just burning) illegal.
Expect the usual suspects to crawl out of the woodwork crying wolf about First Amendment rights. *yawn*
IN PARTICULAR: expect the ACLU to continue its fight to defeat this amendment.
Yes, I am well aware that society in general and some very stupid judges and justices (SCOTUS in particular) have made some crazy and idiotic rulings about the free speech clause of the First Amendment, stretching the Framers’ words and plain, clearly-expressed intent to ridiculous lengths. People have come to view the First Amendment as meaning “freedom of expression”—whatever that means: grunts and squeals and urine in a jar, no doubt.
And yes, I am well aware of the ACLU’s disingenuous espousal of the idea the “expression” in all its varied and usually offensive and non-political and inarticulate grunts and squeals is equivalent to speech.
I say, grow up. The Framers’ clear, expressed and openly published intent with the First Amendment was to protect religious speech and behavior, political speech; political and social commentary in the press and free association assembly for religious and political purposes. All the fru-fru the courts have added have created a sense of entitlement among subliterates and lazy thinkers who now feel that burning a flag is equivalent to writing The Declaration of Independence.
Bullhockey. Let them say or write something intelligible, something sensible (heh—I just heard Macbeth say, “Art thou not, fatal vision sensible to feeling as to sight?” Rabbit trail…). THAT is protected as free speech or free press. Grunting and screaming like animals around a blazing piece of cloth is not speech; it is not writing. Let them proceed beyond expressions of indeterminate meaning to making sense. That’s what the Framers were talking about. This “free expression” B.S. is just that, and a relatively new invention at that.
“… modern free-speech protections were largely the work of Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis D. Brandeis, who were generally associated with the liberal wing of the Court on most issues; of FDR’s liberal appointees to the Court; and of the notoriously liberal Warren Court…” —Eugene Volokh, “First Myths” NRO, January 05, 2004
So, I simply pay no attention to the moonbats who claim unlimited free expression as their right under the First Amendment. What one or more courts can create ex nihilo, another court can dissolve.
But what, specifically, of this amendment? Firstly, this country’s flag is a symbol of all of the highest and best of the Framers’ intent, of the blood and toil and sweat and tears of generations of patriots who have been willing to “pay any price, bear any burden” that we might live free… if we will. Regardless of political belief or conviction, such a symbol has always enjoyed extraordiary protections in civilized lands. That the barbarians are no longer at the gate but integral to our society is evidenced in the fact that some feel dishonoring the symbol of so great a sacrifice by so many is their right.
It is not.
If they feel this country is doing wrong, they have the right to assemble and seek redress.
If they feel this country is doing wrong, they have the right to SPEAK their mind or persuade someone to publish their speech (or, today, to blog it–self-publish on a scale that would have blown ben Franklin’s mind).
But act like savages, like animals with unitelligible “expression” that has no meaningful content other than to scorn the sacrifice of multitudes who are better men and women than they could ever dream of being. Provided, of course, that they could dream in other than contentless “expression.”
[Oh, another rabbit trail: speech consists of some discrete, essential parts. Phonemes (sounds), syntax (structure) and semantics (meaning). Apparently some past SCOTUS members have been too uninformed to be able to discern the differences between “expression” and speech. Dimwits. Flag burning/desecration doesn’t even come close to speech.]
An amendment that might move, be it ever so slightly, away from the Warren court’s excesses: a Very Good Thing, IMO.
What say you?
Crossposted at Cathouse Chat Note: the <;a href="http://romeocat.typepad.com/">Cathouse Chat version of this post is mentioned at Danny Carlton’s JackLewis.net blog. Be sure to check his post Fiction and facts about flag-burning. A sample:
“James Madison, who wrote the First Amendment, condemned flag burning as a crime. Thomas Jefferson agreed with Madison and made clear in his writings that “speech” in the First Amendment meant the spoken word, not expressive conduct. To say otherwise made freedom “of the press” a redundancy. In fact, the words “expression” and “expressive conduct” are not in the Bill of Rights, and for good reason. Activist judges have added them to the Constitution in order to promote their own political agenda.
Since our birth as a nation, we the people have exercised our right to protect our flag. This right has been confirmed by every Chief Justice of the United States and Justices on five Courts in the last century who denied that flag burning was “speech.” This fact is also confirmed by current constitutional experts, 70 percent of the Congress, the legislatures of all 50 states and more than three out of four Americans.”