A constitutional amendment that prevents “The Physical Desecration of the American Flag”
For fucks sake. It’s a flag. It’s a bit of cloth. Its only purpose, its only meaning, is to be a symbol of a country, and if you want to get more abstract, for the freedoms which that country claims to stand for. Such as, for example, the freedom to burn a fucking flag if you want to.
June 22, 2005 at 7:25 pm
I’m an amendment to be, yes, an amendment to be
And I’m hoping that they’ll ratify me
There’s [sic] a lot of flag-burners who have got too much freedom
And I wanna make it legal for policemen to beat ’em
‘Cause there’s [sic] limits to our libery
Least I hope and pray that there are
‘Cause those liberal freaks go too far
(Then I’ll make Ted Kennedy pay. If he fights back, I’ll say that he’s gay.)
June 22, 2005 at 7:25 pm
That’ll teach me to be such a fucking smart-arse.
Liberty.
June 23, 2005 at 1:26 am
Well… there’s probably too much freedom in the libery too – better burn some of those liberal libery books.
June 22, 2005 at 9:19 pm
They’re seeing the flag as the country’s ‘brand’. Just like people see the Nike swoosh, or the Google logo, as their respective brands.
I heard someone say a while back, that Jeff Bezos (I think) said that the brand is in fact what people say about you when you walk out of the room.
Doesn’t matter what people do to the American flag – it’s what they say when America is out of the room….
June 22, 2005 at 9:22 pm
You have to wait until they’ve left the room? Whoops…
June 22, 2005 at 9:42 pm
ps nice angry icon, JSR!
June 22, 2005 at 10:18 pm
You do realise that we have laws against flag desecration in NZ?
June 22, 2005 at 10:45 pm
I seem to remember that when someone was actually charged under those laws, the charges were dropped because the law was deemed contrary to the bill of rights act? Something like that?
If not, and it’s actually an actionable law, it’s still fucking stupid. That doesn’t change just because the country I live in also has it!
June 22, 2005 at 10:51 pm
Technically we still have a Muldoon-era law against flag-burning, but the only time it was tested it turned out to be unenforceable because the Bill of Rights took precedence.
June 22, 2005 at 11:11 pm
I propose a corollary to Godwin’s Law:
Anyone who, in the course of a debate, attempts to justify his or her position by appeal to what he or she imagines would be the opinion of innocent uninvolved people who died in a famous catastrophe has automatically lost said debate in perpetuity.
“Ask the men and women who stood on top of the (World) Trade Center,” said Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham, R-Calif. “Ask them and they will tell you: pass this amendment.”
I am not a man given to violence, but I believe that if anyone tried to do something like this to Nicki, I’d have to be physically restrained from punching him in the face. I find it hard to credit that an elected representative in any country could say something as shameful as this and not be forced to resign.
June 23, 2005 at 6:28 am
On a completely different track, are you folks going to the CR gig tonight/Friday at Galatos?
June 23, 2005 at 1:41 pm
Depends how tired/social we’re feeling.
The Magic 8-Ball of my Brain says: Signs Point To Yes
June 24, 2005 at 11:35 pm
you missed a stompingly-good night. at least, if you didn’t turn up after I left 😉
June 25, 2005 at 3:36 am
I didn’t. I was totally tired. I think Annette and I asleep before 9.00pm, which is about the time that we usually go “We should get ready to go to CR.”
So no CR, just a very welcome sleep.