Eclectic Floridian: Flag Burning Amendment? Poppycock.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Flag Burning Amendment? Poppycock.

My main irritations with the Flag Burning Amendment are two-fold:
1) It's a stupid election-year waste of time,
2) It is an attempt to legislate the intentions of the citizenry.

Point #2 is the major factor when contained in a Constitutional amendment. If memory serves me correctly, burning is the recommended method of disposing of dirty, torn, frayed or otherwise unserviceable flags.

With that thought in mind, which of these flag burning scenarios would be illegal?

1) A VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) post collects unserviceable flags. Then, once a year they are burned according to accepted practice with appropriate salutes.

2) A homeowner has displayed the flag in his yard. It has become unserviceable. He has raised and lowered it according to tradition. Out of respect, to decommision the flag he builds a fire in the barbeque and, with appropriate salutes, burns it.

3) The homeowner from #2 above is a young person with a shaved head and numerous body piercings. His treatement of the flag is the same as in #2 above.

4) Homeowner #2, in the same situation described, takes the same actions, except out of disgust for Bush's disregard for the Constitution, spits on the flag as it burns.

5) Homeowner #3 takes the same actions described in in #4 above.

6) A 14 year-old boy, disgusted by his school suspension for bringing a realistic looking water pistol to school (we've all read these stories) burns the flag publicly screaming of the gestapo tactics.

I could go on, but you get the idea? Which of these people are guilty of a crime under the proposed amendment?

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