Frist tries — and fails — to defend culture-war amendments

May 29, 2006

As early as next week, the Senate will hold votes on [tag]constitutional amendment[/tag]s to ban [tag]flag[/tag] “[tag]desecration[/tag]” and [tag]gay marriage[/tag]. On [tag]Fox News[/tag] yesterday, [tag]Bill Frist[/tag] was asked whether these are “the most important issues the Senate can be addressing in June of 2006?” It’s not a bad question — too bad Frist didn’t have a good answer.

“I’m going to [tag]Arlington Cemetery[/tag] tomorrow, and I’m going to see that American flag waving on every single grave over there,” Frist said the day before Memorial Day ceremonies at the military cemetery.

“And when you look at that flag and then you tell me that right now people in this country are saying it’s OK to desecrate that flag and to burn it and to not pay respect to it is that important to our values as a people when we’ve got 130,000 people fighting for our freedom and liberty today? That is important.”

Frist defended a constitutional ban on gay marriage because “that union between a man and a woman is the cornerstone of our society. It is under attack today.”

It’s funny, in a way, that every time Frist speaks on almost any issue, I think, “This guy’s the [tag]Senate Majority Leader[/tag]? And thinks he should be [tag]president[/tag]?”

On the flag, I’m glad Frist is going to Arlington Cemetery today; maybe while he’s there he can take a moment to reflect on the freedoms for which those men and women sacrificed their lives. It wasn’t for a symbolic piece of cloth, it was for what that cloth represented. As far as Frist is concerned, the United States should join Cuba, China, and Iran as the only countries on earth to ban flag desecration. For him to connect this vote to American “values” during a time of war is painfully stupid.

And on marriage, if Frist could follow up that sentence by explaining in any way how marriage is “under attack today,” I’m all ears.

Frist said these votes are “important to the heart and soul of the American people.” What he meant was that the votes are important to a small segment of the GOP’s far-right base to which Frist is desperate to [tag]pander[/tag].

For what it’s worth, neither amendment has the votes to pass. After next week, marriage will still be a venerated institution, the flag will still be our national symbol, and Frist will still be a ridiculous hack. The more things change….

I’ve been told that the most touching moment in a gay wedding occurs right before the couple walks out of the church. They turn to each other as the minister places a small Amercian flag in a crucible. The groom douses the flag with lighter fluid as the groom takes out a match and lights it on fire. While the flag burns they chant,”To hell with American values.” As I said, people have told me it is absolutely touching.

  • The democrats need to find a way to frame these amendments as the ridiculous waste of time that they are without coming across as anything more than neutral on either issue. Can they do it?

  • While the stupidity of the amendments are obvious, they are dark indicators for the health of America. So much hate in America right now… whether the flag amendment passes or not, how would the oh so gentle police react to a protestor burning a American flag? Law or no law, the lines are drawn in a culture war, and people are going to suffer for it. To be more specific, the left will suffer in silence, or suffer at the hands of the state. I think it is a mistake to dismiss these issues as a bone tossed to the right-wing base… the fact that gay bashing and punishment for protestors was debated on the floor of the US senate lends some legitimacy to the issue. Not only will it make it easier to breach the subject later it will provide some sort of twisted moral cover for those who may want to drag a newly married gay couple behind a pickup, or for a police officer who beats the living hell out of an old woman who burns a flag as part of a protest.
    It may seem ludicrous to us – the law is the law. The Red-Staters on the other hand…

  • I’ve managed, so far, to avoid any tabloid references to the stability of Frist’s own marriage (I have a hard time imagining anything more boring), but if he’s looking for examples of an “attack on marriage” he need look no further than former Speaker Newt Gingrich. Serving divorce papers to his cancer-hospitalized wife so he could remarry a younger model (then dumping her for another, btw) hardly speaks well for “the cornerstone of our society”. Or Henry Hyde’s “youthful indiscretion”. Or the hotel room shenanigans of Hastert’s predecessor in the speakership, whatever his name was. The only marriage which is “under attack today” — serious, paranoid, busy-body, amending the state and federal constitutions kind of attack — is gay marriage.

    On the flag: isn’t it nice to know that these Fascist Republicans want to close ranks with Cuba, China and Iran? I think that point needs to be trumpeted throughout Limbaugh’s (he’s on his fourth wife, btw) Amerika.

  • I guess Frist will be too busy looking at flags to notice all the graves. There are some pictures at http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/ that he should be forced to look at daily for the rest of his life. He and every other idiot that approved of the Iraq war.

  • We’ve heard the following statement many times, “Why do Democrats hate America?” It seems to me that Democrats have an opportunity to turn this back on Republicans with their own questions, “Why do Republicans promote hatred in America?” or “Why do Republicans think voters are stupid?”

    It is hard to imagine that Frist and the Republicans think they can keep riding the good American, bad American pony much longer. It seems to me that there are just too many other real issues for this approach to keep working…but perhaps it is the only pony left for Frist as he finds his charmed status has faded.

    read more observations here:

    http://www.thoughttheater.com

  • It’s not ‘okay’ to desecrate the flag, it is legal to desecrate the flag. Something being ‘legal’ and something being ‘okay’ are seperate issues. It is legal for Nazis to protest and attempt to spread hate, but it is not ‘okay.’

    Personally, I am thrilled that, when I honor the flag, it is because I choose to. I fear a world where my children will be forced to honor the flag by the threat of the government. One is the world of freedom from government, the other is mandatory nationalism. A country that is injured by the destruction of a symbol in public once every few months is a very weak and fearful country.

  • How about this for an argument- When we sign up to serve, we sign up to defend the Constitution, not the flag. Maybe if the Bush administration was less concerned with burning the flag, and a little more concerned with Not burning the Constitution…

  • Ok, one more thing on the flag: isn’t the “liberal” position on this one the minority position in the polls? Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this one issue where the polls show that around 75% support outlawing flag-burning?

    If that’s the case, than the “liberal” position on that issue isn’t in opposition to a caveman, barbarian position- it’s in opposition to the mainstream point of view.

    When you support flag-burning, and refuse to change just because you don’t want to be seen to reverse course, you’re cutting off your nose to spite your face: for basically no return, for no value, what you’re getting in exchange is providing a hell of a lot of people with all they think they need to keep opposing liberals, and to never really give a fair listen to your position on anything. Wow, great issue for us, eh?

    Nowadays, conservatives in this country move like a cheetah; they’re able and willing to make quick, new moves. Liberals are like the animals they prey on: a giraffe that thinks it’ll just keep walking the way it’s walking while it’s getting savaged, and that everything will be fine.

  • What I see on the internet is that people are mostly opposed to amending the constitution to prohibit flag-burning, but that most people think that flag burning is already illegal and indeed, that around 75% think flag burning should be illegal.

  • Swan, I’ll say this again: refusal to “change” in flag-burning is not merely a refusal to reverse course out of stubbornness.

    There were times in this country when 75% supported slavery. That didn’t make it right, or mean the 25% should change to accomodate the majority. Majorities are not always correct (really, Britney Spears is not the greatest musician to ever put voice to vinyl).

    The progressive position on free speech inherently including the right to burn a flag in protest is absolutely the only one remotely consistent with the First Amendment as it has long been understood. It is the only logical position: what should be honored is what the flag represents, not the symbol itself.

    You are suggesting we should join the non-reality based mob, take an illogical position antithetical to the First Amendment, just to appease those who would govern viscerally rather than with reason.

    As it turns out, bombing nations where people have brown skin is really really popular too, over short terms. maybe Democrats should loudly support doing so to get elected?

  • Hm, on second thought, could be I’m wrong. Instead, just have the same old Dems and Dem activists go on the same loaded talk shows and talk about “improving private-sector unionization, monetary policies that encourage full employment, national healthcare, and possibly universal access to decent childcare” and “an immediate increase to the minimum wage.” I’m sure that will go a long way toward allaying the misgivings Americans currently have about liberals. It’s so innovative, it will definitely get across to the people we haven’t been reaching sufficiently the way what we’ve already been doing hasn’t before. Thank God we’ve got Kevin Drum on the case.

  • My memory has never been very good but for the life of me I cannot remember a flag burning episode in this country over the the last 10 years or more. By banning falg burning the incidents would increase dramatically. I think to strengthen marriage we need ban not gay marriage but instead ban heterosexual divorces, the real threat to marriage.

  • Frist said:

    “And when you look at that flag and then you tell me that right now people in this country are saying it’s OK to desecrate that flag and to burn it and to not pay respect to it is that important to our values as a people when we’ve got 130,000 people fighting for our freedom and liberty today? That is important.”

    Whoa, it would be terrible if Frist did not have this to say to all the people that line resonates with anymore, wouldn’t it? It would be so bad if Dems were the ones who were seen to take it away from him (in accord with the wishes of 75% of Americans).

  • It seems to me, Swan, that the trouble here is not the lack of understanding about the “liberal agenda” by those that have the capacity to start with….the problem lies with those who lack the ability to understand any of it to start with….you know, the NASCAR man who lacks opposable thumbs….I mean, the reason we’ll never get (and should not try) NASCAR man is that they completely shut down at the mention of the word “democrat” or “liberal” They don’t even KNOW what the issues actually are, but are completely certain….that simply because you’re a dem or a liberal, that you’re automatically on the other side of the equation, when in reality (at least here in the quite RED state of Alabama) many of them are the recipients of the very social programs and benefits that were originally designed by those damn liberals. By their very nature, the conservative lives in fear of change and anything that don’t look or smell like them. Pair that with this almost ludicrous mentality of “I’m RIGHT dammit and you’re wrong and that’s just the way it is.”and you might as well be talking to a brick wall with a big rebel flag on it. The point I’m trying to make is simple, you mentioned if we give in on the flag-burning issue (and potentially others) then we could engage in a dialogue with those who oppose us. It’s not gonna happen. You cannot force someone to listen to you whose convinced at an almost genetic level that you’re wrong and you’re obviously going to hell. We certainly do need innovation, not for the idiots on the other side, but for the BIG block of our own camp who are so disenfranchised by liberals in power who have already been letting the loudmouthed asses at the front of the room roll over them. I for one am tired of the rethugs winning simply cause they yell louder.

  • Timmy, you are putting words in my mouth when you write “you mentioned if we give in on the flag-burning issue (and potentially others) then we could engage in a dialogue with those who oppose us.”

    I would like to see the results of this genetic test you mention. Sounds like a non-existant genetic test.

    A lot of liberals on the internet are always talking about problems we’ve had an abstract level, but are unready to make the decisions they have to make to solve the problem.

    Repubs are willing to do new things, they’re willing to innovate, and that’s what they’ve been doing. They’ve been leaving us in the dust. The responses all these Dems who supposedly know what they’re doing have offered have not answered.

    You see these things once a week on the blogs that are suggestions about what we need to do to be fresh and to stir things up. They always say things like that we should talk about “improving private-sector unionization, monetary policies that encourage full employment, national healthcare, and possibly universal access to decent childcare” and about “an immediate increase to the minimum wage” and that this will solve things.

    ????

    These suggestions always come from guys who are older than me or supposedy better educated than me. I don’t think that they really know what they are doing, though, when they are making these suggestions.

  • Swan, that sounds great. “Counter” the impression that Democrats don’t stand for anything by going along with the fascistic flag-burning measure. Hey, I know: let’s *really* get out in front of popular opinion by making it illegal to criticize the government, or to publicly profess atheism–hell, any non-Christian creed. That’ll show “the people” that we’re with them!

    There are three great responses, all of which you evidently dismiss, that Democrats should make here:

    1) Why do Frist, Bush and Cheney want to put the U.S. in a group with China, Cuba, and Iran? And what is it about those countries that makes the prospect of “flag desecration” so scary to them?

    2) Wouldn’t it be nice if the Republicans in Congress were as committed to protecting the Constitution as they are to protecting the flag?

    3) We want to raise the minimum wage, lower your health care costs, invest in schools and jobs, start weaning the country off oil, and figure out how to achieve our aims in Iraq without staying there forever. They want to outlaw flag burning and persecute the homos. Which sounds better to you?

  • Swan, True enough. I didn’t intend to put words in your mouth but that’s the sentiment that I got from your post, that somehow we need to be able to engage in a rational discussion with people who refuse to listen to what we have to say, rational or not.

    And of course it’s a “non-existent genetic test” I only wish there were one…..lol.

    I live in a place that refused to pass a bill enabling us to form a lottery for education several years ago. Not because studies have shown them not to work, or that the money raised was not enough to acutally help the educational systems, or even that many of the state run lotteries are corrupt…..nope….not here. Every Sunday in every church in this state the issue was discussed…..because according to the “moral majority” gambling is a sin.

    Yep. In a state ranked very nearly last in educational dollars spent….we decided that since gambling is s sin….no lottery, no matter whether it would help or not.

    This is the problem I have. You state (I’ll quote directly this time) “Repubs are willing to do new things, they’re willing to innovate, and that’s what they’ve been doing” How? by using the same wedge issues that they’ve been trotting out for the past 20 years? Flag burning, homos taking over? True they’ve got some new ones, like the “War on Christmas” and the fact that us liberals are trying to hack away at Christianity itself (only the largest religion in this country.)!”

    I would love to see us innovate, I’m all about any suggestions that ANYONE has on the way to do it, but I maintain that it cannot be done by trying to “win over” those who are already brainwashed by the other side.

    And you’re completely right, every week I see the same things on the internet, “improving private-sector unionization, monetary policies that encourage full employment, national healthcare, and possibly universal access to decent childcare” and about “an immediate increase to the minimum wage” And while I agree that some of those issues ought to be addressed, with all the noise over things that we’ll simply never agree on, they’ll never be able to “solve” the problem….why?

    Because Joe Public, the guys I know, living in a tralier, driving a 6 mpg truck with 44 inch mudders, a gun-rack and a rebel flag on the back window, don’t realize that those things affect them!

    You’re young and intelligent, how exactly would you move the debate? Or what decisions would you make to help “solve the problem” as you so aptly put it? I’m on your side here, I’d love to some kind or rational idea of what we do to take back our country from this kind of idiocy and I can see were 75% of people in this country might be against flag burning, I really can….so you know….don’t burn the flag for God’s sake…..but I don’t think it’s reason to ammend the Constitution, or take the time that it will to deal with when we obviously have more important things that the Congress might be doing with their time…..ahem.

    This is the reason it pisses me off. Seriously when polled what are you gonna say? That you support burning of the flag? Right, me neither (though in truth I think that political dissidence is ok, free speech is free speech, you either have it or you don’t…just ask the Dixie Chicks…lol)

    It may be that the tactics used to further their cause have come into the 20th century, however I contend that the Repubs will always use FEAR to motivate their base. That’s one constant. When we as Dems or liberals or whatever can diffuse that firecracker, then we might be able to get into a debate on more substantive issues.

    My questions were serious to you (as one not “much” older than you…and proabably less educated too, remember I live in Alabama…heh heh.) I’d love to know what things you’d do, maybe a democratic “wedge issue” It’s a tough call, I’m not even sure it exists in this particular vaccum.

  • Swan, I understand your point that opposing a flag burning amendment may alienate some people, but it is the kind of political freedom I have to support. One reason that I don’t consider this pragmatically impractical is that it is but one of several issues in the “culture war” area and I don’t think the indepenent and moderates necessarily side with the GOP on all the others, eg stem cell research.

    Also, I did my googling and the polls I found say that only about 55% support an amendment outlawing flag burning, which agrees with the dichotomy you posted in 10. There are many ways in which the manner in which the question was asked could be responsible for the difference, so I am providing the links:

    This from 2005, toward the bottom of the page:
    http://pewforum.org/surveys/origins/

    From 2006:
    http://www.pollingreport.com/civil.htm

    Even if some percentage of the respondants opposed an amendment in the mistaken belief that flag burning is already illegal, I do not think that 60% ideologially opposing a single liberal idea is enough to drop the support of same for political reasons.

    Off to find a crucible and some lighter fluid for my Please Stop Bush from Destroying our System of Government ceremony.

  • “And when you look at that flag and then you tell me that right now people in this country are saying it’s OK to desecrate that flag and to burn it and to not pay respect to it is that important to our values as a people when we’ve got 130,000 people fighting for our freedom and liberty today? That is important.”

    Here’s a crazy-ass idea: How about Congress doing something that addresses the issue of HOW to get those 130,000 back home?

    When will someone in Congress, I don’t care who, has the fucking balls to stand up and say, “THIS is what we’re debating??? Protecting flags and keeping gay people from getting married??”

    We don’t have a Legislative Branch, we have a clown carnival

  • Tired, you may not have heard of an instance of flag-burning over the past few years– but my guess is that I have heard maybe 100 times in my life someone say “they want to burn the flag” or “they support burning the flag!”

    That’s the problem. That they can say it.

    And yeah, I have heard of flag burning within the past 10 years about, but I’m not sure that any of those incidents made the news.

    Zeitgeist, supporting flag burning is not on a par with supporting slavery. I bet you that on the day I die, 75% of Americans will still want flag burning illegal. Slavery has to do with living, breathing people, and flag burning has to do with a piece of cloth.

    The types of guys who think people who burn the flag should get a beating include guys who are, otherwise, pretty nice- not the date rapists and not guys who call African Americans “nigger” behind their backs- I promise you. These are people like the nice guy who works at the local pizzeria, who works as a bank tellet & is nice to you, etc.

    Dajafi, those responses are just not nearly as good as Dems supporting making flag-burning illegal. And of course, the other things you are suggesting in your first paragraph have nothing to do with what I am talking about at all.

    The GOP keeps tricking Dems into getting onto the wrong sides of the wrong polls, and this is one of them, just like with Hillary. Hillary was the leader in the polls. Obviously we should support her. They have talked a lot of Dems into not supporting her.

    Remember the Dem Party Convention? Remember all the language from the Dems’ speeches at the convention that sounded contentious was edited out- what kind of idea was that?- and then the GOP delivered a really energized, contentious convention that made ours look flat?

    This is what is happening again, right now, with things like Hillary and flag burning. In hindsight, people will say, “wow, we made mistakes,” but right now, people are falling in with the herd.

    CB, you know I think you are smart as a whip & that you are right most of the time, but you should redact this post. 75% of Americans are asking nicely.

  • Swan, I must admit now that I’m confused. Whilst flag burning may not be on par, historically speaking, with slavery per se, ammending our constitution to outlaw it could, I dare say, have a longer lasting and ultimately more damaging effect on our country than slavery ever did. You say “and flag burning has to do with a piece of cloth. ” Which is true, but the issue surrounding that piece of cloth is something entirely different. If it’s only a “piece of cloth” then what’s the big deal if I burn it? Who am I hurting by doing so? But, wait, you also say that there are lots of guys who are otherwise pretty nice who would think someone who burns the flag deserves a beating, indicating that it’s far more than just a “piece of cloth” I agree it’s far more, but it’s still only a symbol. Are we so far gone in this country that we can’t tolerate anything at all (flag burning or otherwise) that questions our patriotism? Seriously, screw the flag, I want to protect my right to speak my mind without the threat of being beaten to a pulp by otherwise right thinking guys at the corner pizzeria.

  • Dajafi, those responses are just not nearly as good as Dems supporting making flag-burning illegal.

    Well, there’s a powerful, compelling argument. Who are you, Bob Shrum? Go on, pull out that “75 percent” number again. Then ask yourself the question you clearly haven’t considered, which is just how highly “protecting flag-burning” ranks on their priorities.

    I have no particular brief for flag-burning; I think it is insulting to those who have fought and died for our country, and I think it’s stupid and counterproductive for anyone trying to win an argument or change a policy. If a community or a state wants to pass a law that criminalizes burning the flag (and exempts the proper, legally mandated destruction of old, used flags by incineration), I say god bless.

    But a Constitutional amendment is just silly and stupid. Your view seems to be that Democrats can “make the issue go away” by agreeing to it… but with the need for 3/4 of states to ratify, it’s going to take a long time to go away. And as other posters have pointed out, the right-wingers will then just keeping dancing their Thomas Frank Two-Step, bouncing on to the next culture war issue.

    And of course, the other things you are suggesting in your first paragraph have nothing to do with what I am talking about at all.

    I suppose a Hillary supporter wouldn’t see the connection; after all, what’s a little triangulation and pandering when there’s short-term advantage to be gained? But anyone with knowledge of history and how things spiral should understand that every time you say yes to curtailing freedom of expression, it becomes that much harder to say no the next time.

  • Ok, so we decide that one piece of symbolic political speech is not worth losing votes over. So we agree: lets water-down the First Amendment to prohibit flag desecration.

    So next year, whipped up by BushCheneyRoveRummyCo., 75% of Americans think that public protests against the war embolden the enemy, undermine our troop morale, and interfere with foreign policy — that only anti-American liberals would do such a thing. I expect you’ll be here saying “well, 75% of the country is against us on this, and its just one type of speech, and it overwhelms any other identity for Dems, so we should agree to outlaw it.” So we agree: we water down the First Amendment to prohibit public protests against the war.

    And the next year, BushCheneyRoveRummyCo. get 75% of the public to agree that mocking, name-calling, satire, parody or caricature against the President of the United States undermines the Commander in Chief (and hey, those troops surey fight as much for their Commander as they do that flag which was probably made in Taiwan anyway). Americans agree: no matter what we think of Bush or his policies, it just is inappropriately disrespectful to make fun of him. And again, why wouldn’t you be here saying “Dems just cant always be on the wrong side of 75% of America! We should agree to ban making fun of the President before we become a permenant minority!”

    Where will you draw the line? Will there be anything left of the First Amendment? Am I the only one left who actually cares about the First Amendment? Would will still recognize the country you’d have us sell out to lead?

  • Does anyone remember the Scout manual on how to treat a flag…what do you do with it when it is old, torn and dirty? Well, according to the manual you respectfully burn it. Of course what the amendment is talking about is burning the flag in a disrespectfull manner in a demonstration , I suppose. Some one said that they had heard of a flag burning within the last 10 years…so have I but all the ones I can recall happened in other countries. I also live in a red state..well, maybe not quite red… and I have seen flags flown on mailboxes, on cars, fastened to the fence that are dirty, torn,dragging on the gound….all things I had always believed were not how one shoud treat the flag. At one time I thought of putting a flag in the front yard…but when I saw all these flags treated in such a disrepecful manner I decided not to. I would have to bring it in each night and when it rained and when it was old I would burn it. I feel a great affection for our flag….but as someone above remarked, it is just a piece of cloth….a symbol…and what it stands for ( or did before the current group) was the important part. However I also agree that changing the minds of the NASCAR guy may be impossible. I would try but not by joining in with silly amendments.

  • The recommended method for disposing of the flag is in the US Code, Title 4, Chapter 1, Section 8, Subsection k: “when a flag has served its useful purpose, it should be destroyed, preferably by burning”.

  • Zeitgeist, I care about the first amendment, and I have strong emotions about what the flag STANDS FOR. Swan is quite convinced that his is the rational position on this issue. I remain unconvinced and unmoved. This is not a position I hold out of stubborness. It is a conviction, and it is one I share with an older brother who is a devoted Ditto Head. I recognize I may not be in “mainstream” on this matter. No US citizen is going to either win me to their cause or enrage me if they burn a flag to protest something his/her government is doing (I am much more upset when I see citizens of other countries burn the flag; it’s not rational but it is akin to how I feel about non-family members criticizing my family as opposed to family members criticizing). But I’m not in the mainstream about many things (I’ve never watched “American Idol,” for example), and I sleep pretty well at night.

    I do not believe that taking the flag burning “issue” away from Bill Frist is a step toward Democratic victory. I don’t believe the Republicans are willing to try new things and innovate. Nor do I believe they move about this country like cheetahs (cheaters, most definitely). They are pigs at the trough and they are very good at appealing to fear and American exceptionalism with their enduring wedge issues. They fiddle while America burns and they wrap their dangerous policies in the flag. It is thoroughly disgusting. Frist is a boob. If HE were against flag burning, I might have to reconsider my own beliefs, which I feel deeply and have held for a long time. But, for now, this is a belief on which I personally will not compromise.

    I’m off to burn a flag now…

  • Dajfi, what hurts the Dems is their position on it. If they changehow they see the issue, that’s really basically the whole problem. The details of the process of amending the constitution are all beside the point.

    Dajafi, anybosy can “argue” that acceding to one thing will somehow lead to allowing things similar to what you’ve acceded to; but it’s not a real argument. Without showing how there’s a logical connection, you have to show a little more before you can say that outlawing flag burning very likely leads to outlawing more significant speech.

  • Timmy, what makes you think that outlawing flag burning would have a worse and more lasting effect on our country than slavery ever did?

    The flag is a piece of cloth to everyone. To a flag burner, it’s a piece of cloth and it’s also a symbol to be exploited. But for someone who is offended by flag burning, the flag is something to be revered, in addition to being a piece of cloth.

    So who’s got the bigger claim to the issue?

    If you are an atheist, and you go into a temple of a certain religion, perhaps their religious symbol is nothing more than a piece of would to you. But to them, it’s a symbol to be revered. So does that mean that since it’s not important to you, no one has a right to complain if you desecrate it. No. That’s etiquette 101. Anyone understands that. So your comment, to that extent, doesn’t say much.

  • What everyone seems to be missing here is the fact that one cannot desecrate something that is not consecrated in the first place. Look up the word “consecrate”; in a nutshell, it means to make something sacred.

    The flag is a symbol, it is not sacred. You cannot desecrate something that is not sacred.

    Besides, the last time I looked (in 2004 when this idiotic pandering issue came up last), the FBI’s numbers show that a protest flag-burning takes place in America on average once a year. What a reign of terror! What a gigantic plague of lawlessness!

    It is a stupid issue to drum up uninformed emotional outrage over something that is not even a problem.

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