{"id":5997,"date":"2005-12-05T12:30:57","date_gmt":"2005-12-05T17:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=5997"},"modified":"2005-12-05T12:30:57","modified_gmt":"2005-12-05T17:30:57","slug":"hillary-and-a-ban-on-flag-burning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/hillary-and-a-ban-on-flag-burning\/","title":{"rendered":"Hillary and a ban on flag-burning"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Post reported today<\/a> that Sen. Hillary Clinton “has quietly signed on to a Republican measure that makes it illegal to desecrate the American flag — a move that will boost her credibility in the conservative ‘red’ states.” At first, this seemed like horrendous news for those of us who hope to see the amendment fail. As of last month, supporters of a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning were a vote or two short<\/a> — and Clinton was considered an opponent of the bill. Had she switched?<\/p>\n

Fortunately, no. Clinton has signed on to a measure sponsored by Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) to avoid<\/i> a constitutional amendment. Bennett — who has said, “When my Senate career is over, I don’t want the most important constitutional vote that I have cast to be one that weakens the First Amendment” — has come up with his bill as an alternative approach<\/a> to the issue.<\/p>\n

U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett, a longtime opponent of amending the Constitution to ban flag-burning, has introduced a bill that would criminalize certain cases of flag desecration.<\/p>\n

The Flag Protection Act (S. 1370), introduced on July 1, would make it a crime to damage someone else’s flag — including those owned by the federal government — or to damage a flag in a way that promotes violence. The Republican senator from Utah said he wanted to make it clear that he doesn’t support flag-burning, but he does support the constitutional rights of expression symbolized by the United States flag.<\/p>\n

“My objection to a constitutional amendment should not be construed as demonstrating indifference to the issue of reverence for the flag,” he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don’t blame Clinton for signing on to the Bennett measure; in fact, I’m surprised more Dems haven’t done so already.<\/p>\n

First, it’s federal legislation, not a constitutional amendment. Second, I’m fine with protecting others’ flags, since destruction of private property is illegal anyway. I’m not quite sure how they’d enforce flag damage that “promotes violence,” but since this whole mess is about crass political exploitation anyway, I’m happy to let Judiciary Committee lawyers hash it out.<\/p>\n

What’s more, Senate Republicans don’t like the bill, so it’s basically an easy thing for Senate Dems to sign onto with impunity. It may be cynical, but it’s hard to blame a Dem planning a presidential run for pursuing this approach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New York Post reported today that Sen. Hillary Clinton “has quietly signed on to a Republican measure that makes it illegal to desecrate the American flag — a move that will boost her credibility in the conservative ‘red’ states.” At first, this seemed like horrendous news for those of us who hope to see […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5997\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}