> -----Original Message----- > From: Russel Madere [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Friday, October 20, 2006 11:55 AM > To: CF-Community > Subject: Re: The Fairness Doctrine > > As for the burner, that person can say the same thing without desecrating > the emblem of our nation. The burning of the flag is perform do an > outrageous action to draw attention to themself. All I support is the > banning of a particularly agregious, outrageous act.
I guess this is where I lose you. The only reason, as far as I can see, that this is an "agregious" act (potentially worthy of an amendment) is that you seem to fully equate the flag with the principles that the flag is symbolic of. To me there are several problems with this. The simplest is that the act itself is a symbolic gesture. In and of itself it does no harm, causes no damage: it's only power is derived from the feelings it promotes. In short if it didn't bother you, they wouldn't do it. Any attempt to ban the action would simply give it more power. We burn flags (or at least images of them) by the thousands (mostly after the fourth of July when we throw away all of the flag-adorned paper plates, cups, table cloths and various other artifacts of our national birthday party.) There's no issue because the emotional content is different. We're not protesting or indicating a desire for the downfall of America, we're just cleaning up. There doesn't seem to be any way for a law to truly prevent this. You obviously can't stop flag burnings in other jurisdictions and the number of loopholes seem endless... burning a 12 striped, 48 starred flag would, I have to assume, be legal, but would evoke (with the right emotional context of course) the exact same response. Burning pictures of flags would also do. Even for those following the spirit of the law there are plenty of other symbols which will drive the same response. An effigy of the Statue of Liberty for example. Lastly is, I think, the most important reason but also the hardest to grasp: the flag is a symbol of our freedoms, our liberties and our inalienable right to challenge our government. In short the flag is a symbol, at least in part, of our rights to burn the flag. Any law which would attempt to curtail that form of expression would be degrading the freedoms that the flag stands for. So I heartily disagree with any law, much less a Constitutional Amendment, that would seek to control expression and curtail our liberties in that way. But let's be clear about this: I don't LIKE flag burning and neither should you. The act of burning a flag IS symbolic, it's symbolic of a hatred of America and, much more importantly, our fundamental values. You should be angry when you see it. At the same I don't think you should afford it the power that you do. For one thing I've never actually seen an appropriate instance of flag burning. The people that burn flags are, quite simply, stupid. They're never protesting what the flag really represents. Rather they're protesting transient issues and people. The president, a war, a trade agreement, the latest scandal, etc. While all of that falls under the shadow of the flag none of it is what the flag stands for. Jim Davis ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Introducing the Fusion Authority Quarterly Update. 80 pages of hard-hitting, up-to-date ColdFusion information by your peers, delivered to your door four times a year. http://www.fusionauthority.com/quarterly Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:218131 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
