Assuming the flag-desecration idiocy passes.

[Liberal Veteran]

And is ratified, what is stop someone from making a flag with 49 stars and 12 stripes and burning it in protest.

Would the courts be able to do anything about slightly "off" flags being burning that would look almost like the American flag but not really be our flag?

[bowens43]

1. If passed and ratified

it will not stop anyone from doing anything. It does not make flag 'desecration' illegal. In fact it doesn't make anything illegal.

It does however give congress the authority to pass laws making flag 'desecration' illegal.

It says:

“The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.”

[getmeouttahere]

2. It just shows how out-of-whack our priorities are...

in this FUBAR country that our lawmakers spend so much time on this issue!

[Liberal Veteran]

5. Well, you know there is an epidemic of flag-burning.

I can barely make to my car without burning a flag or two every morning.
:sarcasm:

[TlalocW]

6. The skies around Tulsa

Are blackened and the sun blotted out from the billowing clouds of smoke from all the flag burning going on.

TlalocW

[Tux]

8. I hear you

I can barely breath with all the flag burning in Bowling Green, KY. Seems like people buy flags just to burn. I haven't seen the Sun in weeks. Nor the moon. Ashes of the flags fly through the air everyday, all day. It's sad. :cry:

[randr]

3. Over the course of the last 50 years

every time the approval numbers for congress get dangerously low this amendment comes up. Coincidence? I think not.

[renaissanceguy]

4. The ultimate question is

who decides what constitutes a flag? If you look at the existing flag code, little flags we wave at parades and flag bumper stickers don't count as official flags.

http://www.cafepress.com/liberalissues/428793

[tk2kewl]

7. lots of interesting ways you could protest using the flag

a few were mentioned here last night:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3924299

[Gidney N Cloyd]

9. Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune several years ago

posed a similar idea. He suggested we come up with an official Desecration Flag, maybe opposite colors or a totally unrelated design but it would be the officially sanctioned flag for people to burn when they want to protest against some American wrongdoing. The question was how would the people in favor of a flag protection amendment feel about it? Did they really want to just protect "Old Glory," or were they trying stifle dissent?

[DinahMoeHum]

11. Official "Desecration Flag"? Well, let's take an tip from Mark Twain

Link:
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~DRBR/sitting.html

"...as for a flag...it is easily managed. We can have a special one -- our States do it: we can have just our usual flag, with the white stripes painted black and the stars replaced by the skull and cross-bones..."


:nuke:

[jmowreader]

13. They're trying to stifle dissent

I hate to say this...but:

Fuck the flag.

The flag isn't what makes us unique.

Every state in the Union has a flag.

Every county in every one of those states (and every parish in Louisiana) has a flag.

Lots of the cities in those counties have flags too.

Baseball teams have flags. Corporations have flags. Dale Earnhardt had a flag.

And every country in the world has a flag. North Korea. The Sudan. Iran. Afghanistan under the Taliban and Iraq under Saddam. Oh yeah...all the countries that aren't run by despots have flags too.

You can even get flags with mushrooms and butterflies on them to hang in your garden.

What I'm trying to say is, a flag isn't all that unusual. What makes us unique is our Constitution and our system of government. Do you know that our Constitution is the only one that's never been torn up and rewritten in the entire history of the nation it governs? Do you know that we are the only country in the world that's never changed its name or form of government in its entire history? Every other country puts in a king, who gets overthrown by a dictator, who gets run off by someone meaner who puts in a popularly-elected democracy...that splits in half so one side can install a President-for-Life and the other can base its system of government on watery tarts distributing swords. The United States split up one time in its history...and the splinter group installed the exact same form of government they just left!

Congress is pretty unpopular these days because they signed off on letting George Bush kill their kids for no good reason, so to bail themselves out they're pulling out the Apple Pie and Motherhood Act, also known as the Flag Desecration Amendment. They do this every once in a while, usually right after Congress is decreed less popular than Liver and Onions served with Overcooked Brussels Sprouts. The amendment has two problems: it stifles freedom of expression for the handful of people who are pissed off enough to burn a flag; and it's a cure for a disease that doesn't exist. People don't burn American flags in this country. Every night I turn on my television to see people burning American flags on the news, but those people are in some foreign country--where this amendment has no effect. Believe me, if someone were to spark up a flag in Scranton city park, it would be on every newscast and on the front page of every newspaper in America. It would be Huge News. Because no one does this here.

I think I'd rather see a Constitution Desecration Amendment. That we need.

[realFedUp]

10. It might do away with those idiotic plastic flags waving from SUVs

and that would be a good thing.

but amending the Bill of Rights over this issue
is just a slippery slope.

[havocmom]

12. I wanna know if Congress has made it legal to fly badly soiled & damaged

flags. I see too many of those around. And too many left out at night without lights on them. And too many that are so frayed out they are mostly just fringe flying from cars that are also freqently festooned with those damned jingo-ista ribbons.

How come nobody gripes about lazy RW idiots who can't be bothered with TAKING CARE OF THEIR FLAG like they are supposed to? How about a lillte law and order dragging them out from in front of their TV (FAUX on, of course) and making them bring in and fold Old Glory like they are supposed to?

I had to give up walking the dog in the evening due to blood pressure surges when I would go past so many houses with tattered flags hanging in the dark and seeing the folks inside all on their butts in front of the tube.

IT'S NOT THEIR FLAG! It belongs to us all.

[getmeouttahere]

14. Not to mention that those flags on SUV's....

end up falling off and become litter!