Desecration of the US Flag
 

We need to push to bring this law back:

5-51-207. Contempt for or desecration of the United States flag.

(a) (1) Any person who knowingly mutilates, defaces, physically defiles, burns, maintains on the floor or ground, or tramples upon any flag of the United States shall be fined not more than one thousand dollars ($1,000) or imprisoned for not more than one (1) year, or both.

(2) This subsection does not prohibit any conduct consisting of the disposal of a flag when it has become worn or soiled.

(b) As used in this section, "flag of the United States" means any flag of the United States, or any part of a flag of the United States, made of any substance, or any size, in a form that is commonly displayed.

I agree and it irks me but America will never again be the country that our fathers grew up in.

and we should behead anyone who draws a caricature of it too!


Oh, wait a minute... :munchin

Bingo......

It's free speech.....leave it alone.

And remember only a coward would throw it to the ground and walk on it, and after that it no longer represents the honorable men and women that fought and bled for it. (That's how I see it anyway)

Take a picture of the people doing it! Remember she who will not be named posed for some great pics and will never be able to esplain that one away. Nor will these folks.

Free speech works both ways.

Free speech for us to identify the people doing it and put them in the hall of shame!

Ah yes, "the good old days"! IMO (old enough to be your dad), they weren't as good as you believe they were. :munchin

It would take a constitutional ammendment, as Texas v. Johnson has already granted it protected speech status.

That said, I disagree with banning it.

I think that one of the consequences of living in a free society is that from time to time, people will do things that offend the sensibilities of the majority of people. Fred Phelps comes to mind. So does Larry Flynt's satire of Jerry Falwell. That these actions are offensive, in my opinion, is not sufficient enough reason to ban them from the public discourse.

Vigilante justice never hurt anyone, though.

I disagree. (You could be my older brother. ;))

Pat

Start revoking food stamps and welfare from all who participate. Sit back and watch how quickly they stop.

^^^^^How are food stamps and welfare a legally held constitutional right?

This is not the first time we have attended this flag rodeo here.

The court ruling is the very essence of what we have all sworn to protect and defend with our lives.

(imo) What the ruling supports, is the fundamental right of free unrestricted speech, up to and including the destruction of our most cherished symbols. Justice Blackburn questions, as have others, how are we to distinguished what is more important between one representative object and another. Who establishes the value, and who has that right to impose the value on others, without first, negating the very essence of our rights protected by the 1st amendment.

In another thread someone remarked that the idea of being American was a mindset, and that idea is what made us unique. Being an American was a state of beliefs, enshrined in our Constitution as unalienable rights.

Being an American involves a level of consideration for cultural and religious differences that supersedes restriction. Being an American Soldier means swearing an oath of allegiance that supersedes our own prejudices in protecting those differences, even if those who most benefit from that oath, would never swear allegiance to it.

Some time ago, when the issue of burning the flag was causing severe emotional distress for many of us, I none the less, asked my state Senator, a WWII combat vet to vote against establishing the act as criminal for the same reason.

When we watch foreign protesters burn effigies and our National symbol, it disturbs us, not because we fear the loss of those emblems, but because it represents a threat to its representation, our ideals: Words, those which we willing defend and are prepared to die for, are more important that symbolic representations.