Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Tango on May 20, 2008, 07:38:06 AM
-
I don't get upset as much except when I see Americans burning the flag. Idiots from another country don't have the rights that we have but the idiots here do. If those same idiots could get thier hands on the original Bill of Rights or Declaration of Independance, I'm sure they would try to burn it as well. Instead they use Old Glory. One reason why we should ban flag burning.
-
Too many men have fought for and left of themselves on foreign fields in defense of our freedoms. Why spoil the price that they have paid by descrating the symbol of our freedoms?
Did you serve?
-
How many soldiers do you know that would support burning the flag? I know some that would like to beat the #$%& out of anyone that did it.
I served. Retired a year ago the end of this month. I don't think there needs to be a law agaisnt burning the flag. Do I support someone who burns the flag? NO!!! I DO support their RIGHT to burn the flag. I spent my entire adult life protecting their right to do so with no regrets. Burning the flag is a moral decision. If they can do it and look at themselves in the mirror the next day and feel fine about it, well they have to live with themselves. I can't stand someone who would cheat on their spouse either, again that's a moral choice.
This is the United States of America. To call yourself an American citizen you MUST allow everyone who is a citizen to express their own views however they choose to unless doing so violates your rights. They have the right to burn the flag and I have the right to call them a cowardly @#$% (you can fill in the blank there) to their face for doing so. We don't have "moral" police in this country. Some countries do. There are places where if your heard speaking badly about the government, you vanish. Take a good hard look at Myanmar. The few reports coming out of that country were reporters have talked to locals, they don't give any names. Why do you think that is? They all say the same thing. I don't want to get in trouble for talking bad about the government.
Thank GOD I live here where I can call the sitting president a putz if I want too, in public as loud as I want, and I don't have to worry about some secret police coming in the middle of the night and taking me away. Banning the act of burning our nations flag would be nothing but anouther step towards having ALL our freedoms taken away. What would be next?
For those that think banning flag burning is a good idea, let me ask you this. What gives YOU the RIGHT to deny someone their RIGHT to freedom of expression and political dissent?
-
Symbolism is symbolism whther it is in the form of letters or pictures or fabric symbols... all speech and all protected by our wonderful bill of rights.
Is expressing my disagreement with a flag burner by symbolically putting a 150 grain 7.62 x 51 bullet cruising two feet over a flag burner's head a legitimate symbolic act of free speech protected by our wonderful bill of rights? :devil
-
Two feet sounds plenty generous to me, maybe too generous. ;)
-
When people say this-
"Too many men have fought for and left of themselves on foreign fields in defense of our freedoms. Why spoil the price that they have paid by descrating the symbol of our freedoms?"
Or this-
"When you desecrate the flag you also desecrate those who's very blood was spilled.
It the moral equevelant of pissing on someones tombstone"
They presume to speak for veterans, and I resent that.
I speak for nobody but myself.
And perhaps those who have died fighting for this country.
When one of our combat dead complains. I'll care.
But to be honest. Some of the ones who instilled that feeling in me were vets.
But also ones who werent. Its just the way it was taught back then.
Even if you didnt agree with what the government was doing. You showed the utmost respect for the flag.
Throughout my life I've known Vets. When I was a little kid my neighborhood was filled with combat Vets of both WWII and Korea and then those returning from Vietnam.
And those who simply served.
It is perhaps those people more then anyone else who instilled both the pride and respect I have in our flag .
They all felt the same way. and taught me to do the same
I know my father, (Army,82nd Airborne early 1960's) Felt the same way I do.
As did one of my uncles Did. (Army reverves late 60's (Till he became a Jehovas Witness)
I know my brother in law does. (Navy Early 70's) they all served (but didnt fight)
I know my other uncle (Army, Korea 1952-53)
My father in law (Navy WWII 1943-45)
Wifes Grandfather (Navy WWI WWII)
Wifes Uncle (Marines WWII, Korea)
As well as several of my friends whom have served. In Various branches
All felt or feel the same way.
I remember being with my father in law when on the news one night they showed Americans burning he flag.
He got as pissed as I've ever seen him "Geezus H KeeRiist. Is this what I fought for?? Is this what Joey (mother in laws brother, KIA WWII) And John (Father in laws other Brother KIA Korea)Hi Died for??"
I know how they feel.. I've yet to meet the vet face to face that doesnt.
But I dont speak for them.
Many of them can still speak for themselves
I speak for myself and in honor of the estimated 1,004,234 American war dead who serving under that flag who cant speak for themselves.
That flag as much as any monument or tombstone represents them as much as anything else.
So long as you can draw enough breath to speak for yourself. I wouldnt think to speak for you
But, the moment you become an american war dead I'll be honored and proud to speak for you as well in memory of you.
Untill that time
I really dont give a damn what you resent
-
I've tried 4 - 6 times to view the video.. won't load for some reason. I usually like these guys' take on things, so I probably have no problem with it - except for my own free speech opinion that every spoiled, thankless POS who burns our flag is an prettythanghole.
Gunthr
-
I do find it interesting that, generally speaking, people are very selective about what kinds of speech they want protected.
Burn an American flag, and these people call it "free speech."
Burn a cross, and many of the same people call it "hate speech."
Personally, I don't see too much difference, either in the act or the intent. But they are treated very, very differently. If one can be treated as a crime, then they both should be able to.
-
I don't think flag burning should be illegal. When you say "these people", do you include me? Just want to make sure I understand your overgeneralization.
-
I said it before in an earlier post but I'll repeat it here.
I think flag burning is speech, needs to be protected as far as government action is concerned. I do think that witnessing flag burning should be a defense to punching out the burner in addition to being a type of free speech as well.
-
Drediock,
Well said. :salute
-
Tango?? Did you serve?
No I did not, BUT I come from a military family. My father served 20 years in the Air Force and was a tail gunner in a B-29 in Korea. I can tell you that he said that anyone who burned the flag should be thrown out of the country for it.
-
Words are just one means of communicating. The ideas are what "freedom of speech" are about, just as freedom of religion is. It's from ideas that words, and pictures, and other means of communication, flow. That's why there's not even a hint anywhere (except maybe in modern politicians' minds) of a need for "freedom of thought" legislature.
-
I used to think flag burning was strictly bad mojo......now in my continuing slide towards wisdom I believe it should be a protected expression of political thought indeed, as it is. God Bless America, hell just Bless America works for me. We are a one of a kind group of people.
P and T got it perfectly right there.
-
Salute all
I am also a veteran , 2 combat tours with the 82nd Airborne !! Panama operation Just Cause and straight into the first Gulf War !! For me the Flag always represented Home,We marched with it,eat with it,sleep under it,Charged with it ,Wrapped our dead with it ,What does it mean to me Everything !!! Ive sat in alot of SH@#$ holes but have always looked at the flag and wondered what you guys were doing back here in the states ,but i never felt alone as long as I had my brothers and my flag... as to the bill of rights as im older my thoughts without it we have nothing!! as to flag burning it makes me sick to my stomach ,would I stop it NO I believe in our freedom more. just shed a tear and try to hold back my anger to someone who doesnt know what he or she is burning and only hope I can Teach them better... :salute
-
I still haven't figured out how burning something is speech.. talking about burning something now...
lazs
Don't try lazs, it ain't speech. Don't care who else says it is.
-
If you do say it is "speech" then why would it not be "hate speech" like the KKK burning a cross?
There should be no law against burning anything you own so long as it endangers no one... is a legal burning in a legal area.. but..
If you incite people to hurt you over it then it should be up to a jury to decide who was in the wrong. I would say that anyone who was attacked for burning a flag would simply be asking for it (within reason) Just like someone with a lynched negro effigy walking around..
Now, to me.. none of those examples is real speech. Just like a painting or a statue is not speech.
lazs
-
If you do say it is "speech" then why would it not be "hate speech" like the KKK burning a cross?
There should be no law against burning anything you own so long as it endangers no one... is a legal burning in a legal area.. but..
If you incite people to hurt you over it then it should be up to a jury to decide who was in the wrong. I would say that anyone who was attacked for burning a flag would simply be asking for it (within reason) Just like someone with a lynched negro effigy walking around..
Now, to me.. none of those examples is real speech. Just like a painting or a statue is not speech.
lazs
Also. Declare the flag a national monument.
It typically illegal to desecrate monuments
-
Speech refers to the processes associated with the production and perception of sounds used in spoken language
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/speech
In none of these definitions, is an action described as speech. Speech is the SPOKEN word.
-
What troubles me the most about the issue is that our country has decomposed to the point that some people would desire to
show disgrace towards and inflame the very people and foundation that gave them their freedom.
-
I'm just offering a different perspective, I might not be spot on.. I am sure of one thing, though. Burning a flag does nothing to deminish the idea that the flag symbolizes. It's an extremely petty thing to do, compared to lots of other things that truly are infringing on what the Constitution & co. stand for, like screwing with the 2nd amendment, etc.
-
What troubles me the most about the issue is that our country has decomposed to the point that some people would desire to
show disgrace towards and inflame the very people and foundation that gave them their freedom.
Our constitution and the first ten amendments recognize our right, as a nation, to be a bunch of ass%@$@. Every law before was predicated on the assumption that you were not allowed to do stuff that upset other people, but our founding fathers recognized how much that emasculated the human spirit and put it down on paper that we, as humans, have the right to be jerks... and that sometimes that's what being human is all about.
In another society, we couldn't even have this discussion because asserting that some jerks should be legally protected when they act like idiots and burn a flag is a conversation that offends some of you to your very core. But the constitution doesn't give you the right to not be offended, no. 230 years of history establishes that the constitution and the bill of rights will always side with the ass%*(@% who chooses to assert his own rights over the comfort of others.
This is all laid our in the 10 amendments to the constitution:
1. I have the right to say stuff you're gonna hate to hear. Also, I can choose to worship a different god than you and you can't stop me.
2. I can buy tons of great guns, and if you feel scared about it... tough.
3. I don't care if there's a war, I choose whether or not soldiers live in my house.
4. Buddy, you've gotta wake up REAL early in the morning if you want to look at my stuff, and you'd better be right if you think I did something wrong or there's going to be hell to pay.
5. Sure, it'd be polite of me to just say 'I did it', but if you jerks are going to try and pin something on me, I ain't helping, and I don't care how inconvenient it is.
6. I want to see the face of the jerkwad who said I did him wrong. None of this 'hiding behind the skirts of mother' stuff, let's see it. And let's see it now.
7. You're sure I broke the law? You'd better be 'inconvenience 12 random peers' sure, because that's what it's gonna take.
8. Don't use your wallet to hold me down, fight like a man.
9. There are other things I can do, and this document isn't gonna nail down every aspect of who I am. Deal with it.
10. I don't care how big your wig is or how many horses you own, the mere fact that you're in the government doesn't mean you're the boss. I'm the boss, and you're my employee. So get me some coffee.
And THAT is what makes our country great. We're not a bunch of polite dandies who can get their puffery in a huff and have someone arrested for giving them the vapors with a 'brutish display', we're a bunch of jerks flipping each other the finger, and THAT'S the way we LIKE IT.
-
In none of these definitions, is an action described as speech. Speech is the SPOKEN word.
That's pretty narrow...so you believe if I write something the Government doesn't approve of they can censor me?
-
Why not make it illegal to burn the flag punishable by stoning?
:rolleyes:
-
Isn't the written word still.. a word?
Is a painting a speech? is walking? is eating? it is all "symbolic" of some sort of crap.. burning the trash.. is that "speech" how bout not wearing my frigging seatbelt or helmet? is that "speech" it sure as hell is relevant than most.
lazs
-
Lazs, you seem to be advocating greater government intervention instead of less. This is out of character with most of your previous opinions where you argue for decreasing government control of our lives. What specifically about this issue has compelled you to undermine all of your previous statements favoring smaller government?