Thursday, June 23, 2005 or

Tuesday June 27, 2006 (updated)

(Still) Burned Up About the Flag Amendment


It’s a grand old flag, but it’s only fabric.

It’s a symbol or emblem or banner.

It’s a Nike swoosh, or a red, white and blue Pepsi can. It’s the Chihuahua in the Taco Bell commercial; it’s the Golden Arches. It is not the sneaker nor the beverage nor the burrito nor the hamburger.

It’s THE American logo that can give us goose bumps by just looking at it -- but it is not America.

It still is just fabric. (And, what I really hate, it is now sometimes newspaper quality paper!)

Still, the current administration and the fanatics who support suppression of freedom want to revisit the old so-called flag burning constitutional amendment. Actually the wording says desecration of the flag. If they had their way the constitution would have more amendments than the Oxford English Dictionary has entries.

There’d be an amendment on flossing if they could get away with it.

That slap happy congress, ready at any moment to pass any amendment they can think of, has approved this misguided amendment and passed it on to the Senate.

Here we go again: Attempting to pass an amendment that amends the first amendment of the constitution.

Well, if that happens the first person I’m going to turn in is my neighbor who desecrates the flag by never taking it down, keeping it up in the dark, rain, snow so it is now tattered and bleached pink from the elements.

That is just as much a desecration of the flag as any idiot who’d take a match to it.

(Speaking of which, just how many flags have you seen burned in your life? Me? Not a one. So we are going to add a brand new amendment that would affect how many people? A super small group of crazies with a Bic, a flag and a bug up their butts?)

If that were the case, I might not care about this amendment to the first amendment – but that’s not the case. Once freedom of speech is eroded, so follows other freedoms. History proves this out.

Current history in the making, like the Patriot Act, shows how Bush et al wants to know what books we are reading. Wants public libraries and book stores to tattle on us.

Things have to be pretty bad when a bunch of peace-loving, soft-hearted, librarians get militant about such invasions of privacy and loss of freedom.

To me, the loss of freedom couched in the name of patriotism is one of the single most unpatriotic acts upon our people, our country and yes, our flag that could occur.

So, if the amendment passes I will demand that all flag facsimiles be banned from clothing, causing Ralph Lauren’s stock to plummet. I will insist that no 99 cent flags be sold at Memorial and Independence Day parades. No little toothpick flags for holiday cupcakes or hors d’oeuvre trays either.

I’ll scour my community pointing out the tattered abused flags that are left outside to brave the elements of the oh so patriotic people who own the pole.

And certainly no freaking paper flags in the Sunday paper. After all, how could we respectfully get rid of these things? We’d be breaking the law. So our homes would have to be littered with paper flags from the cellar to the attic. A fire hazard I might add.

I get tears in my eyes when I hear The Star Spangled Banner. The hairs on the back of my neck twitch. I get goosebumps when I see the American Flag. I am just as much a patriot as anyone in blog land or anywhere else. My relatives fought for freedom – in both World Wars, Korea, Viet Nam and in the mid-east. Some of them never came home.

My freaking heart beats red, white and blue too.

But this amendment stinks.
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Just for the sake of argument, let's imagine the amendment passes. Can you imagine the lawsuits that will flood the courts on what exactly is or is not desecration?

Let's say an alien falls down from the sky and sees Americans being killed in Iraq because of imaginary weapons of mass destruction and reads about right-wing groups that want to take control over American women's unteruses and want American gay and lesbian citizens to be treated as less than their heterosexual neighbors and this is all good and allowed -- because what the hell... "fuck 'em" -- heck they're just people!

But the fabric on the pole, now that's something to protect and preserve so much so we need to change the constitution.

When the alien asks you where all the flag desecration is taking place, you're going to point to where?

Explain to the alien why American people value fabric over flesh.

I can't.