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FLAG BURNING -- A BAD IDEA
>The point I take from your Jeffersonian perspective on flag burning is that >we should make it illegal to empower protest. Then >they can be arrested, suffer punishment, and make their point to a wider >audience?? That is not my main point at all. I only suggest that will be the likely result if we pass this bad law. >The government has no interest in sponsoring fringe political ideas by >conveniently oppressive laws regarding their expression >no matter the value of the act, so long as the act does not endanger public >safety, nor infringe on anyone ELSE's rights. Certainly, the government of a free people should NOT pass such laws, and if they do so, it would be a mistake. >If their point is so shallow that it requires our arresting them so they can >make it, then I think we should let political Darwinism >take its course, and their movement die a natural death. We have no >interest in artificially breathing life into their useless >movement. Let them burn all the flags they want. If its's not against the >law, they won't be arrested, and they'll never get any >more microphone than they can earn by the POWER of their IDEAS, not their >illegal presentation of same. I agree entirely. >As a student of counterinsurgency, schooled at the John F. Kennedy Special >Warfare Center, I have to tell you, violent >revolutionaries look for opportunities like the one presented by this flag >desecration amendment. The best (and only reliable) >way to disarm them is to ALLOW them to be heard, understood, and dismissed >by the PEOPLE. I think you are right on the mark. This amendment will be handing them a tool for their nefarious purposes. Passing it would be a dumb thing to do.