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Jun.28,2006I didn’t even have a chance to blog about this (and probably blow a gasket in the process), but it seems the flag-burning amendment didn’t get the requisite 67 votes in the Senate. It got 66.
A constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration died in a cliffhanger vote in the U.S. Senate Tuesday, one week before Independence Day, one vote short of the support needed to send it to the states for ratification.
The 66-34 vote in favor of the amendment was a single vote short of the two-thirds required. The House surpassed that threshold last year, 286-130.
The proposed amendment, sponsored by Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, read: “The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.”
It represented Congress’ response to U.S. Supreme Court rulings in 1989 and 1990 that burning and other desecrations of the flag are protected as free speech by the First Amendment to the Constitution.
I love this logic: Our idiotic, pandering law is unconstitutional, so we’d better change the Constitution!
Oh God, pry me away from the keyboard before I bleed from the sputtering rage that wells up every time I think of the fact that 66 United States Senators are so utterly corrupt that they thought it would be a good idea to take away real, actual freedom to protect an abstract symbol of freedom.
The flag is imaginary. Our freedom is (supposed to be) real!
Don’t worry. If you don’t understand, Bill Frist will help you figure it out:
“Countless men and women have died defending that flag,” said Repulican Majority Leader Bill Frist, closing two days of debate. “It is but a small humble act for us to defend it.”
NO, YOU FUCKING IDIOT!!! They didn’t die to protect the flag, they died to protect freedom itself! Who gives a shit about the flag; it’s a piece of cloth, an abstract symbol of our liberty. But fascist fools like Frist would love to steal that freedom away by routing it somewhere else. In this case, they are trying to give a piece of colored cloth more rights than they would give to a human being.
IT’S AN INANIMATE OBJECT! Our constitutionally-protected freedoms are what’s important. The flag is not. We could burn a million flags and not lose one ounce of real freedom. But Frist would rather that we lose our First Amendment free speech rights in a futile attempt to protect a piece of cloth from supposed harm. Fuckwit.
But I don’t for a second think that these politicians are that stupid. They know exactly what they’re doing. I throw the word “fascist” around a lot on this blog. But this is one of those times when you can see that I’m not exaggerrating at all.
I tried not to get upset about this, but when I see such blatant, hideous, satanic idol-worship, I just get so fucking pissed off I could rip Frist’s jugular clean out and use it to wax my boat (if I had a boat).
Our nation is in deep shit. 66 senators just cast a vote for fascism. It passed the House like butter.
We are in deep shit.
God, please save our stupid nation. We are a nation of fascists and idiots, but there are some of us worth saving….Right?
You can screech back, or trackback from your own site.
Count me in (hopefully) as one of the worthy… you hit it right on the head with this post. What’s most hideous about this vote is the fact that so many Democrats, including Minority Leader Reid and people like Feinstein voted FOR it.When I initially saw the vote tally, I figured it was engineered to give Republicans some cover – just shy of the votes they needed – how convenient.After seeing that 13 Democrats crossed to vote for the Amendment, I’m not as sure anymore.
Dammit, you just said exactly what I was thinking…Thank you for this. I mean it.
fleshpresser: this is why I’m not a democrat – they simply can’t be trusted more than the republicans. the democrats have been better than the republicans lately, but that ain’t sayin’ much. i was particularly dismayed to see that both of my senators, democrat and republican, had voted for the bill. I think they have brought shame on our state.josh: thanks, man. glad to hear someone else is pissed that we’re even discussing a flag burning amendment. this is madness. what do the neocons have in store for us next?
<>God, please save our stupid nation. We are a nation of fascists and idiots, but there are some of us worth saving….Right?<>I would like to think so, but I wonder if the country isn’t a total loss. I mean the majority of people continue to vote for these people and the alternatives aren’t much better. I wish that a true democracy were possible and we could do away with the corrupt representatives that currently hold office. The unfortunate truth is that the majority of Americans would actually support issues like this and we would routinely lose more and more freedom.I had little to no respect for my senators to begin with, and now I have absolutely none at all.Ensign (R-NV), YeaReid (D-NV), YeaI already know the majority of my “peers” support these two knuckle heads and there is next nothing I can do to get rid of them.
The thing we should be most angry about is how this issue is such a big distraction from the real, tangible issues like our disastrous health care system, lack of basic education funding and a myriad of other decidedly more relevant issues to the people. In other words, anytime any politican becomes inflamed about an issue it’s obviously a ruse. These people are facsist all the way, they are beholden to their corporate interests and their corporate interest are today telling senators to tell us sheeple to “look over there”!By the looks of it here, we are all not sheeple. Thanks FSM for that.
anon: thanks for the great comment. I’m afraid we probably would vote away our freedoms if we had a direct democracy. But at least we’d have only ourselves to blame.petron: you’re damn right this is a distraction! Next on the list: protecting the “under God” part of the pledge of allegiance from those nasty atheists! On the other hand, I’d rather they stay away from the health care and education systems. Knowning this Congress, they would somehow manage to make things even worse.