From: WasteOfTime-AT-att.net
Subject: Anti-Flag Desacration Act
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 03:10:59 +0000


The nice people in the USA government are now seriously 
throwing around the idea of reinstating the Anti-Flag 
Desacration Act, which says that an amerikan citizen 
cannot desacrate or burn the Amerikan flag, even though 
in the 1970's a supreme court decision was made stating 
that this law is/was/will always be an infrigement on 
first amendment rights. now over 200 house of 
represenatives members have signed the bill, which is 
being pushed by both parties to be reinstated. This is 
clearly unconstitutional because under the first 
ammendment(freedom of speech) we should be allowed to 
voice our opinion, whether that opinion be burning 
another countries flag because we are brainwashed 
patriots(which they are not pushing to illegallize, by 
the way), or we are anti-government protestors voicing 
our discontent with the way things go in this this 
nation. To reinstate this law would, to me, be a clear 
cut case of censoring all opinions except the ones 
agreeing with lawmakers. This would hopefully reveal 
the ugly face of fascism and state control in our 
lives. The argument made for the reinstatement of the 
law consisted of 3 represenatives all saying that there 
fathers coffins had been draped with the flag and to 
see it burn is equal to seeing their own fathers flag 
burn. And another "argument" for this reinstation was 
that it is a symbol. There are many other symbols in 
Amerika that stand for many different things. If they 
make burning the flag illegal they must make burning 
all flags illegal and make the desecration of all other 
symbols that anyone in this nation holds proudly in 
their hearts as a representation of something they 
believe in illegal. Including neo-nazi flags, 
swaztikas, etc... The third argument for this is that 
all amerikans hold it up and pride ourselves on the 
flag, and a part of every flag belongs to each of us. 
What a bunch of bullshit, when you can go to Wal-Mart 
and get one for a couple of bucks. They said that if 
someone burns a flag they are burning everyones flag. I 
don't mind, they can burn all of my "portion" they 
want. And maybe if this was true then could i just add 
up all of my portions to make a whole one so then i 
could "legally" burn it?
Fascism once again rears its ugly head and reinforces 
the police state in which we all live. In any 
country.~Dylan