The November, 2014 election seems to be bringing a lot of controversy into light according to some people. A caller on a conservative radio station pointed out that the fact that the Ebola victims were sent to Texas and Nebraska, two red states, to scare people not to go out to vote. Today, it seems that a Federal court has ruled that Texas and Wisconsin (red states) cannot use its voter ID law in the November election. Now flags are being burned in St. Louis, MO, by protestors, for a second night of demonstrations following the shooting death of black teenager by MO police. As many as 400 demonstrators spread out across several city blocks in south St. Louis, MO, angrily shouting and chanting at rows of police officers.
Some protestors burned the American flag while others banged on drums and shouted, “This is what democracy looks like.” No, that is not what democracy looks like and is not what democracy is all about! Maybe in that person’s eyes – he is being paid for him to act and look like that. The Democratic Party is the focal part of this town and is in dire straits at this time so they are looking for any thing to cause trouble in the country and this, sad to say, is the town they have selected to cause trouble. The city needs to verify who these people are, and if they are paid and bused into town to cause this mayhem? This certainly was the case in the Ferguson, MO, riots. Ferguson, MO, is a suburb of St. Louis. The protestors should be sure they understand the law before they go jumping on this band wagon of burning the flag. Freedom is freedom and mayhem is mayhem! Below are the laws which pertain to flag burning. What is so sad is – this country has been good to the people in this country – why they all probably have Obama phones, free Obamacare, free food, free gas and free housing; but, to some people who live in the land of hatred, you will never please these people! And, enough will never be enough!
Following are the rules of the road if these protestors are interested. These people should have to live in Saudi Arabia, China or Russia for a year for learning purposes. You never miss the water, till the well runs dry.
Texas v. Johnson (1989) Flag Burning to Send a Political Message
Does the state have the authority to make it a crime to burn an American flag, even as part of a political protest and as a means for expressing a political opinion? Most states have banned flag burning as part of statutes generally outlawing flag desecration. The Supreme Court had to rule on such the Texas law when a man was convicted for burning an American flag at the Republican National Convention.
Texas v. Johnson: Background
During the 1984 Republican convention in Dallas, Texas, Gregory Lee (Joey) Johnson soaked an American flag in kerosene and burned it in front of the convention building while protesting the polices of Ronald Reagan. Other protesters accompanied this by chanting America; red, white and blue; we spit on you.
Arrested and convicted under a Texas law against intentionally or knowingly desecrating a state or national flag, Johnson was fined $2000 and sentenced to one year in jail. He appealed to the Supreme Court where Texas argued that it had a right to protect the flag as a symbol of national unity. Johnson argued that his freedom to express himself protected his actions.
Texas v. Johnson: Decision
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 for Johnson. They rejected the claim that the ban was necessary to protect breaches of the peace due to the offense that burning a flag would cause.
The States position … amounts to a claim that an audience that takes serious offense at particular expression is necessarily likely to disturb the peace and that the expression may be prohibited on this basis. Our precedents do not countenance such a presumption. On the contrary, they recognize that a principal function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or … even stirs people to anger.
Texas’ claim that they needed to preserve the flag as a symbol of national unity undermined their case by conceding that Johnson was expressing a disfavored idea. Since the law stated that desecration is illegal if the actor knows it will seriously offend one or more persons, the court saw that the states attempt to preserve the symbol was tied to an attempt to suppress certain messages: Whether Johnsons treatment of the flag violated Texas law thus depended on the likely communicative impact of his expressive conduct.
Justice Brennan wrote in the majority opinion:
If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable. […]
[F]orbidding criminal punishment for conduct such as Johnsons will not endanger the special role played by our flag or the feelings it inspires. … Our decision is a reaffirmation of the principles of freedom and inclusiveness that the flag best reflects, and of the conviction that our toleration of criticism such as Johnsons is a sign and source of our strength. …
The way to preserve the flags special role is not to punish those who feel differently about these matters. It is to persuade them that they are wrong. … We can imagine no more appropriate response to burning a flag than waving ones own, no better way to counter a flag burners message than by saluting the flag that burns, no surer means of preserving the dignity even of the flag that burned than by – as one witness here did – according its remains a respectful burial. We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for in doing so we dilute the freedom that this cherished emblem represents.Supporters of bans on flag burning say they arent trying to ban the expression of offensive ideas, just physical acts. This means that desecrating a cross could be outlawed because it only bans physical acts and other means of expressing the relevant ideas can be used. Few, though, would accept this argument.
Burning the flag is like a form of blasphemy or taking the Lords name in vain it takes something revered and transforms it into something base, profane, and unworthy of respect. This is why people are so offended when they see a flag being burned; it is also why burning or desecration is protected just as blasphemy is.
Texas v. Johnson: Significance
Although only narrowly, the Court sided with free speech and free expression over the desire to suppress speech in the pursuit of political interests. This case sparked years of debate over the meaning of the flag, including efforts to amend the Constitution to allow for a prohibition of the physical desecration of the flag.
More immediately, the decision inspired Congress to rush through passage of the Flag Protection Act of 1989, a law designed for no other purpose but to ban the physical desecration of the American flag in defiance of this decision.
More: Texas v. Johnson Dissents
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The Flag Protection Act of 1989 was the GOP’s first attempt to overturn Texas V. Johnson. (This was the 1989 Supreme Court decision that upheld flag burning as protected symbolic political expression.) Two simultaneous attempts to outlaw flag burning happened at this time: the first Flag Protection amendment was introduced, and was voted down; the Flag Protection Act was passed by both houses of Congress. Then-President Bush allowed the bill to become law without his signature, as an expression of his preference for a Constitutional amendment. The actual “Flag Protection Act” was not new legislation, but an amendment of the existing U.S. Code.On October 30th 1989, the day the bill went into effect, hundreds of people burned American flags in protest. Shawn Eichman and Mark Haggerty were among those charged with violating the law. The Justice Department admits that the law is unconstitutional under Texas V. Johnson, but plans to prosecute anyway, hoping to get the court to reverse its decision. Federal District courts in both cases dismiss charges, calling the Flag Protection Act unconstitutional. The Justice Department appeals to the Supreme Court.
Warren S. ApelIn June 1990 the Supreme Court in U.S. v. Haggerty and U.S. v. Eichman upheld the district court rulings that the Flag Protection Act is unconstitutional. This law is still part of the U.S. Code, although it is not likely to be enforced unless a Flag Protection Amendment passes. I have reproduced the Act verbatim from the U.S. Code (disclaimer: this is a copy, and not the official version. I’m pretty confident it’s correct.)
-CITE-
18 USC Sec. 700
-EXPCITE-
TITLE 18 – CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE
PART I – CRIMES
CHAPTER 33 – EMBLEMS, INSIGNIA, AND NAMES
-HEAD-
Sec. 700. Desecration of the flag of the United States; penalties
-STATUTE-
(a)(1) Whoever knowingly mutilates, defaces, physically defiles, burns, maintains on the floor or ground, or tramples upon any flag of the United States shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both.(2) This subsection does not prohibit any conduct consisting of the disposal of a flag when it has become worn or soiled.
(b) As used in this section, the term ”flag of the United States” means any flag of the United States, or any part thereof, made of any substance, of any size, in a form that is commonly displayed.
(c) Nothing in this section shall be construed as indicating an intent on the part of Congress to deprive any State, territory, possession, or the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico of jurisdiction over any offense over which it would have jurisdiction in the absence of this section.
(d)
- (1) An appeal may be taken directly to the Supreme Court of the United States from any interlocutory or final judgment, decree, or order issued by a United States district court ruling upon the constitutionality of subsection (a).
- (2) The Supreme Court shall, if it has not previously ruled on the question, accept jurisdiction over the appeal and advance on the docket and expedite to the greatest extent possible.
-SOURCE-
(Added Pub. L. 90-381, Sec. 1, July 5, 1968, 82 Stat. 291; amended Pub. L. 101-131, Sec. 2, 3, Oct. 28, 1989, 103 Stat. 777.)
-MISC1-
AMENDMENTS1989 – Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 101-131, Sec. 2(a), amended subsec. (a) generally. Prior to amendment, subsec. (a) read as follows: ”Whoever knowingly casts contempt upon any flag of the United States by publicly mutilating, defacing, defiling, burning, or trampling upon it shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both.”
Subsec. (b). Pub. L. 101-131, Sec. 2(b), amended subsec. (b) generally. Prior to amendment, subsec. (b) read as follows: ”The term ‘flag of the United States’ as used in this section, shall include any flag, standard colors, ensign, or any picture or representation of either, or of any part or parts of either, made of any substance or represented on any substance, of any size evidently purporting to be either of said flag, standard, color, or ensign of the United States of America, or a picture or a representation of either, upon which shall be shown the colors, the stars and the stripes, in any number of either thereof, or of any part or parts of either, by which the average person seeing the same without deliberation may believe the same to represent the flag, standards, colors, or ensign of the United States of America.”
Subsec. (d). Pub. L. 101-131, Sec. 3, added subsec. (d).
SHORT TITLE OF 1989 AMENDMENT
Section 1 of Pub. L. 101-131 provided that: ”This Act (amending this section) may be cited as the ‘Flag Protection Act of 1989’.”
kommonsentsjane 