Anyone else happy about the vote on the flag burning amendment?
 

I heard today that the senate missed approving the flag burning amendment by a single vote. I'm actually stunned by that. I figured this was as dead in the Senate as the gay marriage ban. I was also thinking that public sentiment had shifted away from favoring such an amendment. It certainly seems to me that I hear more and more folks talking about how important it is to preserve the right to voice dissent.

I was just surprised it could be that close. Am I that out of touch, or is it the members of the Senate, as in the Schiavo(sp?) debate?

I didn't think it would, or that it should, go anywhere. Surprised it was close.

I'm guessing it was brokered so that it would fail by one vote. The parties counted the votes and decided who would vote for or against based on the conditions in their state, so they could get the highest # of people voting for it without it passing. It never had a prayer.

"". Remember, its a classic "rallying the base" kind of move - 65 votes was stunning though. I don't know what to say to people who support this kind of thing.

Hmm.... health care costs are out of control, gas is $3/gallon, we have troops fighting in two countries, social security is totally screwed up, the deficit is growing & growing, jobs are leaving the country ....

Yeah let's work on a flag burning ammendment! Best thing we've done since we passed a resolution that French Fries should be called Freedom Fries!

Agreed.

I was pretty shocked that it failed by only one vote also. And for what it's worth, here is my favorite quote on the matter.. from the movie "The American President".

Yep. It's the Senate, so always 34 or 34 Senators will be at 4 years from reelection, who are the ones that can stop it from actually passing. After all, Mitch McConnell (no liberal) voted against the amendment. He was probably designated as being from a safe seat and 4 years to his next election to be a Republican vote of dissent.

Its just political pandering, just both parties are working together to pander without getting anything passed.

I always love it when both sides of the aisle come together on the things that really matter.

McConnell actually has a principled stance on this particular issue... and in my judgment your analysis fails to properly account for the true pandering. This is really why you want the majority in the chamber -- not so much because all the votes will go your way, but because it entitles your party to set the agenda, and to run tripe like this up the flagpole when your party is in peril.

I'm sure any number of people are happy about it. I'm not one of them, but I'm sure there are plenty.

If it was a brokered deal (and I'm a long way from believing that), then it may be one of the stupidest moves I've seen in a while. It seems to be generally thought that this was intended as a vote to motivate the GOP base, but it's failure frankly has the opposite effect on me. It just moves me one step closer to believing that there's really not much hope for this nation to reverse the ethical & moral losses of the past 40+ years, and if that's the case then it ultimately doesn't matter who we vote for, we're sunk either way.

edit to add: BTW, I finally saw the roll call vote on this one. Chafee (RI) Bennett (UT) and McConnell (KY) are the three (R) who are in line for lambasting. I thought it was interesting that none of the articles I saw yesterday spelled out who the GOP defectors were specifically, which seemed noteworthy since this was a fairly party line vote.

edited again to correct number & names, thanks Chubby for posting & helping me spot the third.

They should focus on more important stuff - like putting together secret commando units to stealth-murder flag burners.

I don't think it was a true bipartisan collaboration, but rather an implicit one.

The GOP count was pretty straightforward from the start, with nearly the whole party planning to vote for it, save McConnell, Chaffee and perhaps one or two others.

So, the Democrats were pretty easily able to give a "free pass" to a fair number of their own who either deeply believed in it, or (much more likely) deeply believed their re-election chances were meaningfully affected by it, and allowed a certain number to vote for the amendment. I have no idea that had there been 67 votes on the tote, there were one or two "conditional" democrats whose responsibility it would be to flip back to a vote against to ensure its failure.

So, in that sense, I guess it is pandering on both sides - the GOP got to set the rules of the game, but the Democrats definitely played ball with them.

In my view, it sort of sets up like one of those academic exercises in ethics... perhaps we could now be asked to rank the various categories of Senators (based on this issue) from slimiest to most nearly tolerable? Who's really worse -- a republican leader who decides to launch this issue knowing it's not at all about advancing public policy but just about making opponents uncomfortable... or the democrat who decides to vote for it, given suitable cover from his party, even though he personally believes it's not good policy? *shurg*

Anyone else notice this coincides with the lifespan of JonInMiddleGA? Coincidence? I think not...

;)

A "yes" vote was a vote for the amendment.

Voting "yes" were 52 Republicans and 14 Democrats.

Voting "no" were 30 Democrats, 3 Republicans and one independent.

Alabama: Sessions (R) Yes; Shelby (R) Yes.

Alaska: Murkowski (R) Yes; Stevens (R) Yes.

Arizona: Kyl (R) Yes; McCain (R) Yes.

Arkansas: Lincoln (D) Yes; Pryor (D) No.

California: Boxer (D) No; Feinstein (D) Yes.

Colorado: Allard (R) Yes; Salazar (D) Yes.

Connecticut: Dodd (D) No; Lieberman (D) No.

Delaware: Biden (D) No; Carper (D) No.

Florida: Martinez (R) Yes; Nelson (D) Yes.

Georgia: Chambliss (R) Yes; Isakson (R) Yes.

Hawaii: Akaka (D) No; Inouye (D) No.

Idaho: Craig (R) Yes; Crapo (R) Yes.

Illinois: Durbin (D) No; Obama (D) No.

Indiana: Bayh (D) Yes; Lugar (R) Yes.

Iowa: Grassley (R) Yes; Harkin (D) No.

Kansas: Brownback (R) Yes; Roberts (R) Yes.

Kentucky: Bunning (R) Yes; McConnell (R) No.

Louisiana: Landrieu (D) Yes; Vitter (R) Yes.

Maine: Collins (R) Yes; Snowe (R) Yes.

Maryland: Mikulski (D) No; Sarbanes (D) No.

Massachusetts: Kennedy (D) No; Kerry (D) No.

Michigan: Levin (D) No; Stabenow (D) Yes.

Minnesota: Coleman (R) Yes; Dayton (D) Yes.

Mississippi: Cochran (R) Yes; Lott (R) Yes.

Missouri: Bond (R) Yes; Talent (R) Yes.

Montana: Baucus (D) Yes; Burns (R) Yes.

Nebraska: Hagel (R) Yes; Nelson (D) Yes.

Nevada: Ensign (R) Yes; Reid (D) Yes.

New Hampshire: Gregg (R) Yes; Sununu (R) Yes.

New Jersey: Lautenberg (D) No; Menendez (D) Yes.

New Mexico: Bingaman (D) No; Domenici (R) Yes.

New York: Clinton (D) No; Schumer (D) No.

North Carolina: Burr (R) Yes; Dole (R) Yes.

North Dakota: Conrad (D) No; Dorgan (D) No.

Ohio: DeWine (R) Yes; Voinovich (R) Yes.

Oklahoma: Coburn (R) Yes; Inhofe (R) Yes.

Oregon: Smith (R) Yes; Wyden (D) No.

Pennsylvania: Santorum (R) Yes; Specter (R) Yes.

Rhode Island: Chafee (R) No; Reed (D) No.

South Carolina: DeMint (R) Yes; Graham (R) Yes.

South Dakota: Johnson (D) Yes; Thune (R) Yes.

Tennessee: Alexander (R) Yes; Frist (R) Yes.

Texas: Cornyn (R) Yes; Hutchison (R) Yes.

Utah: Bennett (R) No; Hatch (R) Yes.

Vermont: Jeffords (I) No; Leahy (D) No.

Virginia: Allen (R) Yes; Warner (R) Yes.

Washington: Cantwell (D) No; Murray (D) No.

West Virginia: Byrd (D) No; Rockefeller (D) Yes.

Wisconsin: Feingold (D) No; Kohl (D) No.

Wyoming: Enzi (R) Yes; Thomas (R) Yes.

Speaking of stupid attempts:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/06/...tax/index.html

This is well and good if you're going to legalize it (as they ought to do with marijuana), but if not, what the fuck do you hope to accomplish other than scoring a political point ?

I'm proud of those senators that voted YES.

And that alone is a good reason for the failure of passage. First Amendment - except when it offends me.

Not that I agree with it, but if you read the article you would know the answer to your question. Sounds like they want to accomplish making it easier to put people who are engaging in that activity in jail and making it easier to implement longer jail terms.

Right - increasing the jail term for prostitution ? Is that really justifiable by anything other than chest-beating ? If you want to get laid and get paid for it, I don't see how it affects me.

Most of what I would say has been said in this thread already. So here's a little different point--

This effort provides a good reminder of just what a Constitution is. As that quote from the American President shows, there are certain things that most of us consider to be at the core of the individual liberties protected and celebrated by our nation--e.g., the right to burn the flag as political speech, the right to keep the government from forcing you to pray, etc..

The structures of our government protect these rights, however, only because they are in the Constitution. There is no abstract concept of individual liberty or universal human rights that transcends our Constitution. This distinction does not really come up much because our Constitution embodies most of what we consider to be "universal human rights." But, if tomorrow, an amendment passes that says that the government can shoot on sight anyone who is not a Methodist--then that is the law of the land. Such an amendment, of course, may lead to revolution, succession, etc.--but, that would be the official policy of the government, and no abstract sense of human rights would trump that in the courts, legislature, or executive branch.

So, you may think that protecting flag burning as political speech is an essential aspect of a free government. And I agree with you, and would oppose any amendments to change the Constitution in that regard. But, the only reason that the government protects it is because of the Constitution. Universal human rights are not so universal in that regard.

dola--

Maybe my point is that for those who think that flag burning should be a crime--a constitutional amendment IS the proper way to go about things. We may complain that it is against free speech. But, ONCE THE CONSTITUTION IS AMENDED TO PROHIBIT FLAG BURNING, it no longer falls under the ambit of "free speech" as that term is used in the First Amendment.

Hey, I was just answering your question. You made it sound like they were not trying to accomplish anything, when really you just did not agree with it. Thats okay. Also, most of the article indicated going after pimps that abuse underaged girls, etc.

Sounds to me more like a declaration that current criminal statutes are not affective. Otherwise you would not have to try and use tax law to accomplish something that amounts to criminal justice. Not really anything new in our society. Wasn't it tax law that put Capone away when the criminal justice system couldn't do it?

The conservative critique of political correctness rests on the premise that it is wrong to coerce people into avoiding speech or forms of expression that some people deem offensive. No telling sports teams that they cannot have a nickname or logo that refers to American Indians, no telling towns that they cannot have the word "Squaw" as part of their name, and so on.

I tend to agree with the conservatives on that point.

But the flag burning amendment is just political correctness in reverse. Flag burning is a form of expression that offends some people, but not others.

To my thinking, if you oppose political correctness, you should also oppose the flag-burning amendment. Am I wrong in thinking that conservatives who oppose political correctness and speech codes at colleges, yet support a flag-burning amnedment, are just as inconsistent as liberals who support speech codes at colleges yet oppose the flag-burning amendment?

In my mind, this is a pretty simple matter. The flag is a symbol. Nothing more, nothing less. Among the things it symbolizes are the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution, including free speech. Flag burning is a form of political protest, and to ban the physical desecration of the flag elevates the symbol to a level of sacredness greater than the principles it supposedly symbolizes.

Now that the critical issue of flag burning has been addressed, they need to bump up that legislation to ban people from playing online poker.

Interesting point, KONY... but:


As the song goes, "One of these things is not like the others..." -- seems to me that rules applied to people as a condition of their participation or membership in some organization or activity is pretty different than rules enforced by the government on citizens generally.

I am distinctly not.

I'm not a fan of legislating against something that really only ever happens in places like Iran or Syria, but it seems to me that, if you're an American citizen, and you desecrate that which is a symbol of all our liberties, haven't you, in effect, rejected those liberties? To set fire to the flag, and claim that act is protected by the constitution, represents a very special sort of cynicism.

So QuickSand, you are basically okay with puplic Universities kicking students out of school because they burned a flag?

dola,
Another way to look at it would be for the U.S. Government to say you can burn a flag, but if you do, you cannot recieve any public aid. Or you can burn a flag, but if you do, you lose your citizenship, etc. I mean hey you can do it, it's your choice.

Basically, your argument of "one of these things is not like the others" is just dancing around the issue.

I don't see it that way. In my opinion, it can just as easily be a protest against against the current government's policies, and in particular, against policies the current government is pursuing that undermines those liberties, either here or abroad. In fact, I think most of the time a flag burning incident happens in the US, that's the situation. Rarely, if ever, is a flag burning incident a protest against the freedoms granted in the Constitution.

No, I'm not saying that.

I'm saying that having a debate about what our government rules to be acceptable expression and not is fundamental to our rights as citizens. Other conditional or limited forms of speech restrictions are perfectly sound issues to debate, but are not at all on the same level as the original topic.

Specifically, the more closely the organization resembles an actual instrument of government (as in your pointed example of a public university), the closer the two comparisons become -- and the more concern I think a true civil libertarian should raise. But it's still not on a direct par with the government directly outlawing certain statements by citizens based on their political content.

An unofficial MSN poll had the public as 60%-40% in favor of freedom of expression.

Man Dutch...

I was just thinking to myself that anyone who supports a "YES" vote has a serious lack of understanding of the principles this nation was built on imo...

While the government has almost unfettered discretion to choose when and where to spend money, one of the things that it cannot do is condition the giving of money on one's exercise of a fundamental right.

So, the government can choose tomorrow to, say, end Medicaid or get rid of the mortgage interest deduction. And nothing in the Constitution would prohibit that.

But the government cannot, say, give tax breaks to people who choose to vote Republican--or refuse to give federal aid to schools whose principals are Jewish.

So, the government cannot refuse to give public aid to someone soley because they burn a flag. (Or engage in any other protected speech for that matter).

They can if they add an amendment to the constitution. But that is not really the point.

Which does bring things back to the point that I believe you were trying to make earlier, one that really doesn't get enough play -- the issue really is about what speech should or shouldn't be protected.

That's actually a different couching than this usually gets, and one that I will admit that your earlier post caused me to realize that I don't consider in that regard as much as I think I should.

So while this isn't a case where a post caused a change in position (if anything it reinforces my original position), it is one of those infrequent examples of where any post in a political thread actually generated additional thought and understanding ... which I figured you deserved some credit for.

I think a flag burning amendment is the craziest fucking thing I've ever heard, but as I don't burn flags it wouldn't really affect me. So I think it would've been kind of fun if they had somehow screwed up and went one vote over and passed it. Suddenly not burning the flag is one of our core principles of governance. It would be a huge embarrassment for the Senate, especially whoever sponsored it. And I can't imagine they'd ever get enough votes to repeal, so we'd be stuck with it forever. Would love to hear the 28th amendment explained in civics classes.

Actually you classified 2 groups. One as a condition of participation and one enforced by the government on citizens generally. Now you are saying issues in those two groups may be similar, just one is more important. Well, that is fair, it just is not what you originally said when indicating disagreement with KONY's post bringing up examples of things that seem inconsistent within political ideology.

To your point on universities, sounds like you are saying it is okay for Universities to have a speech code, but not okay for the US Government to have a speech code (ban flag desecration). And this is not inconsistent because one is about participation in a group and one is a general ban by the government. But when I present an example that shows the university denying participation based on the flag desecration, you change your point by saying that is in fact a type of speech that a university should not be able to ban. You indicate this is possibly even more important when the university is public and closer to a government entity.

Why is it okay for a university to have a speech code, banning some forms of speech, but not banning flag desecration? That really sounds inconsistent.

The problem is, I can't even be proud of Barbara Boxer for voting no because, well, both of my state's senators are f'ed in the head.

Feinstein's "yes" vote is just further reason why she needs to be tossed on her ass, though.

That is not at all what I was saying... I don't think you will find any indication of my own opinions on the matter included in what I have written. What I was, in fact, saying, was that there's a fundamentally different question when we're talking about a government abridging rights of its citizens, as contrasted with an organization or institution abridging rights of its members or participants. Surely, you can see the difference, despite what you have apparently inferred from my original post.

The singular act of flag burning, seen through my eyes, is treasonous. That's why I have no problem with those who voted YES. The flag reprresents the United States of America, not President Bush. The way I see it, when you burn that flag, you're burning your belief in the constitution of the United States, you're burning the Republican leadership, the Democratic leadership, the independent leadership, and the citizens. The act of burning the flag is not a protest, it is a symbolic gesture of treason. People who believe in the US Constitution would not burn the US Flag.

The Constitution is exactly what it says it is, nothing more, nothing less. And if there is an amendment that says the US Flag should be held above the values of freedom of speech, then that's what the Constitution will be. And I see absolutely nothing wrong with that, so long as we, the majority, believe in the value of the constitution and this nation.

That's why I support an amendment protecting our flag.

Makes me want to go to a direct democracy.

I would agree that those two statements (which are not mine, of course, but rather your attempt to rephrase your own inferences from my earlier statements) are inconsistent.


As far as I'm concerned, a fully private organization ought to be entitled to any sort of rules it wants for its own members or participants, including rules that I or others might find offensive or discriminatory. And a government (or at least ours) should not be allowed any such rules, and no substantive abridgement of expression ought to be tolerated by the government. I see this as something of a continuum.

With the real-world example of a university (later expounded to be a public university) I think we have a case that it at neither extreme of the continuum. A fully private university that accepts no federal aid and so forth -- that entity probably ought to be able to impose any rules or limitations it sees fit on its students. A fully public university, especially one with a sort of open admissions policy, is probably fairly close to being a "government" or instrumentality thereof, in my view, and probably ought not have such rules in general. That's probably an oversimplification, and there are likely other factors that I'm not noting here, but I think that this conceptually withstands appropriate scrutiny.


The central question for the constitutional amendment is about the inherent powers of the government over its citizens. It's the absolute extreme, the essence of the entire notion of individual rights -- no continuum needed, this issue resides at one endpoint.

My earlier objection in this thread was simply to the assertion (made by another poster, I believe, whose point I still found generally interesting) that a university speech code was on the same order as this -- which I still quite firmly believe it is not. I believe cases such as that are far more nuanced than the simple and pure case before us -- that of government authority over citizen's political expressions.

I think flag burning should be allowed as long as it's legal for private citizens to kick the crap out of flag burners.

A critical view of your analysis might center in this exact phrase. Once the government starts dissecting the content of people's expressions to determine what is acceptable and what is not, the preservation of individual expression has already been lost.

Murder is bad but there isn't any need to have a constitutional ammendment to prohibit it.

Kinda odd comparsion.

I agree, I in no way equate burning a flag to murder. Just trying to make some kind of comparison for people who believe flag burning is wrong, even if it is a bit hyperbolic.