Terrorism?
War in Iraq?
Health care?
Education?
Those issues can all go fly a kite because the great national debate is about flag burning again.
Between 1777 and 1989, there were a whopping 45 incidents of flag burning in the United States. Yes, its an abhorrent act but whether you can or can’t do it should not be something left to the government to decide. This is what the Republicans do – sit around and push nonsense legislation that does nothing to improve or protect the lives of Americans – and the Dems act like little whipped puppies. It’s gotta end at some point, now’s as good a time as any to start.
Watch out. They are setting up the wedge issue for 2006. In 2004, pushing the anti-gay marriage stuff got the homophobes to the polls. In 2006, the flag-burning amendment will get the yellow ribbon magnet folks to the polls.
Agree w/you, but notice how our sensitivity to the flag merits no special consideration at all while the picayune mishandling of the Koran at Gitmo is being chracterized as some great cultural abuse. Suppwidat?
Dugger
No way this goes anywhere. Flag burning isn’t as red meat as gay marriage.
Dugger…Its religion. Its ‘picayune mishandling of the Koran’ to you … and half a world away its a crime against their almighty. Much like it was , to me, both necessary and proper to remove the 10 commandments from Judge Roy Moore’s court….and to many of our Christian peoples … a slight against the almighty. Religiosity!!
Evergreen,
Doesn’t matter what it was to YOU re Moore right? Isn’t the argument re Islam that we don’t have to agree with their religious precepts but just (must) acknowledge and respect and accommodate their beliefs (which actually vary rather widely). So therefore if Muslim fundamentalists are entitled to respect because of their beliefs, why not southern patriots on the flag, Christians on the TEN Cs. etc.
Dugger
Well, I think you are right in that we need to respect and accomodate a number of disparate beliefs in order to maintain a civil ( local and global) society. Nobody should disagree with this. I think maybe one difference in this instance is that Koran/Gitmo incident is part of a much larger story..an epic, if you will – I don’t need to run through the litany of crimes by the interrogators…we are all familiar with them. I think if a few crazy college kids pissed on some Koran ( absent the war/abu ghraib…et al ) somewhere in the midwest, i doubt very seriously there would be ramifications worldwide. Howerver, in the context of the previous and/or continuing mistreatment of muslim ‘prisoners’, the relatively minor disrespecting ( in my opinion ) of pissing on the Holy Book set off a shitstorm. In present context it is much larger that just being disrespectful of a groups beliefs.
Nobody is burning american (southern patriot) iconography or removing christian iconography as an extension to an ongoing perceived persecution of those groups.
Dugger has a point. So many of the people who routinely pillory the United States for “abusing” the Qu’ran seem to have absolutely no problems whatsoever with people “abusing” the flag of the United States, justifying this bizarre hypocrisy by claiming “respect for religions/other cultures” while at the same time screaming at the top of their lungs every time a Christian conservative complains about a breast on TV or whatever rubbish they spend their time complaining about.
What it really comes down to — and anyone with a shred of honesty knew this all along — is that “desecrating the Qu’ran” was only a “problem” insofar as it gave the usual suspects yet another chance to howl about the evils of the Bush Administration and demand Camp X-Ray get shut down. It was purely a cynical political move by people who, by and large, show absolutely no concern for the religious in any other context.
At any rate, banning flag burning is as absurd as closing down Guantanamo Bay over reports that the Muslim holy book got some pee splashed on it. Oliver is right. Congress really should be spending its time and our money far more wisely.
But I’ll still be able to burn the Stars and Bars, right?
Your reply is respectful so I’m de-snarking. I simply don’t agree there has been any kind of litany of crimes or abuses. The pissing incident refers to a soldier pissing outside and some of the moisture seeping through an air duct on a Koran copy that happened to be there. And they are burning US flags lots of places – the symbol of a nation that most of us (you too, I’m sure) deeply love and some of us fought for. But I see no American fundamentalists cutting off heads or murdering innocent women and children in response. It just seems than some on the American left are quick to understand the fanatical beliefs of those who hate this country, but have no tolerance for the (sometimes) fanatical beliefs of those who love it.
Dugger
Like those who have no tolerance for the slaughter of their own, but who tolerate the slaughter innocents by their own hand?
Wow Dugger, you almost sounded intelligent for a second, then you accuse the left of hating America again.
Do you run this stuff by Rove first or does your dishonesty come naturally?
Symbolism in any religion or nationalistic sense is dangerous. Getting our panties in a knot because some brown-skinned non-American teens torch an American flag isn’t very useful, it does nothing but cause more hatred and intolerance in the long run.
Should the Muslims get pissed off because someone pissed on a koran (and don’t go on anymore about the vent story, thats just logical bullshit)? I don’t think they should, I think they have bigger issues to resolve, but so far they seem unwilling to address their own issues. Of course, our way of encouraging them to be introspective is to kill more of them.
Binky,
I run everything by Rove, – otherwise I don’t get my $10 per post.
As to my characterization of the left – note I said “some”. And there have been cited instances of some on the left acknowledging (shame-facedly as it turns out) that they found themselves rooting for us to fail (so Bush would fail). This is not my view of the entire left. And I said nothing about skin color. You are injecting (more like – projecting) that non-issue (w/me) into the argument.
Dugger
Name names, Dugger. Failure has already happened, and its no fault of the left. No amount of cheerleading could have possibly diverted the American invasion from its path of self-destruction. If the Pentagon had planned properly from the beginning the damage could have been minimized, but we’re way past that, we’re committed because a Napoleonic idiot has condemned our military to a losing front.
Gee, Dugger, $10/post? Yours can’t be worth more than 50c each. Talk about wasteful government spending.
I point out this quote from Tom firedman: “Liberals don’t want to talk about Iraq because, with a few exceptions, they thought the war was wrong and deep down don’t want the Bush team to succeed.”
This guy from the NYT must be as misguided as I.
Dugger