Flag Burning

This is so stupid.  Is the republican party so unpopular that it has to resort to this kind of thing? 

Does Karl Rove have a whole bunch of these little gems up his sleeve?  How about English as the national language?  How about a resolution stating that we hate red commies?  Making baseball the national pastime?  Making American Pie the national movie? 

Well, OK, maybe the last one has some merit...

-- Michael

Comments

[gary]

yes...they are this desperate and stupid.

I am waiting for them to show video of a fag in a red, white and blue thong burning the flag at a gay pride parade.

That would be the equivelant of a wet dream for Rove, and what would amount to a homerun.

America is woefully left behind...and arogantly willing to ignore the obvious problems in favor of the petty, the tabloid, and the useless.

Why else would we be talking about flag burning?

It's a moot point! Freedom of speech and expression trumps all. Give it up already!

Your boy is a flagrant moron, and no amount of grandstanding or distraction is going to obscure this fact from us. It worked for awhile, but even the dumbest of Americans are starting to wake up. Your done Rove, so do us a favor; wrap yourself in a flaming flag and shut up!

[dmeyers]

Let's get something straight right off the bat. The "Flag Burning Ammendment" DOES NOT BAN BURING THE AMERICAN FLAG. I cannot put that any more clear. What the Ammendment does do is allow Congress to pass a federal law that does ban burning the flag. It does EXACTLY WHAT Sen. Clinton claims she supports.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) said in a statement that she would "support federal legislation that would outlaw flag desecration, much like laws that currently prohibit the burning of crosses, but I don't believe a constitutional amendment is the answer."

Sen. Clinton would "Support federal legislation that would outlaw flag desecration". Problem is what she CLAIMS she supports has already been struck down by the Supreme Court. The Ammendment will give the means for the Clinton Federal Ban on Flag Desecration Law.

This Ammendment is a perfect example of The People exerting their power and seizing control of the Legislative process away from the Courts.

I cannot say whether or not I would support a Federal Law banning Flag Desecration but I do support the idea that it should be the Legislative branch, not the judicial branch, that should make the call.

Once again, I believe in the power of the people not the power of the courts. The courts should stay out of legislative issues, like flag desecratin, gay marraige, medical use of pot, abortion restrictions to name a few. These issues are all policy issues that should be decided by the people through their elected representatives

[dmeyers]

hey Michael, what is your take on the Supreme Courts ruling today regarding the 5th Ammendment and the takings clause?

I think it is an outrage. They obliterated the "..for public use" clause of the Ammendment.

The liberals on the court seem to be saying that it is up to local governments to decide the meaning of "public use".

This ruling puts a HUGE target on all the poor that live in run down areas. Your local gov't can decide for any reason that your homes do not bring in enough taxes so they will take your home and allow for private entities to Redevelopment in order to bring in more taxes.

Once again, the liberals standing up for the poor and the little guy....

[Incertus]

Actually, dmeyers, it does nothing of the sort. I was no fan of the ruling until I actually read it, which apparently you haven't done either. The ruling doesn't transfer private porperty to a private interest--it transfers the private property to a government entity, to quote Tapped, "a development agency commissioned by the city to carry out a government-approved plan. Assuming that the city maintained proper oversight and authority over the developer's activities, this is not in any way a transfer to a private entity, so the great cry that a "law that takes property from A. and gives it to B ... is against all reason and justice" is misplaced and misleading."

I'm still a bit itchy over it, but I'm always itchy over eminent domain cases, just because I don't know how one determines fair compensation for intimate possessions like the home a person has lived in for 87 years, but I'm less worried about Wal-Mart being able to run roughshod over the property rights of individuals than I was when I first heard the decision.

[dmeyers]

The gov't is taking the land to allow for private development, meaning they will sell the land for private development. Check out the exchange with a lawyer and Breyer

BULLOCK: Well, Your Honor, the limit is that there cannot be takings for private use.
BREYER: Of course, there can't, purely. But there is no taking for private use that you could imagine in reality that wouldn't also have a public benefit of some kind, whether it's increasing jobs or increasing taxes, et cetera.

That's a fact of the world. And so given that fact of the world, that is law, why shouldn't the law say, okay, virtually every taking is all right, as long as there is some public benefit which there always is and it's up to the legislature.

BULLOCK: Your Honor, we think that that cuts way too broadly.

BREYER: Because?

BULLOCK: Because then every property, every home, every business can then be taken for any private use.

BREYER: No. It could only be taken if there is a public use and there almost always is. Now, do you agree with that, or do you not agree with my last empirical statement?

BULLOCK: Well, again, the eminent domain power is broad, but there has to be limits.

BREYER: Now, that's, of course, my question. The question is, if you agree with the empirical statement that there almost always is some public benefit attached, then my question is, why must there be a limit within that broad framework?

BULLOCK: Well, Your Honor, I think with public -- with just having a simple public benefit, then there really is no distinction between public and private uses. And that is what we call upon this Court to state, for instance, in the Berman case and in the Midkiff case, which we think are really the outer limits of government's eminent domain.

Breyer is quite clear that there is almost always a public benefit, he said, "virtually every taking is all right, as long as there is some public benefit which there always is and it's up to the legislature".

Since increasing taxes is of "pubic benefit" according to Breyer, here is a real life possibility.

In Calif, property taxes are based on the value of your home and the value is set at the time it is sold. This law, called Proposition 13, was passed in the mid seventies. At the time of passage all homes were assessed and the assessed value stayed fixed, meaning your property taxes were basically fixed for as long as you lived in your home. When you sell the home, the sell price is the new assessed value so the new owner pays taxes on this new assessed value.

You have lots and lots and lots of people that are still living in their homes with an assessed value set in the 70's. Their assessed value may be 75k but their home could sell for 700k on the open market. The owner pays roughly 1% property taxes or about $750 per year. If the house was sold for $700k the new property taxes would be $7,000 per year. Given this ruling, what is to prevent the state of california force homeowners who have been in their homes for 30 years to sell their home to the state, who would then resell it on the open market, just to increase the property taxes they could collect. Given this ruling and Breyer's statement their is nothing to prevent the state from doing just that.

Got to love the liberals on the supreme court.

[Cheryl]

As far as the anti-flag-burning amendment goes, I will support it just as long as it also bans burning pentagrams, toast and tobacco. It should also ban smelly farts like the ones dmeyers keeps lighting up on this blog.

dmeyers is itching to burn the constitution. Flag burning is protected speech. Cross burning is hate speech. There is a difference between burning the flag to express displeasure with the government and burning a cross on some (black) man's lawn before lynching him. Of course, in the black-and-white world of dmeyers, there is no difference at all between burning a flag and burning a cross. So much for those compassionate nigger-loving conservatives.

As far as the eminent domain clause is concerned, if any Israeli comes bearing down on my Palestinian brownstone with a bulldozer (oops, sorry, slipped a geographical gear here) I will certainly fling myself in harm's way just to prove that there are still patriots in this country willing to die for property rights. I saw the so-called 'blighted homes' that are being torn down on TV just tonight on PBS (Fox did not show any pictures of it I am sure, probably did not even carry the story is my guess since it is a class warfare thing and they like to be on the side of the Murdochs) and let me tell you some of those homes they were tearing down looked better than mine!

This is simply graft and corruption run to the max. There is however an interesting take to be had on this one.

When the Declaration of Independence was originally being drafted, rumor has it that Jefferson replaced 'life, liberty, and property' with 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness'. Sorry, dmeyers, looks like the framers disagreed with you. Here is more evidence, taken straight from the Constitution itself, showing that the framers never intended property to be sacrosanct:

AMENDMENT V No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.

That 'just compensation' thingy there is known as the 'eminent domain' clause and it quite clearly states that the government can damn well take whatever it wants away from anyone, as long as it pays the fair market value for it. Judicial activism would be interpreting this clause to mean that the supreme court could step in and interfere, which is exactly what the strict constructionist liberals did NOT do, whereas the activist conservatives clearly wanted to bend this clause to their own ideology by basically adding a clause that states 'nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation, contingent upon the approval of the supreme court'. Since that clause is NOT in the constitution, the liberals were actually right to throw it back to the states. This is just about the clearest states rights issue that anyone can imagine.

That does not make me happy about it. I find it ridiculous that it could have gotten all the way to the supreme court. No one should have their home taken away just to increase the profits of wealthy developers, but I lay the blame at the state supreme court, not the federal.

Here is another one that dmeyers lit up in flames with his blind wupport of the UnPatriot Act:

AMENDMENT IV The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Under US law, this right applies to all people, not just US citizens, not just people who are not currently stigmatized by the dictator-in-chief as 'enemy combatants'. If you let the neocon legislature run roughshod over the Constitution, you end up with people from all over the world being spirited away for torture and death. If anything should get up the dander of a died-in-the-wool conservative, the UnPatriot Act is certainly it. Unfortunately, the fanatics remain silent on this one. They are frightened of their own shadows and lashing out at any convenient target to pump up political momentum and assuage their own sense of impotency in matters of national security.

How inconvenient something like a secular humanistic Constitution can be to a fanatic.

Then again, the fools on the left stood by with their dicks hanging out while Rove and Rumsfeld hacked them off with a media-powered weed whacker. Which is worse, a delusional megalomaniac with his finger on the nuclear button or a coward who stands there doing nothing about it?

[dmeyers]

Cheryl, you really need to read the text of the ammendment. It does not ban burning of the flag. If allows Congress to pass a law, if they see fit, to make it illegal to desecrate the flag. It is up to Congress to right and pass the law, the ammendment does not do it.

[dmeyers]

Cheryl, regarding the Fifth Ammendment you are so far off base. Nobody is debating the "just compensation" portion of the Ammendment, the argument is over the "public use" portion of it.

What the courts have done over the years and cemented with this latest ruling is the term "public use" has morphed into "public benefit". To me "public use" is quite clear, for example, highways, gov't buildings, libraries, roads, bridges, etc. "Public benefit" has a much different meaning. A grocery store has a "public benefit" but most would argue that having the gov't claim eminent domain for a grocery store is silly.

One thing you need to realize most conservatives hold the 5th Ammendments clause regarding private property to be the MOST IMPORTANT Ammendment of the Bill of Rights. For without private property rights all other rights fall by the wayside.

Cheryl, since when do the Ammendments of the Constitution not apply to the states? Does the 1st Ammendment only guarantee that the Federal Congress make no law abridging the free speech rights or does it also apply to the state governments? Does the 4th Ammendment only apply to federal officials or does it apply to state officials also? So why would you think that the taking clause should be defined at the state level?

It is real funny that it was the Liberals on the Court that stood up for the Big/Wealthy Developers and not the little guy. Why is it that conservative groups across this country are apalled at this ruling but the major liberal groups are silent?

I love how the supposed "right to privacy/abortion" is decided at the federal level but an Ammendment that is part of the Bill of Rights should be ajudicated at the state level according to Cheryl. How bizarre is that?