Salazar will be another one of those red state Dem senators who tends liberal but votes just enough times with the conservatives to get reelected.

I always think of flag burning like carrying a huge torch in a crowd of people. It should be illegal on safety grounds alone.

Otherwise it's a good way to separate the enemy from the loyal.

Salazar has pretty much been a down-the-line liberal since being elected. This idiotic flag amendment vote, there is no chance that a Constitutional Amendment banning flag burning will ever pass both Houses and get the necessary State approval, gives him the chance to posture as a patriotic American at no cost to his paymasters and handlers.

Arson is not speech.

Bart: This Senate is as close to passing it as any Senate has been. If it does pass the Senate, it'll get approved by the states in voice votes in record time.

"Arson is not speech."
Neither is contributing to a politcal campaign.

David,

Even if it were to get thru the Senate, only 13 state legislatures need to oppose it. New York, California, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, Illinois, Delaware. Maryland, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa are 18.

Yeah, lots of legislators are going to support flag-burning. In Ken Mehlman's dreams...

If the only way you think that youcan communicate is through arson, vandalism, intimidation (think leftwing freeway "sit-ins" and bridge blockades), or some other activity which would in the real world be considerd simple criminality, then you have shown that you have no message to communicate, and there's no speech to protect.

If arson is speech, then intimidation, extortion and the occasional assault are also valid means of pursuasion. (Especially if you are a labor union.)

Contributing to a political campaign is enabling someone to speak for me, someone more articulate than I am who will represent my political interests. It's no different from paying for an accountant to do my taxes or paying for a lawyer to represent me in court. Of course, there are people like Senator Maverick who want to criminalize political speech, so I guess in that sense, it is like flag-burning.

All 50 states have passed nonbinding resolutions asking Congress to send them a flag-burning amendment. Not all of them will follow through, but enough will.

The amendment would probably breeze through the first 30 legislatures, then would slow down considerably once it closed in on the 3/4 vote and the media began paying major attention (though odds are it would find the required 38 states once the legislators in a few of the straggler states got close to Election Day).

No way Oregon (!) would vote against such an amendment. A local teenager here in the Portland suburbs cut down a large flag at a Harley dealership as a prank. Public outrage. Arrest. Vigorous prosecution. Jail time.

Mr. Ortega;

Perhaps you could be so good as to explain how arson is related to flag burning? I fail to see any relationship at all.

Did you also know that flag burning is in fact the preferred method for disposing of a worn out flag? Perhaps you could go tell the people who wrote that how unpatriotic they are.

It's the preferred means of disposing of wood too, but you'd mind if someone lit your house on fire.

Mr. Judd;

So you're saying we should outlaw burning wood, to cut down on house arson?

David,

You mean like those countless 'non-binding' Congressional resolutions ordering the American Embassy in Israel to be moved to Jerusalem?

A non-binding resolution is just an opportunity to posture and preen.

John has it exactly right, except I'm pretty certain there are enough nutbuggers out there to keep the thing from passing in the needed number of states.

AOG:

Yes, that's the point.

bart:

Which will elect enough new Republicans to pass it. Win-win.

OJ,

There are enough blue islands in the red sea out there to enable filibusters and other obstructionist tactics to work. Denver, Seattle, Portland, Detroit, Chicago, Madison etc aren't going to elect anyone who supports a flagburning amendment. And those sorts of places have enough votes all across the country to prevent such an amendment from passing the needed 38 states.

Bart is showing a serious lack of understanding of politics. This is one of those impossible to vote against things at the state level. "My opponent supports flag burning" is a nice issue in a marginal district. The arguments against the amendment are more, what's the word, nuanced. Clear versus nuance. Which wins?

Not that they'd vote uniformly in favor of flag-burning, but they don't control one-third of the seats in their state legislatures.

bart: Hawaii would pass a flag-burning amendment so fast your head would spin. A couple years back the Republicans made big gains in the state legislature (to just barely over 1/3 of the seats, which tells you how moribund the state political scene is) by campaigning hard to raise the state age of consent, which was among the lowest in the nation. Don't mistake total Democratic party domination for a population that supports contemporary liberalism. Other than college towns, there is no such place...

There is no reason to believe that the districts which elect people to Congress who oppose the flag-burning amendment would then turn around and elect people to local government, where the vote is more purely based on party loyalty, who do not.

Bob, I'm not talking about marginal districts. There are lots of state legislative seats in the US with a voting pattern not different from the Upper West Side or San Francisco.

OJ, in NY they have a majority in the Assembly. In California and NJ, they control both Houses.

b, maybe so. Hawaii is very pro-military and very dependent on military spending, always kind of weird when you consider the history of its labor union movement. But at the same time, if the anti-flag burning amendment crowd were to advocate their position, wouldn't a lot of the usual suspects fall into line. I mean, Hawaii does elected Abercrombie and did elect the America-hating Patsy Mink to Congress for a very long time.

Abercrombie, like Mink, will be re-elected until he dies and probably at least once after. Less than 10% of the population probably knows he sponsored the draft bill last year, and no one cares anyway. His campaigns, such as they are, are based purely on how much military spending he brings in, which is rather comical because everyone knows it's Inouye who is responsible for that.

The "anti-flag burning amendment crowd" is as significant as the pro-same sex marriage crowd, and even politicians in a one party state don't back issues supported by 1/3 of the voters...

I still think Bart has a fundamental understanding of the politics of this. Even if he is right about some states, there are many on his list that are Democrat but not like San Fancisco or the Upper West Side. All the Midwest states would pass it along with Hawaii and Delaware. More than enough.

Anyway, even if they don't ratify, an issue is given to the GOP in those states. Which is the plan.

bart:

Madison controls the NJ statehouse?

OJ,

Madison controls the Wisconsin State House. We should be so lucky that Madison, or for that matter the former Madison Twp, NJ, controlled the NJ Statehouse.

bart:

So they're the ones imposing the theocracy in WI:

http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/index.php?ntid=44571&ntpid=4