Anyone?

.

So what were all those pieces of cloth I saw being waved everywhere, and I mean everywhere, during the World Cup games? Bath towels from Ahrens, Le Bon Marché, or Debenhams?

DNA maps.

If this is so, then the U.S. will be the only country not to devolve into ethnic states. Ethnic politics not being something you can govern with(once you are the only ethnic group left in the country), Joining the U.S. will hard to avoid. No wonder their leaders have been pushing anti Americanism so hard.

What makes the American flag unique is that it is in fact a symbol that represents ideas.

...one of which is the right to free political speech.

A flag burning ban amendment is protecting the SYMBOL by destroying that PRINCIPLE for which it stands. It is one of the first steps toward becoming more "French".

Banning the burning of the flag is the functional equivalent of "political correctness" for the "right."

Too all my callers who carp about the number of people who "died and fought for that flag" I ask whether they died/fought for the flag or for the principle/ideas for which it stands.

I don't pledge allegiance to a FLAG!!! I pledge allegiance to the nation that (for the time being anyway) has the 1st 10 Amendments in its foundation.

Get rid of those foundations, and what do I have to pledge allegiance to? Eurotrash on steroids?

To all those who are too emotionally distraught at the concept of a flag burner, I can only say that they have place amoung the Muslims who can't handle a cartoon, a Frenchman who tries to manage the purity of his language, and the Christian who can't endure Maplethorpe's "Piss Christ."

The best ideas and principles can withstand the fire of criticism. Only weak ideas require 'protection.'

You should show us the way, Bruno. From now on, all your posts should begin and end with racial slurs. Publish your address too. A real man isn't afraid to loss his house over a spirited discussion of free speech......

Robert,

Sadly, you are probably right. Further, a real man would be jailed for shooting a mob of
"yahoos', Muslims, or Frenchman who tried to burn down his house.

They (pick your flavor) get to riot, burn, maim, and plunder while we must be silent to preserve their feeble 'feelings', and if we don't, we get to lose our houses.

Such is life in our emasculated world. Nice.

Just take our SOMA. (or is it Prozac?) Good doggies.

Well, I note you can't even mention the ethnic group most likely to feel slured in the U.S.. So you understand the concept of "fighting words". So why are you so eager to surrender? If their side can have "fighting words", why not our side? Heads they win, Tails we lose rarely works. You can't be arguing about Absolute Free Speech, that died with the N-word and Campaign finance reform. Explain to me why we don't get to fight back. Is the problem we are fighting fairly? If it was by judical fiat would you be ok with it?

Flag burning must be banned precisely because it's a rejection of the American idea. Free speech doesnb't extend to rejection of the Republic--ask a Nazi, communist or militiaman.

OJ,

Sorry, we are just going to have to disagree here. This is one of those very rare occasions where I find your arguments unpersuasive.

In my view, Sen McCain, Congress, the President, and the Supreme Ct. "rejected the Republic" by passing on the explicit limiting of political speech. That was far worse than some Bozo burning a flag.

Robert,

Do you mean Blacks? Interestingly, I was just listening to Prager talk about how Opinion Research companies (focus groups) who want a "cross section" of Americans leave out blacks because in the discussion sections, the moment the blacks speak up, no one else in the group disagrees with them.

For my part, I think that the use of the "N" word exposes oneself as an idiot or boor, as does burning a flag. I guess I'm one of those people who would rather see those people expose themselves than have them travel under the radar.

In direct answer to your point, I'm all for self-censorship. If it fails, I'm all for the shunning that takes place afterwords. If I use the "N" word on my show, I'm all for the right of a private station kicking me off the air, just as I would get the same treatment for doing a live flag-burning promotion.

I'm simply against government censorship of poltical speech.

I don't expect all to agree with me, but I think it's an intellectually defensible position.

Say what? Cicero, anyone?

The citizens of the Republic want CFR and a flag burning ban--they get them.

Bruno, I agree that being againest goverment censorship of political speech is an intellectually defendable position. I'm just pointing out that battle has been lost. Flag burning seems an odd place to draw the line. The whole point of burning a flag is to end dialog; it's fighting words. If the N-word didn't end remove one from jobs and campaign finance reform didn't strip political speech from people, you would have a point. As it is, you seem to say that the proper position is to be so pure your feet don't touch the base clay.

I don't think that a Constitutional amendment to ban flag burning is a good idea, as long as the doctrine of "fighting words" is properly maintained. However, the notion that burning a flag is "speech" of any sort, let alone "protected speech", is preposterous. Given that a specific physical act is involved, it seems a far more strained argument than the claims made by certain groups that fundraising for Hamas should be considered "free speech" (or even more preposterously, an exercise of freedom of religion). Why exactly is anti-Americanism given a priviliged position in America (i.e., the asinine cry that "dissent is patriotic")?

b:

When the Court refuses to follow the Constitution an amendment is appropriate to overturn their decision.

Fortunately, most Americans are not such Rationalists as to imagine that their identity as a people is tied up exclusively with political abstractions. As Oakeshott put it so well, such abstractions can only ever be "abbreviations" of a living tradition. The American political tradition is far deeper and richer than the abstractions that our politicians and pundits favor.

At the point where one thinks there's a difference between an abstraction and a tradition words have ceased to be useful. What makes America distinct is that it is defined exclusively by ideas, traditions, etc. and not at all by nationalism. Blood and soil are the non-abstractions around which nations revolve to their detriment.

An abstraction, in this context, is the abbreviation of a tradition that occurs when some aspect of that tradition is made the subject of a verbal examination. It's the difference between talking about freedom and, you know, actually being free.

The folly of the Rationalist is his confusion of his Precious, his abstraction, with something real.

We cannot talk about, say, liberty without resort to abstraction; but we cannot have liberty if we confuse that abstraction for the real thing.

There is more liberty is the common family home than in a thousand grand treatises -- even one so grand as the Declaration.

It's not easy, but you have that exactly wrong. There is no liberty in a family. The family depends on different members being treated differently.

As a threshhold problem though you're confusing the differences between the Covenant between Abraham and God with the foreskinless penis itself. The latter is not abstract, but is meaningless in the absence of the idea. The idea is abstract only to the uunbeliever.

In no way does it follow from "The family depends on different members being treated differently" that there is "no liberty in the family." Liberty depends on distinction and variety; hence its ineradicable tension with equality.

I can't figure out what you're trying to say in the second paragraph, much less how it relates to American identity.

You misapprehend liberty completely.