Tuesday, June 27, 2006

On The Horrible Scourge Of Flag Burning



Or as John Amato says in his post on Crooks&Liars:

This is a joke right? Our government is having a debate about flag burning when nobody burns flags.

No, it's not a joke. And the article Amato links to points out the tremendous increase in flag burning cases:

The Citizens Flag Alliance, a group pushing for the Senate this week to pass a flag-burning amendment to the Constitution, just reported an alarming, 33 percent increase in the number of flag-desecration incidents this year.

The number has increased to four, from three.

Imagine that.

Such an important debate. It might save the lives of as many as four flags a year.

But the proposed amendment wouldn't cost the Republicans any money, and they like that in a law, unless it's about giving subsidies to corporations or about spending money on those masculine invasions abroad. It's also an informal patriotism test for politicians and a small pat on the head of the extreme wing of the Republican party. And it's ok for politicians to show proper emotions in public when the emotions are about the corpses of little defenseless flags.