The Flag Burning Amendment, A Simple Alternative.

Everybody and their Mother In Law are getting all exersised over the flag burning amendment that passed the House recently. Where I live there doesn't seem to be a big problem, as a matter of fact there seems to be a pretty big problem with flags that aren't being burned that should be. I mean, have you SEEN some of the tattered, dirty and faded remnants on some of these poles?

Still, civil libertarians are up in arms on one side, self-described patriot politicos on the other side and then there are a whole bunch of intellectuals trying to explain to us pore dumb rednecks (actually, it's not my neck that's all that red, it's the reflection off the backs of my sunburnt ears) why it's a good, or bad, idea.

Me, I'm having trouble figuring out why it's okay to burn the flag but city folks can go to jail if'n they burn a pile of leaves in the fall but then I don't really understand city folks anyhow. Somehow the Supreme Court decided that burning the flag is a protected form of free speech. Okay, fine. Then why isn't puttin' a good ol' country butt kickin' on one of these yahoos also a protected form of free speech? Or settin' fire to some of these chuckleheaded judges, for that matter. I can see that the flag pisses some folks off, why I'm not exactly sure. So, we've established the precedent, fire equals speech. How 'bout the Democratic Underground crowd? They piss me off. Under that precedent it seems that I should be allowed to whup up a batch of homemade napalm (I have the recipe) and fire those bad boys up.

So, we've established the precedent that burnin' stuff that we don't approve of equals free speech while it's not free speech to talk about a politician some sixty or ninety days before an election. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me but if that's what they want, hand me the matches. I didn't make the rules but I guess I can live with them. Air quality is really gonna suck for awhile, though. On the plus side, once everyone is done burnin' all the things that piss them off it oughta be a lot less crowded.