Senate rejects amendment on flag burning
The Senate has voted down a proposed constitutional amendment outlawing flag burning. So, you think, sanity rules in the Senate? No. The vote was 66 to 34, one short of passage. If you're counting, that's an insanity ratio of almost two to one. One wonders what Madison would think now of his great repository of deliberative democracy. I suspect he might just disown it altogether.
Senator Lautenberg of my former home state of New Jersey: "This is politics at its worst." Yes, just about. As Senator Feingold put it, such an amendment would "cut back the Bill of Rights for the first time". Much like President Bush's beloved amendment to outlaw same-sex marriage.
These are your Republicans at work. In desperation, which is where they are now, looking ahead to November, they play the patriotism card, the politics of scoundrels.
How predictable.
On a more serious note, though, if you let them get away with it, they'll take your rights away.
(See also Shakespeare's Sister, Echidne, Steve Benen, Norbizness, Ann Althouse, Christy Hardin Smith, Jill, Kathy Kattenburg, and DownWithTyranny.)
Senator Lautenberg of my former home state of New Jersey: "This is politics at its worst." Yes, just about. As Senator Feingold put it, such an amendment would "cut back the Bill of Rights for the first time". Much like President Bush's beloved amendment to outlaw same-sex marriage.
These are your Republicans at work. In desperation, which is where they are now, looking ahead to November, they play the patriotism card, the politics of scoundrels.
How predictable.
On a more serious note, though, if you let them get away with it, they'll take your rights away.
(See also Shakespeare's Sister, Echidne, Steve Benen, Norbizness, Ann Althouse, Christy Hardin Smith, Jill, Kathy Kattenburg, and DownWithTyranny.)
posted by Michael J.W. Stickings at
12:11 AM
4 Comments:
Earlier this month, when the Senate was debating the proposed amendment banning gay marriage, I wrote a post detailing how no amendment to our Constitution has restricted the freedoms of this country's citizens:
http://jeffkrimmel.com/2006/06/05/wasting-time-on-gay-marriage/
The same thing applies to flag burning, in the sense that it would be the first amendment to restrict, instead of protect, the freedom of this country's citizens.
President Bush and the Republican Congress hate some of our most basic freedoms: the freedom of speech, the freedom of marriage, and most recently the freedom of the press. I just don't get how this is a successful message.
How do you drum up political support in a country that is such a vociferous home of freedom by declaring how much you hate said freedom?
By
Anonymous, at 5:01 PM
Thanks for the link, Jeff. And I think you're right here.
What Bush is doing, it seems to me, is setting up a sort of enemies list: gays, the news media, various straw men, etc. Going after gays has been a vote winner for the GOP because it gets out the base in big numbers, and going after the press tends to be popular because many Americans are suspicious of the press's intentions, not least with so much debunking of the press's credibility from conservatives over the past several decades (in a concerted effort to undermine that credibility).
But I do think, too, that some freedoms are antithetical to Bush and those who think like him. Freedom of the press endangers their rule of secrecy. Freedom for gays threatens their fragile sense of moral righteousness (and exposes their bigotry).
By
Michael J.W. Stickings, at 8:34 PM
Well, Madison was never fond of the Senate as we have come to know it. The whole idea of equal representation per state was forced on him by the small states.
As a Virginian (and thus a large stater) he wanted virtual supremacy of the House of Representatives. He even wanted the Senate to be weighted by population (not that different from the House) and elected by the House (from candidates proposed by the states).
I wonder how many Americans even know that? Not many, I suspect.
Madison promoted the Senate (and the separate presidency--he hardly even bothered to defend the electoral college) when it was clear to him that the options were that Great Compromise, or no federation at all.
So, yes, he would be appalled, for sure.
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