… and loss of citizenship, which may amount to be thrown out of the country.
Flag burning may be obnoxious to many, but it is a constitutionally protected act, as long as it is your flag and you do it outside.
Presumptive President Elect Donald Trump has called for severe penalties for flag burners:
Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag – if they do, there must be consequences – perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 29, 2016
By the way, if you strip someone of their citizenship, and you do throw them out of the country, it is possible that they will have no way to go or no way to get there. Once they are no longer US citizen, they can be tossed into a special detention facility, and if there are enough of them, well, you’ve got a concentration camp.
I was about to write a post about something else Donald Trump tweeted, but I got distracted by this latest tweet, from just a few minutes ago.
I’ll be back.
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Good. The instant this becomes law I will rush out and buy a dozen USA flags to burn, and make a dozen YouTube videos showing me doing so.
Donald Trump tweeted today that his supporters should burn the U.S. Constitution…
It makes me wonder if Trump is a Russian “sleeper.”
Not Russian; German:
Adolph Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, and died on April 30, 1945. His last words reportedly were, “Ich komme wieder!” (“I’ll be back!”)
After a year of additional tutoring in Hades, Hitler’s soul was re-incarnated as Donald Trump, born on June 14, 1946.
The Fourth Reich officially begins on January 20, 2017 in the United States, the country formerly known as The Land of the Free.
Brainstorms@5: There is a German film about it, Er ist wieder da (He Is Back). Trailers with English subtitles here.
Ach du lieber! Zhey haf gotten ze country falsch, und “Mein Coif” is die falsch color!
Ich denke Michael Moore will haf diesen film remaken… Auf Englisch, naturlich.
Well, at least the Trumpster may have the Supreme Court on his side, or rather about 44% of the justices.
I think the last couple times the flag-burning-as-free-speech issue came up before the SCOTUS, they decided 5-4 to allow it. That’s pretty close.
I see the flag burning kind of like a man railing against his wife and burning a poster-size picture of her in public. I guess there’s nothing illegal about it. But it doesn’t bode well for his wife.
One other thing:
How about that Flag Protection Act of 2005 that would have outlawed burning our flag with a penalty of up to a year in prison and a fine of up to $100,000? It was co-sponsored by… by…
Senator Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.)!
That law did not specify jail or other penalties for simply burning the flag. It did not strip anyone of citizenship. And, for your information, making the comparison, implying the equivilance, between Secretary Clinton and Donald Trump was your very last contribution to this blog.
“One other thing: How about that Flag Protection Act of 2005….”
Oh, good fucking grief. Hey, Shit-for-brains! THE PROBLEM IS TRUMP, NOT CLINTON! How the bloody hell is that fact not bloody obvious?
The proposed year 2005 Act applied *ONLY* to events of burning the USA flag that was engaged in to deliberately incite violence and to disrupt the public peace. All other acts of burning the USA flag was, and still is, protected free speech and the 2005 Act specifically said so.
Sheeeish.
Greg, Desertphile, neither of you really expected sn had read, or understood, the item he brought up did you?
“Greg, Desertphile, neither of you really expected sn had read, or understood, the item he brought up did you?”
Heh! Long ago I gave up hoping that tailless monkeys would act rationally.
Dean, do you really think he/she/it cares one way or another? We live in a post-factual world now.
These Alt-Right / Alt-Reich / Alt-Reality types just don’t give a damn. “It’s all about the ideology.”
About five decades ago, when I was a boy scout, we were taught that the proper method to dispose of an American flag was to burn it.
So is the flag now supposed to be thrown in the garbage?
“Flag burning may be obnoxious to many, but it is a constitutionally protected act,”
A position that was, surprisingly, endorsed by Antonin Scalia.
And, it should be pointed out, stripping a person of his/her citizenship was the subject of Afroyim v. Rusk in 1967, at the Supreme Court, and the ruling stated that it could not be done. Despite some later changes, the State Department put policies in place in the early 90s that make it almost impossible for someone to lose citizenship without actively requesting it.
I know trump (and scum like sn) wish they could wave a magic wand and make people they don’t like vanish, but (as of yet) they can’t.
Trump is such a freaking joke. I saw an interview clip where he didn’t know the meaning of the 13 stripes in the US Flag,something most grade schoolers know. He obviously doesn’t know how to properly dispose of a flag either:
“The United States Flag Code (4 USC Sec 8 Para (k) Amended 7 July 1976) states: “The Flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem of display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning.”
I think that we really need to make a concerted effort to have this King of the Losers impeached at the earliest opportunity.
America didn’t need to be made great. It is great. President elect Little Hands really isn’t prepared for l life outside of this his silken trust fund baby cocoon, as evidenced by his ignorance of the expression ” If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
“But if it is broken, elect it.”
“And if elected, break it!”
There was a time when people routinely burned their trash. The idea of burning a flag to dispose of it properly is similar to the idea of being armed to ward off tyranny.
T.Rump has tapped a vein of malignant nationalism, the same sort of crap that gave rise to WWI and WWII. That old German philosophy that weak states and minorities should not be tolerated is back from the ICU, this time under the guidance of our Troika of two Germanics (Donald and Reinhold) and a bellicose Irish guy (Bannon). President elect Flaggenpussygrabber made it clear, when he descended from the heavens on his golden escalator, that the Mexicans were the source of all our woes, so I think that our three lively goose steppers probably have something despicable in mind, like annexing Mexico. From there they can move on to the lower part of North America (What? You didn’t know that there were North American countries below Mexico? Shame on you! ). China would probably feel compelled to intervene at some point.. Would it go New Que Lar? Heaven forbid!
Anyway, those of us blinded by our years of easy librul living totally missed this coming. Full employment is on the way. I so look forward to spending the rest of my short retirement loading artillery shells in the Mexican desert defending the New Murkan State. In fact, I’m finding a lot of peace in detaching myself from my attachments to nice things because, hey, if I just love the flag, all my needs can be so easily fulfilled! Think how wonderful our lives will be! It will be like one huge glorious video war game in celebration of our fearless leader! President Flaggenpussygrabber! Hail! Emperor of the World!
So where do I sign up? When do I get my uniform?!
You thought we could control our world with science and reason? Silly you. Can your dog play chess? Can your cat play checkers? Half the human race is on the bottom of any bell curve of civility, intelligence, or rationality and so here we are! Enjoy!
Telegram for you from fate. It says ” You are now finding yourself in a really sucko fascist reality stop this was not the best alternate reality to select stop but you are here stop deal with it stop Oh and have a nice day stop. “
Oh, and a couple of more things before I march back to my corporate torture chamber.
P.E. Flaggenpussygrabber is apparently unconcerned about or unswayed by the vulnerability of the entire US food, energy, and information infrastructure to crippling events that could possibly result from his current course. He is apparently unconcerned that he does not not have anywhere near the national majority that his idol Schicklgruber had. He is quickly energyzing a national flag religion to make up for the devoted Catholic and Lutheran support that Schicklgruber had in the early days of his administration; Murka is not nearly as religiously united as Schicklgruber’s Germany was. But P.E. Flaggenpussygrabber expects that it will be soon..
Oh Libruls. We have ignored or insulted the superstitious, low intellect white bullies who bedeviled our childhood and early national history, told them to go eat cake, and now, underemployed and suffering from various educational, emotional and nutritional deficiencies, they are coming back zombie-like to take over the levers of power. Great.
Officer, leave me alone! I am solving great problems of physics here on the beach!
T.Rump has cut through the Gordian knot of the US election process like a hot knife through butter. His next firewall is the US Congress. Will his fellow Republicans wake up and impeach him before he creates Mad Max Murka with his two
nasty buddies? Will Good Priebus conquer Bad Priebus?
This will be exciting. The machinations happening now behind the doors of Republican sausage factory most be fascinating.
Meanwhile, the stupid phuqueing media repeats T.Rump’s every tweet like some malignant Marshall amplifier set to 12.
Jeezuz Effing Cripes. Hey Tic Tac Toe libruls. Meet your new boss! Chess master, Juggernaut Sumo Wrestler Trump.
Oh. And have a nice day!
P.S. Better hope that Paul Ryan and Mit Romney have some good anti-juggernaut mojo. They are going to need it.
P.P.S Oh yeah, I forgot to mention buildings. On 9/11, thousands of people in two towering buildings were murdered by Islamic terrorists. . Trump is a Tower Builder. This is all much more real to him than we can imagine. He realized on that day that his precious buildings were vulnerable in a new way. He also probably realized, over time that he could mobilize the inhabitants of buildings to protect them for him by playing on their shared fears of Islamic terrorists. . Win-win.
SteveP@23: A small nitpick. The people who live in such tall buildings (not necessarily Trump’s) aren’t the ones who are disproportionately afraid of Islamic terrorists. It’s the people in places like Podunk, South Dakota, who have probably never encountered a foreigner in their lives, who are afraid. The degree of urbanization in a county is inversely correlated with its propensity to vote Republican.
“””
A few weeks after 911, I went down to the local deli to pick up some sandwiches. There was an older African American guy in a wheelchair in the deli. He is a local fixture, semi-homeless, a bit crazy but basically a nice guy and what one would call “harmless” (whatever exactly that means). He was leaving the deli at the same time as some folks were coming in. These folks were not from the neighborhood … actually, visiting from the Dakotas their daughter the college student in her new apartment. There was a bit of a tussle as they were coming in the deli and guy-in-wheelchair was trying to make his way out the door. No big deal but it flustered the visitors. They were already a bit nervous being in the city, and I strongly suspect people of color were not a familiar site to them. One of them mentioned to the other, along with a sigh-like letting out of breath one expresses after a close call … “Eh, I thought that guy was a terrorist,” and the other one said “Yea, me too.”
“””
https://gregladen.com/blog/2007/02/911-reverberates-in-boston/
I think that illustrates how we’re going to end up on the Fourth Reich’s “Registries”, then on to the internment camps: The “social undesirables” will be branded “terrorists” (or potentials, or sympathizers, or supporters, etc.), then rounded up and shipped off to remote, desolate stretches of places like Utah and Nevada to be interned, forgotten about, then “disappeared” up the camps’ smokestacks…
Greg@25: I have relatives in South Dakota (my mother grew up in that state), and you are almost certainly correct. Per Wikipedia, the state is about 86% white, with First Peoples (mostly Lakota) the largest minority group at 9%. Most First Peoples live on reservations, where the majority would not encounter them. As for other racial groups, I hear that Latino (mostly but not exclusively Mexican) construction crews exist, at least in Sioux Falls, which is what passes for a big city in the state. But outside of Sioux Falls, Rapid City, and the rez, you are unlikely to encounter anyone who isn’t white.
My relatives who still live in South Dakota are wingnuts, as you are probably not surprised to hear.
Trump’s threat could have been worse: he could have said anyone who burned a flag would be forced to listen to Leonard Cohen singing his crap. I have to believe even Republicans would say that would be too horrific.
Dean… “Rush Limbaugh”. Say no more… (Please!)
Things we can do while waiting for our bus ride to the detention centers:
1) Start supporting every Republican in or out of Congress who is willing to stand up to Trump.
2) Remind Trump supporters of every campaign promise he breaks. Turn his supporters against him in any way possible.
3) Wake people up to the fact that Trump is leading us down a path to malignant nationalism and that he needs to be removed from office as soon as possible.
4) Remind people that the result of malignant nationalism of the type that the Trump Troika is drumming up has, in the past ,given humanity WWI and WWII . These were huge wars with incomprehensibly widespread death and destruction, and that the type of philosophy that glorifies war is a setback to human advancement. Remind people that war is not just a source of death and physical injury, but also produces various human psychological maladies that last for decades and end up degrading all of society.
5) Point out to Trump supporters all of the rights that they are losing every day under his presidency. Keep a list.
6) Point out to Trump supporters that Trump is a criminal on many many levels.
7) Point out to religious Trump supporters that Trump is not merely a sinner, but a demon.
8) Remind minorities and persecuted groups that you stand with them against Trumpist fascism.
9) Remind supporters that he really doesn’t give a rats ass about anything but himself and that they are naive if they believe otherwise.
10) Make sure that people know how damaging and demotivating, how criminal and psychopathic Trump’s attacks on minorities and oppressed groups is.
11) Remind people that this is the year 2016 and we do not need to relive the civil war or either of the world wars. .
12) Do what we can to muzzle hate speech. I don’t know what legal methods we can devise to combat the likes of Mark Steyn , Rush Limbaugh, or Sean Hannity, but we need to find a way to combat them and shut them down.
13) Do what we can to increase truth telling, accurate representation, and source checking in the media.
14) Tell people who are having Trumpist temper tantrums in public that they are, indeed, having a Trump temper tantrum and that they need counseling.
15) When the white nationalists spread their propaganda, tell them that you understand their fear about the survival of their recessive genes in a competitive gene pool, but that they missed the turn off to the 19th century, and they probably aren’t ever going to be able to get back there..
16) Encourage the media to NOT let Trump try his infantile experiment at government by tweet.
17) Remind all Trump supporting politicians that you will remember their support of Trump at the next election.
18) Figure out how to survive and flourish in spite of the fascist idiots who have temporarilty taken over.
19) Work with scientific organizations to take power away from Trump in every way possible.
20) Work to impeach him.
21) Above all, do not let America turn into Nazi Germany.
Over and out.
Wow, so Trump and the Trumpettes want government to get all in your grill what you do with the property you bought fair and square?!?!?
To me, this sounds a hell of a lot like North Vietnam’s insistence that you respect their dear leader ™.
“P.P.S Oh yeah, I forgot to mention buildings. On 9/11, thousands of people in two towering buildings were murdered by Islamic terrorists. . Trump is a Tower Builder.”
So 9/11 was a scam by Trump to increase his business by making space for two new towers is your assertion?
Hmmm. Interesting…
No, 9/11 was a Dick Cheney scam to justify his profitable little war in the Middle East. Nothing works like a bit of emotional upset to manipulate a Congress full of knee-jerk political idiots into rubber-stamping military action…
Greg, I have been following your posts since the election and I am glad to see you are taking on Trump with real substance. I am glad you wrote on the Trump tweet.
I have been having some fierce arguments with people who think we can just muddle through and American democratic institutions will someone save the day. This is nothing but wishful thinking. We need an all-out mobilization of every corner of society.
I am sending you a link to a statement denouncing Trump which sets a basic framework for that all-out battle and which needs to get everywhere. I hope you and your readers can help.
http://revcom.us/a/464/in-the-name-of-humanity-we-refuse-to-accept-a-fascist-america-en.html
Folks keep falling for these Trump provocations…….wake up….its what got him there….he does not mean what he says and does not say what he means…….
“he does not mean what he says and does not say what he means”
You mean Adolf Hitler?
“he does not mean what he says and does not say what he means”
Interesting. When that was pointed out by folks during the campaign, with supporting evidence, it was pooh-poohed by the bigots and racists who supported him. Now it’s used by them as a defense.
“Interesting. When that was pointed out by folks during the campaign, with supporting evidence, it was pooh-poohed by the bigots and racists who supported him. Now it’s used by them as a defense.”
It was the same thing victims of the Kentucky governor said before their affordable health care was taken away from them.
“No, 9/11 was a Dick Cheney scam to justify his profitable little war in the Middle East. ”
Ohh, ooh! I know! It’s Cheney and Trump who cooked up the whole rigged tower explosion!
FINALLY, we have the TRUTH!!!!
When a man shows you what he is, you should believe him.
Trump’s actions, so far, have been largely consistent with his words. To the extent that he isn’t what we thought he was, he is turning out to be even worse.
Eric: Exactly.
Hence, your newest post…