A Brief Statement(I see a recurring theme here) on Flag Burning and Hate Crimes

I'm going for the double stample today by covering not one but two absurd issues in America. Flag Burning, because America's birthday was the other day, and Hate Crime because those silly gays are trying to get sexual orientation added to the list of minorities that can be subjected to hate crimes.



Let's start with the hate crimes because that's what I'm all riled up about to begin with. New legislation has been passed in the House of Representatives with the support of Obama would drastically increase the power and coverage of hate crime laws. I think it's all fine and dandy that the gay community wants to be included with every other minority group(although I can't imagine why), but there are a few things to consider about hate crimes themselves. In the proposed plan, the federal government prosecutes hate crimes, not state level courts. So if federal prosecutors aren't pleased with an acquittal, they can bring up the same charges in a federal court, and for some reason beyond my realm of thought, the supreme court has ruled this isn't a violation of the constitutional ban on double jeopardy.

The bill summary says it...

"Amends the federal criminal code to prohibit willfully causing bodily injury to any person because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of such person."

The comical value begins right about...here

So let's say I raped a girl. Apparently it's not enough to be charged with raping a girl, but I could also be charged with raping a girl because of her gender. Or if I stole the purse of a blind woman. Not only charged for the pilfering, but also because I targeted that woman because she was disabled. Now, I'd never do anything like that but this is a little ridiculous. We have laws in place to prevent people from raping anything(even really good looking animals) or stealing from anyone, and we also have laws that say I can hate black people all I want, and that I can be of the opinion that women are inferior all I want, as long as I don't hurt anybody. If I do hurt someone, then I should be punished for what I did, not my reasoning for doing it(imagine if people got out of robbery charges because they were poor[Five bucks Sotomayor will be the first to allow that to happen], or if rich white men got out of tax evasion because they were rich white men). Hate crime laws are a strike against our first amendment rights to express ourselves. Which brings me to the slightly more comical...



Flag burning!

I think it's a great thing that I could go out onto my front lawn and burn an american flag, don't you? People all around the world burn our flag everyday, probably not even knowing that they'd be allowed to do that here. There's been debate, mostly by conservatives and people who pander to the blind patriotism of americans, that there should be a constitutional amendment banning the burning of the Stars and Stripes. Besides the obvious restriction on my first amendment right to express myself, flag burning in the US would probably only increase if we made it illegal. Americans love breaking the law, we do it all the time. But lets say they did ban burning our flag, what's next? Burning the Confederate Stars and Bars? State flags can't be burnt? What if we sew all the state flags into one banner and then lit that baby up, is that next? The point is, once you give the government some power, they will always ask for more. First it's flag burning, then it's self immolation(how will we protest the upcoming second korean war?), and then god knows what after that. And besides, as the dirty socialist Norman Thomas once said "If you want a symbolic gesture, don't burn the flag, wash it."