Subject: Re: It's time to ban flag burning
My guess is that no one will engage in a constitutional discussion. Some in the crowd would stomp out the burning pride flag and then a few of them would go on to attempt to stomp on those who lit it.

Why are people afraid to say this?

Mike, in the article Kirk referenced, the fellow ripped the Pride Flag off the Church, took it down to the parking lot of the local gay bar and set in on fire. No one stomped him. He was arrested, charged, tried,, convicted, and sentenced to 16 years. The prosecutors classified it as a hate crime, he was unapologetic - even in court, repeatedly stated that gays should be eliminated (can't recall exactly how he said it), and was a habitual offender with a long rap sheet. So in REAL LIFE the flag burner doesn't get stomped, just given 16 years for a hate crime.

Did Dope look up the actual crime Kirk was referencing? Those of us who did look it up were more interested in how the fellow got 16 years, and still are. I'm not one bit interested in Dope's or Kirk's MAGA imagination fantasy, I'm still interested in how he got 16 years for burning a pride flag. I would like to see a discussion on that, but NNOOOOooooOOOOOoohh, we gotta waste time.

SNIP In the wake of Donald Trump seeming to ignore Supreme Court precedent and push to criminalize burning the American flag, leaders and commentators on the right are arguing that defacing LGBT+ Pride and Black Lives Matter flags and symbols should be legal.

“While we're talking about flags, we should work to overturn every conviction for those arrested, fined, or otherwise harassed for the ‘hate crime’ of doing donuts over Pride flags painted on public streets,” Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk wrote on X on Monday.

“It should be legal to burn a rainbow or BLM flag in public,” he added in a separate post.
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“I'm sorry, but as long as this is the status quo, I'm not going to work myself into a state of hysteria about Trump's executive order on burning the American flag,” right-wing activist and writer Christopher Rufo wrote on X, pointing to an Iowa case where a man was sentenced in 2019 to 16 years in prison for ripping a rainbow flag from an Iowa church and burning it in a nearby strip club parking lot.

“It is an extremely unequal standard,” X billionaire and former Trump administration advisor Elon Musk wrote in response to Rufo.SNIP

Another take:

SNIP Unlike most defendants who try to stay out of jail, Martinez, 30, seemed to actively court punishment, Pastor Eileen Gebbie of Ames United Church of Christ observed. Martinez spoke out of turn. He made violent arm gestures. Yes, Martinez told the judge, he was indeed trying to make a statement about gay people when he ripped down AUCC’s rainbow-striped pride flag on June 11 and set it on fire in a nearby strip club parking lot. And no, he wasn’t sorry.

“He said he wants to ‘cut us out of the land of the living,’ ” Gebbie told The Washington Post on Friday as she recalled Martinez’s angry rhetoric targeting queer people like herself at a time when hate crimes against LGBTQ people have risen sharply over the past three years in cities throughout the United States. SNIP

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Dope can't even get descent discussions started on things that are real and matter.