Would a Flag Burning Amendment give the court clear guidance that other offensive speech, not amended against, is now more ok?
At 06:23 AM 6/12/97 -0700, Declan wrote:
Just woke up, but I would argue "no." This would be the first constitutional weakening of the First Amendment ever. Hardly a move that strengthens free speech protections.
Normally when the government wants to weaken the First Amendment, it does it through the courts, or makes laws nationalizing the spectrum :-) This isn't the first time CONgress has tried a flag-burning amendment; they tried it under George Bush* as well, and failed to get it through. Does this look any different, under a Republican Congress? [As somebody said, if you wrapped yourself in the flag as much as Bush did, you'd worry about flag-burning too.... Clinton doesn't do it as much, but he's no more a friend of civil liberties, and if the polls said 51% of the voters want him to sign it, he probably would.] # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp # (If this is a mailing list or news, please Cc: me on replies. Thanks.)