justin1001 on 16/2/2008 at 10:40

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(http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/02/13/berkeley.irpt/index.html) http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/02/13/berkeley.irpt/index.html

Flag-burning should be punishable as an act of treason. The flag isn't the flag of the US Government. It's the flag of the United States of America. These people aren't insulting the government. They are insulting their own people. They are insulting themselves (though I don't think they realize it).

As young children, we Americans are taught by our parents and schools to pledge allegiance to the flag. We weren't pledging allegiance to the government, or the president or even the constitution. We were pledging allegiance to both the flag of the nation and the nation itself. When I think about that, I can't help but feel this extreme violent rage seething inside at the sight of Americans burning their own flag. And no one does anything about it! They say, "it's their first-amendment right of free speech". Baloney! How can we pledge allegiance to the flag and then allow people to burn it before our eyes? Why does a military color guard carry rifles? Are they not charged with the noble duty of guarding the colors? These days, it's merely ceremonial, but that tradition stems from the noble and glorious days when the colors were carried into battle and men guarded them with their life.

I've had the honor of serving in a Marine color guard on several occasions, and let me tell you, we Marines take it seriously. We only had ceremonial (fake) rifles, of course, but if someone had tried to mess with the colors, I wouldn't have thought twice about using that rifle as a big club.

In my opinion, these people are traitors to their country and out to be treated as such.



*edit - BTW, as a proud US Marine it pisses me off that Berkeley doesn't like the Marine Corps, but that all pales in comparison to those commie hippies desecrating the flag. Did you know Code Pink actually sent around $800,000 to the families of Islamic terrorists? I think the Rules of Engagement might actually almost apply here.

justin1001 on 16/2/2008 at 11:04

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I'll be over it once these liberal pot-smoking hippie-faggot commies realize that they wouldn't be in a free country if it weren't for guys like me. If we all thought like they did, we would lose the very freedom that they are abusing.

Chimpy Chompy on 16/2/2008 at 12:05

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What kind of reception does someone thing they're going to get on commchat when they march in yelling about "liberal pot-smoking hippie-faggot commies"? Has justin actually been paying any attention since June 2001?

the one true thief on 16/2/2008 at 13:35

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I'm all for Patriotism, but yelling about a piece of material (Wait, you have Flag laws?) is by far the funniest thing I've read all week.

Call me a liberal pot-smoking hippie-faggot commie.

Moi Dix Mois on 16/2/2008 at 14:38

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I thought that for a while, and OPs post is quite telling. They're taught to worship that thing from the day they start school.
I remember seeing a topic somewhere else where a load of 'mericans were going absolutely apeshit over a picture of a Mexican flag flying above an American flag on the same pole. v:erg:v

There's no way to say it without it sound like "HURR AMERIKKKA" but from an outside perspective it seems like brainwashing.
Seems to work reasonably well though. Even the fact that people care enough to burn the thing shows how much importance they attribute to it as a symbol.

I can't help but equate flag burning (and giving a shit about flag burning) and excessive pariotism by extension with what I (probably unfairly) see as backwards and religiously fundamentalist countries such as Iran or Afghanistan, but perhaps that's just because they're always in the news anyway.
America is the only western country that springs to mind where people bother to burn flags or care about it.

I suppose I'm inviting a comparison with that sort of comment. It's not meant as a specific criticism of America or Americans. I don't live there and couldn't give a shit what they do with or think about their flag except as a point of conversation. It's just an observation that occurred to me.