How Dare!

[PBarnum]

How dare people let this go on as long as it did.

http://www.facebook.com/v/133088626707628

It is ILLEGAL to put any flag over the American flag IN OUR OWN COUNTRY!!! This is part of the reason why we don't want illegals in our country, because they don't F*CKING CARE!!!! They DON'T try to learn our language. They DON'T make the effort to learn about our culture. They DON'T care about our laws (as clearly proven in this video). And they STILL think they have rights in OUR country. GET THE F*CK OUT AND FURTHER DESTROY YOUR OWN COUNTRY!!!

 

[Glorfindel]

sorry, i don't visit facebook anymore because it's a cesspool, but what happened? are there pictures of illegal aliens putting a flag over an american flag?

also, this is somewhat related:

Flag desecration

The divisive issue of flag desecration as a form of protest first came before the Supreme Court in Street v. New York, 394 U.S. 576 (1969). In response to hearing a report of the murder of James Meredith, Sidney Street burned a 48-star U.S. flag. When questioned by the police he responded: "Yes; that is my flag; I burned it. If they let that happen to Meredith, we don't need an American flag."[31] Street was arrested and charged with a New York state law making it a crime "publicly [to] mutilate, deface, defile, or defy, trample upon, or cast contempt upon either by words or act [any flag of the United States]."[32] Street appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court, arguing the law was "overbroad, both on its face and as applied," that the language was "vague and imprecise" and did not "clearly define the conduct which it forbids", and that it unconstitutionally punished the destruction of an American flag, an act which Street contended "constitute[d] expression protected by the Fourteenth Amendment."[33] In a 5-4 decision, the Court, relying on Stromberg v. California, 283 U.S. 359 (1931), found that because the provision of the New York law criminalizing "words" against the flag was unconstitutional, and the trial did not sufficiently demonstrate that he was convicted solely under the provisions not yet deemed unconstitutional, the conviction was unconstitutional. The Court, however, "resist[ed] the pulls to decide the constitutional issues involved in this case on a broader basis" and left the constitutionality of flag-burning unaddressed.[34]

The ambiguity with regard to flag-burning statutes was eliminated in Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989). In that case, Gregory Lee Johnson participated in a demonstration during the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas, Texas. At one point during the demonstration, Johnson poured kerosene over an American flag and set it aflame, shouting anti-American phrases. Johnson was promptly arrested and charged with violating a Texas law prohibiting the vandalizing of venerated objects. He was convicted, sentenced to one year in prison, and fined $2,000. In 1989, his appeal reached the Supreme Court. Johnson argued that the Texas statute imposed an unconstitutional content-based restriction on symbolic speech. The Supreme Court agreed and, in a 5-4 vote, reversed Johnson's conviction. Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. asserted that "if there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea offensive or disagreeable."[35] Many members of Congress criticized the decision of the Court and the House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution denouncing the Court.[36] Congress passed a federal law barring flag burning, but the Supreme Court struck it down as well in United States v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310 (1990). Many attempts have been made to amend the Constitution to allow Congress to prohibit the desecration of the flag. Since 1995, the Flag Desecration Amendment has consistently mustered sufficient votes to pass in the House of Representatives, but not in the Senate. In 2000, the Senate voted 63–37 in favor of the amendment, which fell four votes short of the requisite two-thirds majority. In 2006, another attempt fell one vote short.

As to the rights..

1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Under the U.S. constitution, natural rights given to man are ordained by God and as such cannot be deprived by any existing human body of law. When it refers to "any person," in that last sentence they are talking about human beings themselves, and so illegal aliens do have the same rights that concern all persons regardless of affiliations or nationalities. As for the rights granted towards U.S. citizens, they obviously don't have those. Just thought I'd point that out.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

While illegal aliens are not allowed the right to work for pay under a legal business within the united states' jurisdiction, if employers hire them and illegal aliens think they have a right to work here then that's a problem with the employers, not the illegal aliens themselves. Besides, aren't there hundreds of factory businesses that operate just along the south side of the U.S. border?

I mean, I'm not going to weasel word my way around. I don't deal with mexicans or south americans at all often here in Northern Utah, but when I do (I am not the most interesting man in the world) I find they are extremely nice people, and I don't really care for what people do to the flag. It is a symbol, nothing more, and if it means something to a person, then they should keep that to themselves. I respect the american flag and it's country because the original rebels who signed the declaration of independence were heading in the right direction, and so I pay due respect to that damn flag. But I will never hold anyone else to the same values that I do. It doesn't fucking matter.

It should be obvious by now that the direction America is going with a large influx of illegal aliens isn't going to change. Nothing is going to change with angry nationalists just pouting whenever a flag gets fucked with. If you want to wall off an entire country, and build security cameras, and post entire army divisions, go back to your ridiculous science fiction novels.

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

I don't have a Facebook account (because I simply could not care less about Facebook) so what exactly am I missing here? I need to log in to see it.

 

[The Man In Black]

It's been taken down, anyway.

 

[PBarnum]

Oh yeah sorry, I did the easiest way to post a video and I'm way to lazy (drunk) now. But a mexican / American restaurant looking building raised a mexican flag over an American flag. Some older looking white man (a veteran of the U.S.) dropped both flags, cut the American flag down, and said pretty much how dare this happen!

 

[The Man In Black]

So?

 

[PBarnum]

Thanks Red.

So... Its not their country to corrupt and take jobs (the illegals). Maybe it isn't so bad where you are MiB but its a big problem down here.

 

[The Man In Black]

I'm not a person that particularly cares about being loyal to a country and casting out others because they "don't belong." We're all Earthicans, and that's all I care about. Granted, it's annoying when jobs such as Programming are thrown overseas, or "illegals" come in and take jobs for less money, I don't see what that has to do with the situation. I highly doubt the owners of the restaurant are illegal, being all the legal hoops they must jump through to own/rent the building. If they want to wave their flag above ours, I don't see it as a big deal. I would expect Americans have the same freedom when they go to another country, to wave our flag above the country's.

 

[Keldorn]

I don't see how this is a big deal.

(Plus it happened like 3 years ago, the owners of the restaurant have even changed since then.)

People do all sorts of weird stuff with the American flag that's "disrespectful". (The flag is put on shoes, sandals, socks, underwear, towels, car covers, welcome mats, pants, etc.)

Heck, even presidents have "disrespected" the flag.

I'd be much more wary of overt nationalism/xenophobia than some people (who are probably citizens unless they forged a business license/have fake ssids or something) flying a Mexican flag over an American one at a Mexican restaurant.

 

[Thothie]

I suppose this is a bad time to mention that I've been present at more than one flag burning... And my current Lady X has burned at least two, and been present at a dozen more than I. I was even present when she herself burned one at an anti-war rally, but it had dollar-signs for stars, and bleeding red stripes, so I dunno if that counts. (Seems I do tend to date activists.)

I've even been more or less shot at by American troops... Well, Nicaragua Contras, with American weapons, supplied, trained, and paid for by our sainted President Reagan, in any case. (Got stupidly dragged into that by a previous, even more activist Lady X, back in 1990, while trying to help build houses for the dispossessed down there...) Additionally, one of my other Lady X's brothers was beaten into a life-long cripple by Indonesian troops, again trained by American soldiers and supplied with American weapons, while acting as a reporter in East Timor, covering the atrocities we were funding there at the time, on behalf of Rebock, and the like.

I doubt the folks who ran the restaurant (who as MiB pointed out, were almost certainly legal) even knew what they were doing was terribly disrespectful, let alone illegal. Flying a Mexican flag over an American at a Mexican restaurant, is almost logical, if you aren't aware of the connotation. While I know it's illegal, I doubt anything would have occurred to me if had I seen it myself, and I doubt it occurred to many, if any, of the residents there either, until the vet stepped in at the staged media event.


...and I'm kinda for the Arizona racism laws. I mean, if you arrest someone, and find out he's illegal, you should have the right to deport him. I'd even go a step further and say the States should have the right to deport illegals themselves, as the INS simply cant keep up with the workload - tis why we have all these Mexican concentration camps popping up all along the border.

But then you toss in all this purely unjustifiable racist crap long with it, like making ethnic studies illegal (90% of the folk who take ethinic studies are white, FFS), the banning of south American history in schools, and the removal of Martin Luther King, and the entire civil rights movement, from the history books - then you've lost all justification, and midas well just put on the white hoods and start burning crosses. Seems I've seen a level of institutionalized racism under Obama that would have been unimaginable under Bush - seems folks can justify anything, now that "they" have a president.

Going after the illegals doesn't get you anywhere anyways. There are millions of them, and they are virtually untraceable. You want to end illegal immigration? Go after the folks that hire them! There's only a handful of those, in comparison, and they have fixed residences, pay taxes, and thus are much easier to track down. No illegal jobs = no illegal immigrants, simple fact. But you can't fuel a logical approach like that, when it's not illegals that piss folks off, but just brown skinned people. Even if we got rid of all the illegals with a magic wand, I'm sure there'd still be a whole lot more Mexicans here than most whites would feel comfortable with.

I realize that'd probably fubar the agricultural industry though. You can't pay American citizens 50 cents an hour to pack oranges (which should be illegal, but isn't, because they pay piecemeal.) But of course, it's that very subsidized industry that's made it impossible to get jobs in so many of the Latin American countries to begin with.

...which brings me to that other point - they didn't mess up their own countries. We did. We've converted the western hemisphere into our own emporium. The only countries that aren't completely economically devastated by neo-liberal policies, that we forced upon their governments, designed to milk their countries dry, are those few who have avoided the IMF and the like (and Cuba, having the highest GPI of the entire region, despite being under US blockade for 60 years). Only now are a few Latin American countries daring to fight this domination, and making a come back. Those that aren't, such as Mexico, are just continuing to sink further into despotism and anarchy. This country is built on their misery. It's a testament to the apathy of mankind, and lack of justice in the universe, that the worst we have to show for it is a few wetbacks.

[/rant]

 

[PBarnum]

Thothie does bring up some good points!

But the flag thing isn't the main point. My main point is how there are some people in the world who are law abiding citizens and there are people who don't care. And before any RiP comments that I am not a law abiding citizen, this is different, haha.

 

[Mikkel]

You see what I did?
That's a weird law anyway.

 

[Gurluas]

Its a piece of cloth, get over it.

What is truly a nation's symbol is the people and their spirit.

The cloth merely signalizes that you are the US.
A flag burning may be offensive yes, but in the end, its still just a piece of cloth.
Is that worth letting humans die for?

 

[Sabre]

It's not the physical flag, it's the ideology behind it.

Just like a swastika is just some lines, it's what it represented that causes people to hate it.

 

[PBarnum]

Thank you Sabre, couldn't explain it better!