The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Hate Burning

7.5.06 @ 12:02AM

FLAG DAYS
Re: Ben Stein's Defending the Flag:

Perhaps the editors could e-mail Mr. Stein's scholarly dissertation on banning the burning of Old Glory to the 37 Senate nincompoops who voted against the amendment. This veteran would certainly recommend and endorse such an action.
-- Jim Karr
Blue Springs, Missouri

This amendment itself mean nearly nothing to me, but I suppose I support it about like I'd support an amendment banning Girl Scout hot Jello wrestling. Considering the frequency of the offense, it's not at the top or my list of priorities.

What does offend me, however, is that the Republican Senate can completely alienate the base with phony immigration reform, profligate spending, etc., and then think we're going to get all warm and mushy over a flag burning amendment. They think we're a bunch of bumpkins that only need to be thrown a little red meat occasionally so that we'll play nice. "Well, geyooollie... dem boys really is one of us! Dey won't let the twelve million illegal aliens burn the guverment-subsidized flag we provided them through Medicare! I loves 'em!"

Blech...
-- Scott Stambaugh
Murphy, North Carolina

I honestly expect far more from Ben Stein. He's a wise, highly intelligent man.

And he knows very well that there's no constitutional ban on hate speech, and the other things he mentions in his article. It's one thing to suggest making a law against something. It's an entirely different thing to halt everything in D.C. with a war raging in Iraq and Afghanistan to try to pass an amendment to our constitution... especially over something that happened all of four times last year.

Mr. Stein is being intellectually dishonest, and I hope deep in his heart, he must be ashamed of this blatant pandering to the weak minded in our society: those fools that can't tell a cheap political stunt from honest policy. Shame, Mr. Stein, shame on you. We expect more from you.
-- Heath

The Constitution says for the people, by the people. It should now read for the left, by the left, or by the special interests, for the special interests, or for the ACLU, by the ACLU. If it is illegal to show child pornography online -- give it a little bit more time -- the ACLU will have that overturned as well.
-- C.R. Bynum

Mr. Stein, only an idiot pledges allegiance to a flag, and you are no idiot. What are you up to?

Our flag is the symbol of what we pledge allegiance to, and what we pledge allegiance to are the ideals set forth in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. That's what makes America what it is.

You can't show child pornography online because it's an industry that destroys the lives of children. But citing hate speech and sexual harassment puts us on a slippery slope, Ben, and you are slippery for using these in your lax argument. Ignoring the many abuses of the hate speech and sexual harassment laws, laws that by simple extension cripple speech in much of Europe, you embrace them here for your convenience and use this "logic" to criminalize a form of expression, vile though it is.

You're an influential man, Mr. Stein, and if you don't embrace the idea that it is always and only speech that is offensive that requires protection, then you coarsen us as a people to the extent that your views are adopted by others. It's just that your ox got gored here, so you thrash around for a logical way to prove a point. If everyone's hot-button issues were enforced, we would live in a police state.

In this argument we all get to choose which is more important, the flag or the Bill of Rights. It's a test. Choose wisely.
-- Gerald Brennan
Ann Arbor, Michigan

While I share many of Ben Stein's sentiments about our flag, I have to come back to the fallacy of a symbol mistaken for the thing it represents.

Letter to the Editor

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