The Daily Radar
Friday, 30 June 2006 | 113 readers so far
Ben Stein says burning the flag is not free speech and should be illegal. He makes some good points when he says there are many exceptions to free speech.
If we can tell people that it’s obscene to show pictures of children having sex (and it is), why can’t we say it’s obscene to burn the flag that is the symbol of this shining city on a hill, a flag for which many brave men and women have died? If it hurts women’s feelings to hear sex jokes at the office and if that’s illegal, doesn’t it also hurt patriots’ feelings to see the flag burned?
Well Ben, I think you’re wrong. Hurting someone’s feelings should not be against the law. That is too open to intrepretation. Physically hurting someone is very different than “offending” them. Burning a flag is not causing anyone physical injury.
People Power
Now we have armies of amateurs, happy to work for free. Call it the Age of Peer Production. From Amazon.com to MySpace to craigslist, the most successful Web companies are building business models based on user-generated content.
Hopefully, I’ll make some real money from my “user generated content” one day. Working for free is overrated.
New e-voting study shows it’s really easy to steal an election
Maybe this is the avenue I should be pursuing to affect political change?
On Tuesday, the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU’s law school released the most comprehensive study to date on the state of electronic voting. The extensive report is a painful read for anyone concerned about the future of democracy, because it shows just how brain-dead easy it is to rig an election with three popular electronic voting systems: direct recording electronic (DRE), DRE with voter verified paper trail, and precinct count optical scan.
Wives of four of the central figures arrested last month were among the most active on the website, sharing, among other things, their passion for holy war, disgust at virtually every aspect of non-Muslim society and a hatred of Canada.
My oh my. Immigrants who plot against their new host nations are bad. Very bad. I wonder how many of Canada’s non-Muslim immigrants are pushing for holy wars their new home?
Jury Acquits Iraq War Veteran Of Shooting Into Crowd
A jury deliberated just two hours Thursday before finding an Iraq war veteran acted in self-defense when he fired a shotgun into a group of club-goers outside his Lawrence home, injuring two people.
Moral of the story - don’t throw f*&*ing bottles through people’s windows. They might shoot at you.
1 June 30th, 2006 at 3:55 pm
Elizabeth says:
There’s a time and a place for everything. What’s legal in one setting may be illegal in another, for good reason. Using the flag in some creative way as part of a planned political protest is generally allowed under free speech. Burning it–it depends on whether anything else is going to catch on fire. Actually, I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to set anything on fire in a street protest in New York City…likewise, telling sexist, offensive jokes in a bar, on the street, or in a private home isn’t illegal. But telling them in an office might be illegal–if its part of a pattern of harassment. Harassment is against the law, especially in the workplace, because the other employees can’t just leave–the way they could leave a bar or a private home, or a particular public street.
2 July 1st, 2006 at 10:32 pm
Walter E. Wallis says:
Nothing otherwise legal should become illegal because of political content
Nothing otherwise illegal should become legal because of political content
3 July 2nd, 2006 at 3:47 pm
Dale says:
Walter has a good point.
I also think that once flag burning is stopped, people will burn copies of the White House flag, deface the little plastic copies of the White House,etc etc. Burning photos of the President or some other symbolic representation of the Administration will just take its place.
I wonder how many years in jail flag burning will get versus mugging, embezzling, jay walking, etc.
4 July 2nd, 2006 at 4:04 pm
Trevor says:
You and I agree that Walter has a good point, Dale.
An excellent point, in fact.
5 July 2nd, 2006 at 10:48 pm
Don Cox says:
Burning a flag is like printing pictures of Mohammed. It may offend some people. It must not be illegal.
6 July 9th, 2006 at 2:32 am
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