You should read Under the Banner of Heaven, scary stuff.
I can't, in polite company, make fun of the crazy, whacked-out shit Hatch claims to believe simply because it happens to be his religion.
That's never stopped me before. I'll gladly make fun of his wack-ass beliefs to his face. As for the flag issue, you properly dispose of a flag by burning it, so what they are banning is intent, not the action itself and as such flag-burning is expressly political speech.
Kiss my ass, Orrin Hatch. I gotcher offensive conduct hangin'.
The "mr. show" episode where the founding fathers and Lincoln were trying to design a flag that would deter defication was pretty funny.
Hatch's religion is surely the least offensive thing about him. Well, that or maybe his recording career.
You want to blast him, blast him for being a smarmy prick.
that mr. show reference reminds me of another, wherein we were treated to an instructive film short on the merits of waiting until marriage before defecating. The part about nocturnal emissions was quite good.
On second thought, that was TV Funhouse I think -- that show had its good points.
Yeah, why is it that someone's religion is considered an inappropriate target of criticism? Blast away, I say.
I think that rule was invented by religious idiots as a way to get a free pass on their idiocy.
Yeah, I say blast away too, but why single out Mormonism for special distinction? I hate to sound like polite company, but I continue to fail to understand why devout Mormonism takes a special category when (say) devout Catholicism does not. Mormons have the underwear, sure, but get a load of this: Catholics think they can make some dead guy appear in a cracker! And then they eat it!
Everyone made fun of Ashcroft for the Crisco thing, and that's some kind of non-Mormon Protestantism. I don't think there's particularly open season on Mormons, I think Mormonism just has more stuff that strikes soulless blue-state liberals as funny.
Maybe then I'm lacking the particularly egregious examples of Hatch's religious displays. I've always thought of him as just another asshole GOP zealot, distinguished mostly by his desire to zap my computer through the Internets.
the special underwear is always good for a cheap laugh, and most religions don't have an adequate counter-part.
circumcision would be pretty funny, except that it's so common that we take it for granted. But the ancient greeks thought it was a riot. Which is why the strap-on leather phalluses worn in Athenian comedies often included bright red tips.
today is an odd day for me.
Next up: Philip Roth on Lieberman's Orthodox Jewish beliefs. The passage has been revised slightly to avoid offense to Hottentots.
What I hate most about Bush is, in a time of turmoil, instead of looking for strength thru unity and cooperation, he has thrown gas (what else?) on the fire and brought more conflict, bitterness and pain to our country than at anytime since the civil war. I hate that he's treating our country and government like some dog toy.
Shouldn't changes as massive as he's bringing -- on a constitutional level -- require a 2/3s majority vote of the states (us)?
judy (why I drink)
They do require ratification by the States after it passes the Senate, but I imagine that cash-strapped, politically suffering States will eat this up like so much anti-homo-sexual legislation.
Indeed. If it makes it out of the Senate, it's pretty much a done deal. It only takes 38 states to approve a Constitutional amendment.
Pretty low bar these days. Every state shaped like a square will rubberstamp this one. Obstruct, Senate, obstruct!
I just clicked through the link. Clinton is undecided on this? What on earth is she thinking?
Does it require a simple or 2/3 majority in each state?
Simple, though I *think* that may vary according to each state's laws.
How obvious does it have to be that they're quelling political speech for people to object? The amendment apparently bans "physical desecration" so, with any luck, there'd be a few dozen flag desecration animations the day after this becomes law.
Substantially more obvious. Maybe they could ban advertisements 60 days prior to an election.
21: the fact that it's political speech is why it requires an amendment. By going through the amendment process, congress is acknowledging that, under the current constitution, such a law violates 1st amendment rights. The new amendment would amend the 1st amendment.
It's not so different from hate speech laws, which I think are right-on. There's a long line of cases that makes "fighting words" unprotected speech. The idea is that the words don't really convey any idea outside of a personal insult -- more like slapping someone in the face. If you could demonstrate that burning a flag causes the same types of harms as burning a cross, then I'd be fine with this amendment. But I don't think you can do that.
This is crass raise the rabble pandering to energize their base. I'm guessing the "raise the terror level" tactic has run out of steam. Otherwise we'd be hearing about that instead.
So we've got flag burning for the 4th, abortion around Jesus' birthday, gay marriage on Valentine's day, and terror levels for the rest of the year.
I think that about covers it.
The other Utah senator is opposing the measure, so I will hold off on all the nasty remarks about how Mormons make it extremely difficult to get a decent drink in Utah. (Reid, Gordon Smith, and Crapo are the other Senate Mormons, IIRC.)
I thought you could just join a club or some such for a nominal fee and get drinks that way?
so the amendment is stupid -- but is anyone else a little glad that congress is wasting its time on this instead of ripping apart social security, or passing more patriot acts?
The patriot act did a lot more to impinge upon civil liberties than this amendment ever could.
Under an exclusio unis argument, the amendment could be used to support free speech rights in all other contexts -- for every other expressive act that does not have its own special amendment, this amendment might demonstrate that act is protected.
Or we might be slipping swiftly into the vats of fiery hell. Just trying to make lemonade.
More good news -- "This Land Is Your Land" Unconstitutional, Sez Court
I thought you could just join a club or some such for a nominal fee and get drinks that way?
That's my impression. You pay a buck or two to join a hunting lodge or gentleman's club or postmortem baptismal society or some such, and then you can buy drinks.
But they have other bizarre regulations as well. I know, for example, that you can't have more than one drink per person on a table. So you've got to finish your cocktails before the waitress can bring you a bottle of wine with dinner (or so I've been told by a friend who ran into this on a business trip).
you can't have more than one drink per person on a table
They have this in Vermont. You can't even bring a round of drinks from the bar to your table -- you've got to carry them one at a time.
Craxxxy.
27: It's more difficult than it has to be, anyway. It's irritating to in effect have to pay a cover whenever you want to go to a new bar; and the fact that clubs need to check/sell memberships mean that there's a supercilious jerk at the door in some places where one is not needed.
My real beef is that I was unable to obtain full-strength Rolling Rock for my 33rd birthday, because no one who is going to pay the extra $ at the state store for real beer is going to be getting Rock.
How I wish you had written "...is going to be getting Rocked.".
Where are the places where a supercilious jerk is needed?