Hello faithful FR readers!! Another fine post from Stephen this Monday, as usual. Thank you as always, Stephen Have a great week everyone!
Apropos of the attention deficit disorder which we call political discourse in this nation, certain people in Congress have introduced legislation to amend the Constitution in a most foolish and inappropriate manner which has no hope in hell of ever passing, but naturally set many in the social media circles in flux to throw in their two cents worth.
As a meaningless distraction from any actual activities in Congress, politics, or your daily lives, this serves as nothing more meaningful than a lighthearted farce, however it does, as always, serve to highlight those who are the most shallow of thinkers within the political arena, those who are simply famous for spouting their factions momentary fad as a rallying cry of the faithful.
I am naturally speaking of that attempt to make it unconstitutional to burn the American flag. http://www.ktvu.com/news/politics/trump-backs-bill-to-ban-flag-burning-a-no-brainer This is required to be a Constitutional Amendment because the Supreme Court has already ruled that burning the national flag, or any nation’s flag, is an act of political expression which is protected speech under the First Amendment Freedom of Speech clause.
The obvious impossibility that such a measure would ever pass the Democrat lead House lead by Nancy Pelosi to ever actually be considered, never-mind actually attempting to get to that super-majority necessary in either the House or the Senate, much less both, demonstrates that the entire introduction of the bill is nothing more than a political stunt.
‘Tis a farcical waste of time and effort on the part of those who wrote it, those who must print the copies of it, those who must waste time rejecting it and not putting it on the agenda, those reporters who have written about it, those pundits who threw away their valuable time commenting upon it in the various media, my time in reading, arguing, commenting, and now writing about it, and your time for bothering to actually read about it now.
The silliness of the idea is highlighted by the likes of intellectual giants such as Candace Owens, who asserted that were she president there would be no jail time or fine but rather a complete revocation of the offender’s citizenship. https://twitter.com/RealCandaceO/status/1140235720843550720
This, I suppose is in response to Pres. Trump’s expressed liking of the bill, which was cynically designed to make this non-issue into a higher profile media distraction; I say cynically because he knows it will go nowhere as I stated and his own past tweets reveal entirely the opposite sentiment. https://twitter.com/KathleenRoss24/status/1140416046207242240
It highlights the tendency of many newly appeared on the right, and some old voices, to fall in lock step with whatever the current position of the administration without looking back to see if that is what the President really believes or is just saying in the moment. Never forget that “the right” is a partisan designation of a faction and not a political philosophy such as conservatism or libertarianism.
As such the partisan will jump on board without thinking because it is more important that they be seen as not merely part of the group but a first adopter, out in front as a leader, rather than taking the time to reflect, evaluate, and if necessary to disagree as a more rational, principled political observer will instinctively behave.
Speaking of “ a more rational, principled political observer”, our own Mrs. Pinky weighed in with a short thread explaining that while she found the burning of the flag to be highly offensive she fought for the right of people to express their opinions. https://twitter.com/mrs_pinky85/status/1140262998298300416
To which, @molratty expressed her disbelief that at this time this could still even be an issue people were bothering to waste their time discussing. https://twitter.com/molratty/status/1140266483878154240
In other discussions upon the same topic, a retired Army officer declared his belief that the First Amendment only protects speech which is in the form of spoken or written words, because his preferred definitions of “speech” and “verbal communication” precluded any other form of political expression and any other interpretation by the Supreme Court was merely judicial activism. https://twitter.com/brianjacksonXP/status/1139918766375153665
The retired gentleman continued for some time with a number of people to advance the literalist perspective of Constitutional interpretation as opposed to an originalist interpretation, without recognizing that such strict literalist approach to the First Amendment required him to advocate that government could only protect those specific enumerated rights, a complete reversal of legal positions of both the Supreme Court and the Founding Fathers.
Tryx, @Tryxt3rocks, tried to point out that fact to him that his literalist argument applied to the Bill of Rights, and the extension of government protection, would indicate that the government was, in effect, granting the rights to the citizens. https://twitter.com/Tryxt3rocks/status/1140025257811677184
Ordy, @OrdyPackard, was quick to test whether such a literalist approach to Constitutional interpretation was viable by applying the same logic to other amendments and phrases, for example could the wearing of a cross be banned as it is not literally an establishment of religion, nor is it speech as this gentleman defined?
There were others participating, and some better examples and arguments, but the point being not the arguments themselves rather the bending over backwards of such people to convince themselves that their momentary impassioned politically partisan position was really an intellectual conclusion rather than an emotionally driven stance.
There have been, and will probably continue for some days, numerous similar pointless discussions, rationalizations, emotional diatribes, and faux arguments proliferating as an amusing yet angry distraction from peoples’ daily lives and real news events.
It is distressing to see just how easily people are moved by the pointless and the meaningless. It is more distressing to find myself caught up in such meaningless drivel and wasting time even if merely for my own amusement and entertainment.
That which I do think worth the time and effort is to note who is the partisan who changes their positions to suit their alliances, separating them from the men of reason who changes their alliances to suit their positions. The partisan will view the men or reason as disloyal, the men of men of reason will view the partisan as unprincipled.
It is a strange oxymoron that the partisan is more to be valued in a time of conflict, but the man of reason to be more valued in a time of peace. But I was speaking of a trivial and meaningless topic, how foolish of me to divine wisdom from a farce.
