We Read the News Today...Oh Boy

Here at the Blasphemy Blog, we have not been writing much lately. However, we are pleased to see that the world has been behaving just as strangely while we were on hiatus as it did when we were around to comment on it.

For example, what is Congress up to these days? Congress wants to ban the burning of the American flag, is what it's up to. Well, actually, before that, Congress wants to pass a bill giving itself the power to ban the burning of the flag. Why does it need to give itself such power? Because the Constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, normally lets you do all kinds of crazy things with flags, including burning them, sitting on them, sitting on the poles on which they fly, and eating them.

Why would a conservative Congress, which normally wants the government to butt out of people's private business, pass such a law regulating behavior like burning a flag? After all, as our blogfriend the Rude Pundit so ably points out, these flags were bought at the store, and presumably belong to the people burning them. Why would Congress care if someone burned a flag in the garbage can behind their house?

Well, the answer is that Congress wouldn't care. Congress wouldn't even know, unless they all happened to be walking by at the time. The only time Congress would know is if the flagburner burned the flag in public, or within sight of a TV camera. But why would someone do that? Because they're mad at the United States and they want get back at us. But how would such a person know that such an action would cause us pain?

Because we keep trying to pass laws to prohibit the burning of the flag. They wouldn't do it if they didn't know it was going to rile us up. Someone should tell Congress to stop tipping our hand.