I've been trying to figure out how to respond for a while now, and hopefully I can do it without being a jerk.
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Originally Posted by Carno
Actually, I don't think anyone who has not done any type of public service has really earned their rights. Those rights were earned for them by the people who did do public service. Sure they deserve them, but have they earned them simply because they were born here? Not in my opinion. How can you earn something by doing nothing? Doesn't mean I think that people should not be allowed to exercise their rights though.
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In the US, rights by their very definition are not "earned". Rights are inalienable and every citizen enjoys them regardless of military service. The word "earn" does not appear anywhere in the Constitution. Your military service does not give you any special privledges beyond those customary to active duty personnel, nor should it. I can't follow your logic where you think that people "deserve" their rights but haven't "earned" them. There's no distiction that I can come up with that would apply to all citizens. Frankly, your whole statement strikes me as bizarre, but that's me.
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Originally Posted by Carno
In any case, my original post had nothing to do with the Bill of Rights. When I said, "They haven't earned any right to open their mouths about something like that" I meant more along the lines of me having no right to walk up to a Gunny and telling him what to do. Sure, freedom of speech has accorded me the right to run my mouth, but I have no right to tell someone better than me what to do.
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You don't have the right to tell off a gunny because of the Military Code of Conduct, not because of some notion of earned or unearned rights. The military has a separate hierarchy from the rest of society for very good reasons, and there's very little overlap. If you're not on base and out of uniform, you can express your views (if I remember the CoC correctly), but this is apples and oranges. Civilians are not and should not be held to the same standards as military personnel, and that's one of the rights that you're serving to protect. For instance, I have the right to go up to a gunny on the street and tell him that I think that all gunnies are closet communists (not that I do, just making a point). That's my right to express my opinion. If he hits me, he's the one guilty of assault, and I've made a statement that's protected by the 1st Amendment. If you say the same thing on base, not only will you get the beatdown, but you'll probably be up on charges.
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Originally Posted by Carno
And furthermore, it actually is against the law for a foreign flag to be raised above the US flag.
Blah blah blah... Burning a flag or hanging it upside down is more than just burning a scrap of cloth. Burning a flag represents a disrespect and disregard for the ideas that the flag stands for. Military personnel go through a lot of trouble raising and lowering the flag each day and playing colors. Do they do all that for a scrap of cloth? No, they do it because the flag is a symbol.
And like I said before, it is illegal to hang a foreign flag above the US flag, so they don't even have that right.
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Actually, the law that you referrenced is for "official display" and there are no penalties associated with it. If I, as a private citizen, want to display the flag in a non-proscribed manner, I'm allowed. If I want to do it as a government employee on government property, I'm not. I can go home right now and hang my flag on my front porch upside down with the Soviet flag above it, and no one can make me take it down. I won't do that because it's not a statement that I want to make, but it's perfectly legal for me to do so. As far as the flag being a symbol, that's the whole point here. As a civilian, I'm allowed to make statements using that symbol, and it's a 1st Amendment right of mine to do so. I choose not to do so because of my personal beliefs, but if I change my mind, YOU are fighting for MY right to. You don't have to like it, but that's the way the system works. Sorry if you don't like it, but it's the world (and country) we live in.