The arrested man identified himself as a combat veteran and said he was burning the American flag in protest of an executive order Trump signed Monday targeting flag burning.
The files ARE the distraction
Trump liked this reply.
Trump rapes children.
I don’t understand how these commenters don’t realize that. We already know he’s in them, we already know he raped children, we already know they won’t release any evidence of that willingly… What are they hoping to accomplish?
It’s time to go out in the streets and demand his head in a basket, but they’re insisting on simply asking him to release the evidence of his guilt instead of being angry at every new power consolidation move.
To be fair, I got enough anger for the man that I can I be both wanting the list released and being pissed at all the bullshit he does.
I only add it as a reminder to his supporters (they have short term memory issues). Doesn’t mean that we aren’t upset about EVERYTHING else. And it doesn’t mean I’m only doing this one thing. Some of us have been resisting most of our lives.
It’s not a reminder, it’s literally dismissing this as a distraction. Damn, that’s crazy, anyway let me focus on the files I know won’t be released…
I fail to see the dismissal.
The first line of the image literally acknowledges the abnormality.
This comment is missing the magic technology called “both”.
Damn, that’s crazy! If only it didn’t literally dismiss it as less important.
Many U.S. veterans I know support the right of freedom of expression, to include flag burning. They say they feel its disrespectful but its the right they bleed for, for people to express themselves
I remember a case where this singer burnt an american flag in protest (I think korean war) and the president was grilled on his take on the matter and he daid that whats beautiful about our country, that we can do these things, and that im the countries we are fighting agianst thier citizens dont have the same freedoms as americans.
I don’t even understand what is so offensive about flag burning. It’s something teenagers and sheltered young adults do as a feeble form of symbolic rebellion. Genuinely, who cares? It’s not like the flag has some kind of mystical power. It’s not the original version. 9/10, it’s just a cheap copy that was purchased specifically for that demonstration.
I’m a grown man. Why the fuck do I care about teenagers skateboarding in the church parking lot? I got my own problems.
Plus that flag was statistically likely to be made not in the USA
100% this. I remember when some dopey kid tried to burn the flag at a campus I was at, and one of my roommates was simply beside himself with fury over it.
I thought the whole thing was a great big bowl of wrong. The dumbass that was “protesting” was butthurt about something that had nothing to do with America or the flag, IIRC. He just wanted to be edgy or whatever. But the fury from the reactionaries, including my roommate - hilarious.
My roommate even wrote a letter of outrage to the administration. I mean, he was literally beet red with rage over it. His letter tried to work in the “fire safety” angle too, because deep down, even the dumbass reactionary knew the law when it comes to freedom.
It wasn’t CMU, was it?
No, this was Penn State, ages ago. I don’t think it made the papers or anything that I know of. Probably not even a police report. Some dumbazz tried to light a flag with a Zippo apparently - several students, including some associates, classmates and friends of mine saw him try it. It was inside a dorm building.
Obviously people restrained him/separated the flag from his Zippo, not because they were fighting for gawd, mom, apple pie and the MURICAN FLAG, but because it’s a pretty fucking stupid idea to burn a piece of cloth inside of a building…
Neither my roommate and I were there. No flag was actually burned or even really charred as I understand it. I’m pretty sure it was his own flag. But my roommate who heard about it just about popped a blood vessel over it, LOL. And not really the blatant fire safety aspect. That’s when I saw first-hand just how irrational some people are about other people exercising freedoms.
Dang. That’s nuts but seems right for teenagers lol. I ask because the same thing happened at CMU in like 2002, but it did make the papers. The whole city turned it into a fucking thing.
Yeah, this was before the 'net really took off. I don’t think it even hit the local paper and I don’t think cops were called. I think it was something most of the students found out about second-hand. And really went no further because it didn’t progress.
These days with everyone taking out their fucking phones for everything, it would have hit social media before the cops even arrived - and oh yeah, I’m sure they would have been called in, stat, given what snowflakes today’s right wing are.
And then I’m sure the usual pipeline for Bullshit Mountain would have blown it wayyyy out of proportion and turned it into something for right wing poutrage, LOL.
When you make kids swear allegiance to a piece of cloth for years, you get stuff like that.
Yeah, I was surrounded by many of them during K-12. We had to stand and pledge allegiance every single day. I usually mumbled my way through it in the early years. At some point, I just stopped doing the mumbling any more. It felt so mindless and cultish.
I remember some girl in high school doing some mock outrage at seeing me doing this, but more in a flirty way, like “you’re so baaaaad, boy!” kind of way.
Luckily I had parents that did a lot of the Lord’s work in counter-brainwashing when I was at home, LOL, so none of the “stand for the anthem and reciting the pledge” every morning at government school (with the 1950s red scare phrase added in, mind you to scare away the godless commies!) didn’t really stick.
I’m still patriotic as HELL. And I love this country’s supposed ideals and founding documents like nobody’s business. But not in the way the brainless cons think of “patriotism”. Their false patriotism is a pantload.
Hey, it’s cool that some of them understand the law, but… also, I don’t think veterans have any special privilege or insight into how our freedoms work.
I don’t think any of us need their permission to exercise our rights. I don’t think that’s what you were going for, but I’m just saying this because so much of the discussion often seems to go to what “the troops” think about it. It just doesn’t matter.
I was bringing it up half out of people tending to use veterans and soldiers as justification for “cracking down” on things like flag burning, saying how it disrespects our troops or something. When 1) as you say, thier opinion doesn’t matter and 2) They also aren’t as offended as republicans say they are.
Fair enough. Also, I should not have had that last sentence worded that way. I should have said that their opinion does not matter more than the opinions of non-veterans, IMHO. Being Americans, their opinion does matter as much as any other, but still the law is the law and unless the unhinged cons get an amendment, freedom should still be a thing…even on something like burning a flag.
It’s my first amendment right to call the troops babykillers and to thank their Jodies for their service. And if someone wants the government to stop me then they’re anti American. The first amendment is especially for the right to criticize and mock the government and her agents.
If you aren’t for freedom of speech when its an expression you don’t agree with, you aren’t for freedom of speech.
People forget that freedom of speech also includes the discourse of hate
This ends with blood in the streets. We just need to decide whose blood.
I have some thoughts on that:
Is this a picture of the last guillotine execution in France during the 70s?
I think it’s some well-dressed gentlemen executing a working man. Let’s get this guy for being on the wrong side!
I don’t actually know, but good question! I pulled it from Pinterest:
https://fr.pinterest.com/pin/508414245428023265/
Don’t judge me.
Were you…possibly
Were you…
Were you looking up Guillotine ideas on Pinterest?
Isn’t everyone these days?
It will be the poors blood
Always is. No way but class war!
I’ve been saying this as well. There is going to be American blood spilt on the streets before this is over. We haven’t reached the bottom yet.
We’ve had that, innocent blood on the streets. The sadistic bastards want more.
Y’all know this is just so they can replay clips of their “opposition” burning flags on Fox News. To vilify more people is the only goal here.
Funny. I can’t wait to fight a civil war against Fox News viewers. So we can be done with their genes. Not like the Jazzy militia will have any capabilities.
Good for these people, make them charge you, make them have a grand jury charge you.
A grand jury won’t bring charges on sandwich guy and they won’t on this either.
The fucking boy scouts burn flags, American flags.
How can you make an executive order like that? That’s not exactly an order.
That would need to be a law, passed by Congress.
This dude has gone so fucking nuts with executive orders left and right out the ass, that no one is even asking wtf? It’s not supposed to be the magical “I can do anything” card. But everyone is ok with this I guess…
No, just the only people who can actually do something about it.
Most people don’t know that it is the legislative branch that’s supposed to create laws. Oh who am I kidding? Most Americans don’t even know there are three branches of government.
Are there? The system of checks and balances has mostly been thrown aside to pander to an authoritarian with severe historical myopia
Can’t argue with the logic.
They’re not orders to him, they are decrees
Both congress and the Supreme Court handed ceded all their power to the executive branch. We have a dictator now, full stop. This country is run by the whims of a pedophile protecting (at best), rapist, criminal (convicted, not punished - REWARDED).
you misunderstand how america works.
Congress can’t do that without a 3/4 majority of states also agreeing. It would require a constitutional amendment altering the first amendment. Which is an extra big deal as nobody serious would think to propose altering the bill of rights, it used to be sacred. Mind you the government didn’t follow it ever really, but thats what happens to sacred things
The other option is that the supreme court undoes a prior decision, like they did to roe v. wade. Texas v. Johnson was only a 5-4 decision (To be clear, I think this would be awful as well, but it is likely how the admin plans to enforce this, assuming they have a plan).
Which is why legal precedent is not law. I’m waiting on Brown v board of education to be overturned based on how they’re acting.
They’ve already weakened the public school system to the point where the only chances my daughter may get a decent education is if we go private or heavily supplement the public education and I prepare to have many parent/teacher conversations about her being “disruptive” and “undermining authority”.
It doesn’t matter, Trump can legally do whatever he wants, he’s a king. 1/3rd of the population of America believes that Trump can rule unilaterally. The other 2/3rds are scared of the first and they should be. Trump and MAGA have the executive branch, the judicial branch, the legislative branch, the armed forces, law enforcement, immigration enforcement, and wall street in their side. They only group not on Trump’s side is the general public and it should be pretty obvious now that he doesn’t have any use for the general public. Trump won. He’s king of The United States of America, I suggest you start to think about what you’re going to do about it.
Yeah, you know, except the general public does all the things that keep the country working.
Not saying a nationwide strike is easy, or even doable, but a week of that would have Wall Street power brokers contacting mercenary outfits for pricing on a presidential assassination.
Team Loser coming in hot today.
Everybody on that side is terrified their “friends” will kill them, and lots of them are looking for any excuses to get away. People are actively and successfully getting in his way constantly. He’s backed down a whole bunch of times, in significant ways, and every victory goes unreported because the corporate news are all pussies, so, by definition, team good guy is doing much, much better than any news networks anywhere will report.
Way to help them.
Also, that fat dork will fall down the stairs and choke on mcdonalds, and then couch fucker is gonna have all the backstabbers targeting him, and it will be significantly easier to get them to all fight each other.
The US doesn’t have a king now, and it’s not going to.
He can’t legally do it, its still against the law.
He’s personally immune from punishment, but if he does something illegally it can be undone.
E.g if he illegally arrests someone, they’ll still get released… one day… and probably get punitive damages. But Trump won’t be held accountable.
Except that his administration is. Look at Abrego Garcia. He’s going to be deported and there won’t be any recourse to undo that. If it can be done, with no consequences, and can’t be undone, doesn’t matter if a piece of paper says it’s illegal. It won’t be enforced, and a law that isn’t enforced might as well not exist.
If you came across someone beating the shit out of another person would you try to stop them or would you stand pointing saying “that’s illegal” or “after they’re done they’re get in so much trouble!”?
The law doesn’t apply to these people, and Trump got his 34 felonies before becoming the president without any consequences whatsoever. Garcia was sent El Salvador illegally and it’s wild he even made it back alive, and no amount of money will change what happened to him if he were to even somehow get that in however many years. If I recall correctly he’s still not safe.
Yeah, tell that to Abrego Garcia. Just because one day some judge might reflect that it was wrong for the government to lie, human traffic, and manufacture false charges doesn’t mean his life wasn’t ruined.
I really find it hard to conceive of a government that doesn’t hold their leaders accountable, but that is apparently what we have been doing for a looong time.
He absolutely can do it. He’s not allowed to do it, but rule of law has gone down the drain. The USA are back to the divine right of kings, now
But her emails! The egg prices are too damn high!
My advice to Americans is to leave if they can
Where do you propose those 300 million people go?
Running will do for a spell. But I intend to stay and (politically) fight.
Besides, I’m not sure anywhere is significantly better than USA for places to stand against it. No place with humans is immune to the disease of leader worship.
Iran was once a relatively tolerant democracy. Then the people who actually take their religion seriously took over.
Project 2025 is the Christian nutter version of 1979 Iran.
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Congratulations on waking up from your coma! A few things have happened since 2015. Let me help you get up to speed…
Executive orders have been a big problem for over 20 years. Bush started it, Obama did nothing to stop it and exploited them himself. Someone like trump was inevitable, just a matter of time.
Good on him. I was thinking about doing that myself but I don’t live near DC.
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Some say that the war would have lasted longer and guerrilla campaigns continues and more martyrs… but I say fuck em’ hard. That type of shit deserves nothing. All the plantations should have been split snd given to armed black farmers that are under federal protection with extremely stringent gun control on the south for a few decades to prevent an uprising.
The Radical Republicans wanted to put General Sherman in charge of Reconstruction. That would have been cool.
“Ok, if you survive being lit on fire you can have your plantation back. After I light it on fire.”
Trunp and Magats are such effing snowflakes they need a safe space.
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If he was burning a book, the fascist cops would have joined-in
Unless that book was a Bible. Or a conservative grifter’s book.
So I get that the act of burning the flag is protected speech, but surely the act of setting a fire on public property is a crime regardless?
I would think burning flags is only ok on a place where burning other things is ok.
Yes, the way to push him on this would be to very publicly burn a flag in a manner that is perfectly legal otherwise. Find an official fire pit or BBQ in a public park. Scorching the sidewalk with gasoline is only going to give them an easy win when they charge you for “defacing public property,” creating a danger to the public, or even arson.
I’m glad at least one person understands the point that I made. If you’re going to have a showdown with an unjust law, don’t give your enemy easy ways to twist your actions into something that they are not. It should be legal to burn anything you don’t like - as long as you respect the normal rules about burning things in general. Fire isn’t something to fuck around with, and the laws about not burning things on the street are good laws.
No more birthday candles allowed in glorious free USA.
That’s a pretty bad faith comment. The video of the incident showed the person pouring accelerant on a flag on the ground and starting a decent sized fire.
I support the flag burning, but I think that there is a better way to do it than pouring gas on the sidewalk and lighting it up. Doing in a metal container would be much more responsible.
Did the fire spread to anything else and cause damage
Come on dude, that’s another bad faith argument. The legality of setting fire to things is not determined after the fact.
You’re better than this. Try to put more thought into your comments.
He did it on pavement, dropped the flag onto pavement, and kept a safe distance. There was no danger of it spreading to anything else flammable
It’s about what is legal and what is not legal.
It’s not legal to set fire on the sidewalk. Everyone accepts that to be true and a pretty good law.
Burning flags in general is legal, most people accept that to be true and think that it’s a pretty good law.
When you do something illegal, while doing something legal, in order to prove that the second thing was legal. You muddy the waters and give ammunition to people who want the second thing to be illegal.
Or maybe stop apologizing for cruel dictators. They don’t need your help, so don’t help them. This “to be fair” and “decorum” crap has gotten us to a point where children are being kidnapped and raped without consequence, and free speech has been eliminated. I know you aren’t trying to be part of the problem, but I’m here to tell you that you absolutely, unequivocally, are part of the problem.
Yeaaa, that’s pretty off base. You’re moving the goalposts. I just said it’s a crime to set fire to things on the sidewalk in a public and mentioned that it would be more responsible to do it with a metal bin or something.
All of this “apologizing for cruel dictators” “you are part of the problem” bullshit is nonsense bad faith strawman argument. You were looking for someone to fight with and went after me because it suits you to do so.
Picking fights like this with random people who agree with 98% of what you think because 2% of their opinions are different yours, is a right wingers wet dream. They love that you are doing this. They love that you would take time out of your day to attack your allies and further fracture resistance.
As a youth myself and friends lit many a thing on fire. Most were fireworks but there were other things and sometimes with a magnifying glass. Now these were rather small fires but none the less they were by and large allowed as no law was ever enforced in this regard although sometimes we were told to knock it off.
Friend, you’re on lemmy. You may only have extremist views with 0 nuance or else you’re a part of The Enemy™.
Realistic takes are not allowed here
Just wanted to pop in to say all of this "master debater"ese is bullshit and people should stop taking those who endlessly rattle on about “goal posts” and logical fallacies seriously.
This isn’t fucking debate club nor is it Ben Shapiro.
I doubt anyone’s mind has ever been changed a single iota by this type of talk, and I find it pointless at best and fascist apologia at worst.
Y’all want to burn some flags in DC this Monday? I’m game
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That might actually be the point.
Oh good, it’ll get up to the supreme court soon so we can hear about how the president can unilaterally say “fuck the constitution,” actually.
Where can I contribute to the legal fund?
Guy was already released actually
The wrongful arrest lawsuit is just as important. It needs to be highlighted that Executive Orders do not create arrestable lawsuit.
It’s not illegal to burn the flag. Any flag.
And executive orders are not laws.
