Bill introduced by Congress proposing up to a year in jail for flag-burners

[MADem]

20. You can't "incite or produce imminent violence or a breach of the peace" ANYWAY.

Last edited Tue Nov 29, 2016, 09:59 PM - Edit history (1)

With or without a flag. It's illegal to so do. On edit--the penalty is up to FIVE years in the kink--not a paltry one year:


https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2101

And it's against the law to steal. Always has been. Doesn't matter if it's a flag or a park ranger's hat.

There's nothing in this 'law' that wasn't prohibited already. The only difference was the proposed punishment, IF your motives could be determined, IF you stole a flag belonging to the federal government, and/or IF you did this on government land.

If you steal a flag from a flagpole in front of the 7-11, though, for the purposes of calmly expressing your dissatisfaction with the government in an orderly way at a protest that has a permit and the purpose is clearly elucidated, you wouldn't be subject to a year in jail. You might get charged with misdemeanor theft at the local level, maybe setting a fire without a permit, but you wouldn't do a year in the klink. You need to steal a flag that belongs to the US government or is on government land to get the one year in jail prize.

Of course, the bill didn't pass so it doesn't matter. It's all moot, and it distracted the GOP from having a taste for this kind of punitive horseshit over symbolic actions.