U.S. Rep. Allen West (R-FL22) is at it again. What better way to celebrate Flag Day, and make headlines, than to desecrate the flag? The tea party darling, often held up as proof the movement isn’t racist, posted pictures on Flickr of his recent diving expedition to an artificial reef in his South Florida district.
That got flag purists’ attention. They point to Title 4, Chapter 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Code, subsection B, which states, “The flag should never touch anything beneath it, such as the ground, the floor, water, or merchandise.”
But West isn’t known for following the rules. Before moving to Florida to run for Congress, West was discharged from the Army in 2004 after an incident in Taji, Iraq. Four members of a battalion he commanded beat an Iraqi they suspected of plotting to attack them while they interrogated him. To facilitate the questioning, West himself fired his service pistol next to the man’s head, a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. After the rumors of the plot were found to be baseless, West said, “It’s possible that I was wrong about Mr. Hamoodi.” He avoided a court-martial and was subjected to an “Article 15 proceeding,” relieved of his command, and ordered to pay a fine.
And while flag desecration is small potatoes compared to his past exploits, it’s clear that Rep. West hasn’t learned that you don’t honor your country, or its flag, by ignoring core principles.
Hmmm, not really any different than when we saw the folk on the left burning the flag when Bush was in office.
Hey Chris – Can you or Kim, Niccka, Chris Rowling, Ray, Will, Kelly, Tony Lark or Publius or whomever supply a link showing “folks on the left” who are members of Congress burning American flags when Bush was in office? Thanks!
Send a photo of a liberal member of Congress burning the American flag during the Bush admin to info@pensitoreview.com and I’ll think about it.
However, I’m sure that wasn’t his intention and Texas v. Johnson says that this could be seen as free speech. Just being fair here.
Chris, what you think West’s intentions were and what I think they were probably differ. I think they were the same as Palin’s when she purposely desecrated the flag in the photo linked here: cynical pandering.
http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/jezebel/2009/07/sarahpalin_200908_477x600_7.jpg
But since neither of us can be inside Palin or West’s heads, we’ll just have to wonder.
Wikipedia: In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory[citation needed], extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response[2] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[3] The noun troll may refer to the provocative message itself, as in: “That was an excellent troll you posted.” While the word troll and its associated verb trolling are associated with Internet discourse, media attention in recent years has made such labels subjective, with trolling describing intentionally provocative actions outside of an online context. For example, mass media uses troll to describe “a person who defaces Internet tribute sites with the aim of causing grief to families.”[4][5]
We are all in trouble when the unthinking and narrow-minded lose sight of the difference between a symbol and what that symbol represents. Or, as the late comedian Bill Hicks might say – Our forefathers didn’t die for the flag, they died for the right to burn the flag.