The Czar-Mangled Banner

Ugly, but legal.

World Net Daily has posted on this story about these flags being sold on eBay, pondering the possible legal action for defacing the flag, but it is fruitless.

First off, the U.S. Flag Code is one of the few federal laws that really is a suggestion. There is no penalty for violations of the code, save for a few state or local ordinances, which usually include fines.

Here's the deal: if the people making these flags are manufacturing them themselves, instead of buying the flags and silk-screening Herr Obama's face on the canton, then there is no violation; if it don't have fifty stars, it ain't a U.S. flag, and is thus exempt from the restrictions of the code.

It's a whole other story if they are truly defacing U.S. flags, but like I said, the penalties would be subject to the local law enforcement's discretion.

The dimensions of the flag are also important. The flag pictured, I would hazard to guess, is about 3:5 and the U.S. flag is defined as being 10:19; that, too, is important.

What would it mean if one flew that flag upside-down, I wonder...

O Thus Be It Ever

I've been wondering about the national anthem lately. (Not "Dixie", I'm talking about the yankee one.)

I would support a move to replace The Star Spangled Banner with America, The Beautiful as the United States' national anthem. The Star Spangled Banner is more about the flag, and it's somewhat difficult to sing. America, the Beautiful, on the other hand, is more easily ranged and the lyrics are more patriotic to the land as opposed to the State, such as in The Star Spangled Banner.

The only compromise I would make to my proposition is if we only had to sing the final stanza of the current anthem; that I like:

"O thus be it ever
when free-men shall stand
Between their lov'd home and the war's desolation;
Blest with vict'ry and peace,
may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust!”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!"