Flag Burning 11/03

[John]

.... Fuck.

Keep Hope Alive! 

[Pat K]

I didn't realized I sounded so disorganized in my speech :\


Fuck.

It will take some practice to get used to doing stuff in public.

[FTL_Ian]

You'll just have to burn more flags.   

[Puke]

Looks like it went pretty well.

The idiot women holding McCain signs talking about the cliched "You disrespect the troops! God loves the troops! Troops! Troops! Troops!" made me want to be there with my old uniform on.
I think that would have confused the hell out of those fools.

[Ryan McGuire]

Here's my whole unedited video of the event:

Part 1 - Flag burning:

Part 2 - Answering Questions:

Part 3 - John Singing "On the road to Freedom":

[Kat Kanning]

Thanks for putting up the videos, guys 

[TackleTheWorld]

5:12 on Ryan McGuire's first video
the US flag engulfed, detractors yelling rude things, and the butane lighter explodes.
Street drama at it's best.

Thanks for not burning your own self, Jesse.  That would have been hard to live down.

[Mike Barskey]

Here are my pics.

Jesse, I do not think your speech sounded disorganized. I thought it was clear, easy to hear, easy to understand (although there's no accounting for people who refuse to understand), emotional and passionate yet logical, and appropriate.

Thanks for all the videos and pix, everyone.

[TackleTheWorld]

I think Jesse's speech was refreshing.  It was simple, short, direct and didn't reference esoteric things like laws, dead people, and authoritarian documents.

Mikes pictures are getting much better. Lots of those are suitable for framing.

[dalebert]

The pre-interview for the flag burn is finally up. Includes video.

http://anarchyinyourhead.com/2008/11/03/a-good-old-fashioned-flag-burning/

[Caleb]

Well, my own burn is up on my blog. It's a little anti-climactic, and to be honest is pretty boring because I was mostly ignored. No cops or media showed up at all to my event.    I did the shooting myself on my little HP digital camara, so I have a couple pics up and ... the video is uploading so give me 45 minutes and the video should be up too, though it's only going to be about 37 seconds long cause that's all that my digital camara could take.  I am pretty happy with how the actual burn took place. I used a thin film of hairspray over the entire canvas and that seemed to result in a slow, sustained burn instead of an "all up in flames all at once" type of burn. A very satisfying, clean burn.  http://calebjohnson.org/blog/?p=245

[Kat Kanning]

Wow Caleb!

[dalebert]

Well, my own burn is up on my blog.

When you do post the video, post it as a response to one of Jesse's and you might get more traffic.

Here's a recent ignorant comment:
"it's not legal to burn a flag... fuck obama still though"

[Russell Kanning]

cool .... I am sure the government is getting your message of dissatisfaction

[Kat Kanning]

Put up dale's commentary and also wrote one of my own.
http://www.newhampshirefreepress.com/NHFreePress/?q=node/258
http://www.newhampshirefreepress.com/NHFreePress/?q=node/259

Commentary on the Burning of the United States Flag

By Kat Kanning

I have to admit that I was somewhat ambivalent about this event.   This was not out of some hidden reverence for the symbol of the US, but because I knew I was "gonna get it" from my mom over this one.  My mother, she doesn't like the current US government any more than the Freestaters do, but she does love the principles this country was founded on – a country that respects the God-given rights of the people, with its government severely limited by the Constitution. 

This country became a great place because, for a period of time,  the government mostly left people alone.  When the fetters were removed, the little guy was free to produce, to create, to make a good life for himself and his family.  And that's just what a lot of little guys did with their freedom, making this the most prosperous nation in history.  It was a beautiful thing. 

It's gone now.

It was inevitable that freedom should gradually disappear.  The people who fought for freedom in the US appreciated it.  Their children and grandchildren grew progressively more comfortable.  They forgot what a danger government can be.  Slowly those freedoms dissolved away, like the wearing away of rock in a riverbed.  People relied on government to protect "our freedom", when really, it was something each of us needed to look after for ourselves.

Now we've come to this, the United States of today.  The government involves itself in every aspect of our lives.  No more is the little guy free to produce.  He is fettered with regulations, licenses, red tape a mile long.  Now, instead of making a better life for him and his family, he stands on a welfare line.

The United States of today in no way respects the rights of people – free speech has been replaced by "free speech zones", freedom from outrageous searches have been replaced by TSA lines and no-knock warrants.  Rights to a speedy trial are laughed at by officials at Guantanamo Bay, where torturing prisoners is endorsed by the President himself.  Limits on taxation have been replaced by a system that takes nigh upon 50% of all we earn.   The government fetters laid down by the Constitution have largely been cut, leaving government free to trample the people.

The idyllic country that my mother holds dear is a dream of the past.  It could be created again, but with the same result – the gradual wearing away of freedoms.  So is the human race doomed to a perpetual cycle of revolution-freedom-slavery?  I believe as long as we hand over the responsibility to protect our freedom to someone else, we will have tyranny.  As long as pretend it's OK for government to commit aggression in our name, we will have tyranny.  As long as it's OK for one government to initiate violence, we will have tyranny.  And since government by its very definition is force and violence, as long as we have government, we will have tyranny.