American man gets fifteen years for flag-burning.

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So if protesters burn the American flag, we should assume that they're gearing up to launch terror attacks on American soil? That doesn't seem likely.
Not usually, but it is possible. Burning a flag indicates more than just minor annoyance with the organization or political entity the flag represents.
 
It's implied violence, a form of symbolic violence, or even surrogate violence. That doesn't mean the perpetrator might not commit physical violence.

Well of course not. Eating a sandwich doesn't mean the eater might not commit physical violence.
 
Not usually, but it is possible. Burning a flag indicates more than just minor annoyance with the organization or political entity the flag represents.

I want to make clear that I don't actually agree, at all, with @Mouthwash - he seems to actually sympathize with, and support, this guy, even though he's slightly backtracking now. I'm saying the judicial and correctional system on the issue are broken, because the rules and limits on these kind of crimes are so ill-defined and wide-open to discretion by judges, that highly reactionary sentences - the type given to convicted rapists, repeat drug traffickers, and second-degree murderers, as I said - are slapped down for a THREAT. And, if he was an unhinged "habitual offender," then law-enforcement and forensic psychiatry were obviously remiss somewhere if he was still at liberty and not under some form institutionalized, or semi-institutionalization, or heavy monitoring, or even just restraint orders, in the first place. While I'm not at all saying he's innocent, or "misunderstood," it seems the system has failed, too, and is trying to overcompensate and preserve it's image with a draconian sentence, which can't lead in a good direction.
 
Not usually, but it is possible. Burning a flag indicates more than just minor annoyance with the organization or political entity the flag represents.

We still don't live in Minority Report. Locking someone away for a good portion of their life is no small matter.
 
I'm glad we can get people to care more about three strikes laws, and their type

Me too, but this is hardly the case to hang the banner on. Ex-felon going hungry because he can't get a job steals a pizza and gets 25 to life is a good case to hang the banner on. Well known bullying thug steals property and burns it in an obvious effort to start a violent confrontation, not so much.

I'd also like to correct this...
highly reactionary sentences - the type given to convicted rapists, repeat drug traffickers, and second-degree murderers, as I said -

This guy got fifteen on a state charge where he is eligible for parole in something like three. I knew plenty of "drug traffickers" who were doing forty, and federal time is 85% so thirty-four minimum. So, no, just off the top of my head I can say this guy didn't get sentenced like a drug trafficker. I suspect a little research would show that sentences for rape and murder also do not fall in this range, at least in most states.
 
Yup. Just a ****. Nothing to see here, move along.

Still not sold this isn't MADD girls gone wild.
 
Me too, but this is hardly the case to hang the banner on. Ex-felon going hungry because he can't get a job steals a pizza and gets 25 to life is a good case to hang the banner on. Well known bullying thug steals property and burns it in an obvious effort to start a violent confrontation, not so much.

Mouthwash is still focussed on the 16 years. So my comment is more appropriate for him. You and I have already discussed that early parole is the best solution if some type of Rehabilitation is possible.
 
Mouthwash is still focussed on the 16 years. So my comment is more appropriate for him. You and I have already discussed that early parole is the best solution if some type of Rehabilitation is possible.

Mouthwash is still focused on "it's a gay pride flag so burning it should be okay."
 
Which, if you think is true, is a good reason to never take one of Mouthwash's words and instill it with worth.

Pretty much like the unpublished property violation on the open range that the BLM turned into terrorism. It's a wonderful litmus test of who is actually a worthless subhuman liar.
 
Mouthwash is still focussed on the 16 years. So my comment is more appropriate for him. You and I have already discussed that early parole is the best solution if some type of Rehabilitation is possible.

I'm more concerned about the proven potential for abuse by the system. Once these kinds of sentences become commonly accepted, because no one is willing to say the defendant has the right to the same due process in court - I'm not at all saying to stand up for what they've done or believe, though modern public sentiment is the sort that standing up for the former will get you stained publicly with standing up for the latter - the path of "escalating tyranny and institutional abuse" really get going on a good clip. There has to be more socially responsible ways of dealing with these issues than just draconian shows of legal power and authority.
 
Mouthwash is still focused on "it's a gay pride flag so burning it should be okay."

He's okay with gay people. He just thinks they shouldn't be confident in themselves. It's different, see, because he's okay with their existence so long as they're ashamed of it. Anything that makes them feel valued can and should be burned, and hey, maybe he'd dabble a little if it came to his town. Y'know, just try his hand at a hate crime, see how it feels. But again I must stress: he thinks gay people are okay. I can't believe people are misinterpreting him, just like how they've misinterpreted the innocent boy in the OP. What kind of draconian society are we building when we can't point to a demographic, say we hate them, and then burn their symbols?
 
Look he's not a bigot, he's just okay with bigots and bigotry and thinks it's okay to target the LGBTQ community but he's totally not a bigot there's actually a lot of nuance and therefore he
 
I'm more concerned about the proven potential for abuse by the system. Once these kinds of sentences become commonly accepted, because no one is willing to say the defendant has the right to the same due process in court - I'm not at all saying to stand up for what they've done or believe, though modern public sentiment is the sort that standing up for the former will get you stained publicly with standing up for the latter - the path of "escalating tyranny and institutional abuse" really get going on a good clip. There has to be more socially responsible ways of dealing with these issues than just draconian shows of legal power and authority.

Please at least make the case for this "denial of due process" that you keep blathering about, instead of just saying it over and over and over. It is hard to take your claim about "greater concern" seriously when it appears to be a concern about something that did not happen.
 
Pride is just a counterbalancing reaction to years of endorsed cultural oppression. Pride events have literally become more tame during the course of my lifetime. They went from not really being kid appropriate, to easily being kid appropriate.

As cultural oppression diminishes, you will find that pride has less and less push back for it. Sure, it should take more than a couple generations, but we still hand out a book that claims that God wanted gay people murdered. Give it time.

Look how lame Veterans Day has become, culturally. It's because we forgotten, despite saying that we will never forget. The same thing will happen with regards to Pride, because the perceived need for the fight will diminish.

The true battlefront regarding Pride is very far from our shores. If pressed, people seem to think that we will make a difference there by making a difference here.
 
Eh, one of the reasons nuclear was is inevitable. The cost of prevention is too high if it's even possible.
 
Yup. Just a ****. Nothing to see here, move along.

Still not sold this isn't MADD girls gone wild.

Neither am I. There's just too much hidden about the sentencing. He got the max on arson, and the book thrown at him by habitual offender. Either the jury knows something we don't know, or he had a bad lawyer.

Iowa seems to have a pretty good recidivism rate, but I'm not convinced that they just don't throw away the key on everybody who they're not willing to risk things on
 
If his hatred is so extreme that he resorts to the element of fire to make a public statement, it's likely going to worsen, and he might commit a serious crime.

Still, 15 years is too much; being reasonable, I'd say 2, plus 2 for being funny in court. This will give them time to assess him to see if he is dangerous - he might be released early for good behaviour.
 
Neither am I. There's just too much hidden about the sentencing. He got the max on arson, and the book thrown at him by habitual offender. Either the jury knows something we don't know, or he had a bad lawyer.

Iowa seems to have a pretty good recidivism rate, but I'm not convinced that they just don't throw away the key on everybody who they're not willing to risk things on

The jury knows an unrepentant obviously guilty jerk when they see one, and even the best lawyer can't help you if you are committed to showing the jury that you are an unrepentant obviously guilty jerk. I'm sure at some point his lawyer told him "if you want to see just how much jail time you can get for yourself here, I can't really stop you" and called it a day.

Anecdote explaining why my perspective is that this guy isn't a good example of how the system can rape people.

Spoiler :
I knew a guy, and studied his case files in the endless effort to find points for appeal. He was charged with fraud in a federal district court and spent several tens of thousands of dollars on his successful defense. The jury found him not guilty after less than four hours of deliberation, which given the actual truckload of evidence that they theoretically reviewed was pretty remarkable, until you looked at the mountain piece by piece and saw there was really no case. The jury saw through the blizzard of paper to what the guy actually was...a postal marketer with a product of dubious quality that no one could possibly have taken seriously enough to claim they had been "defrauded" of their twelve dollars.

In response, the feds rounded up a half dozen "victims" in another federal district and filed the same charges. They still had no case. They still had the same truckload of vaguely connected documents. He still had a lawyer who was going to charge him a massive hourly rate to go through and examine every page to verify that they were indeed the same. He also had uncountable federal district courts in his future; enough that eventually he wouldn't be able to pay the lawyer. So he took a plea deal, which the judge pointed out was non-binding as he was handing down the absolute maximum sentence available under the law. In the judge's opinion, if he had been 'genuinely remorseful' he would have plead guilty the first time.

So, a non-violent offender gets a few years in prison, more time than I got in fact, and is banned for life from any occupation involving marketing, which is the only thing he is really suitable and trained for. He also is liable for several tens of millions of dollars in fines and restitution which the government knows they will never be able to collect in full, but they are assured that if he ever finds a way around the handicap they have imposed and makes a dime over the barest subsistence they can and will be able to take it from him.

Sorry, given the things I have seen I just can't muster any sympathy for this confrontational jerk who in the end will most likely do less time than I did.
 
Well, so long as a better man got "raped harder" by someone else somewhere else.
 
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