i like to think that the founding fathers and mothers would wipe their asses with the likes of chuck norris.

> I'm rarely able to understand Norris' perspective

Right. The rest of the post was redundant.

Thomas Jefferson introduced french fries to the US and we know how the right feels about "freedom fires".

After having a discussion with my brother the other day, who happens to be a teabagger and a Norris fan, I think what he means is this:

Anything that has happened in this country since about 1865, whether constitutional amendment, legislative action or federal law is not valid and should not be recognized. They have all been illegal governmental usurpations of power and do not need to be honored, observed or recognized. It is considered patriotic to fight against anything that falls within that framework.

A tea-stained flag? That is desecration in technical terms, despite the supposed "friendly" motivation. Maybe Norris disdains the 50-star US flag because Hawaii is represented as # 50 - where Barack Obama (may ;-) have been born.

Rent "Way of the Dragon" so you can watch Bruce Lee beat up Chuck Norris! Norris' character Colt was "America's best"! Maybe, as "best" as our health care system? (Dig the scene where Bruce blows Norris' ripped-off chest hair from his hand!)

Yes, staining or damaging the flag is desecration. What are you supposed to do with a desecrated or damaged flag? Yup, burn it. Chuck wants people to burn the american flag? Go back to Russia where you belong, comrade Norris!.

"I may run for president of Texas." - Conservative Actor Chuck Norris 3/9/09

Why don't they just fly Old Glory upside down and make the transition into a mid-90s militia complete?

Norris needs to go dip his bag somewhere else.

Of course, patriots know that the 50-star flag truly represents one nation under God and our Founders' republic, but modernists simply don't get it.

What does this sentence even mean?

I've got a stained flag for you, Cucky- and all your karate kicking, draft dodging, chicken hawk friends:

It's an ensign (a type of flag, for you non military types in the previous sentence), that my father- a career naval officer- brought back from the Pacific.

It is tattered and torn and faded. It is riddled with large caliber bullet holes and stained with dark brown blotches.

And it also proudly flew from the taffrail of a United States Navy destroyer in 1945, so that Mr. Norris and his ilk are safe to play their flag games today. . .

Steven Segall should kick this traitor's ass.

If patriots insist on using the stars and stripes, Norris wants them to pour tea on the flag until it's deliberately stained?

Didn't I see a link somewhere where Norris was actually selling tea-stained flags?

Suggesting a stupid idea to low-info voters is one thing. Making a buck off it - now that's the American Way!

lincoln refused to remove the stars representing the states trying to secede during the civil war, but i'd happily fly a flag with all the red states removed.
guess abe was a bigger man than i am, even tho we're the same height.

It's almost as though he's not genuinely patriotic at all...

Nah. That can't be right.

Does Chuck know that "our Founders" were progressives? It's true there were varying degrees of liberalism, but if they'd not be progressive, there would have been no revolution. The conservatives of the day, Loyalists, fled to Canada rather than fight for their land.

It's also worth pointing out -- again -- that during our ghastly right-leaning tilt in governance over the past 40 years or so, we've coincidentally seen America fall off the lofty perch she held during WWII & after as the leader of the world in every aspect that counts. (We do of course lead the world in war spending. Go USA!)

The longer we as a nation impede progress, the further we'll fall in the interim.

By the way, Chuck, the original quote, before Eisenhower engaged in some propaganda-inspired editing, was "one nation indivisible." The full text still includes the word "indivisible," although the syntax has been disrupted. You do know what "indivisible" means, don't you? For one thing, it means that people waxing sentimental over another historic flag, the one you'll see flying over many southern state-houses, should get the f*** over it.

(If you insist on posting a modern USA flag, too, then get one that is tea-stained to show your solidarity with our Founders.)

How does he or anyone else know what the Founders' think (or what their 'vision' for America was)?

Why doesn't Chucky just drop the pretense and asked followers to fly the Confederate flag?

His latest column presents his game-plan

WTF? Chuck Norris has a column?!? The horror. The horror.

Chuck Norris? Hey, didn't he used to be somebody famous? Or am I confusing him with Ted Nugent?

It is just fundamentalism. The modern United States is illegitimate. These teabaggers have reimagined the United States. For them the United States is not an Enlightenment Republic founded by deists and mild Anglicans who, by the measure of the 18th century, were deeply liberal AND clearly believed in government. They think the founders were something like their own grandfathers and great grandfathers living in some Oklahoma backwater a century ago- small town strict-father state-rights Scotch-Irish fundamentalists.

They aren't flying the flag made by the Quaker Betsy Ross but the flag of belligerent Dixie.

Hey Chuck:

Know how much tea is produced here in the good ol' U.S. of A?

None

Know what country is our largest source of tea?

Communist China.

So you're gonna desecrate our beloved flag with with FOREIGN OR COMMUNIST tea?

Why do you hate America?

Just advocate for the Confederate Flag and secession and get it over with.

Besides, my liberal ass self-identifies as "POSTmodern" not modern.

I used to watch Walker, Texas Ranger. I didn't know who Chuck Norris was in political terms at the time that I first began watching the show.

The ironic thing is (as anyone who has ever watched this show knows) that the causes espoused on that show are almost all liberal causes. Concern for the rights of brown-skinned peoples, including Native Americans. Helping out the poor. In general, taking care of underdogs. Fighting against criminals who take advantage of underdogs. Fighting against big industries which pollute streams. Etc. Etc.

Chuck Norris seems to be so ignorant of history, esp. since WWII, that he is unaware of who fought for the causes on his shows, and who opposed them with tooth and nail and witless screaming.

I also got annoyed with the show. Too much black and white. Cardboard good guys vs. cardboard bad guys. Also, the later the episodes, the more the show is a vehicle for Chuck's ego. Although I approve of the causes on the show, the overall feeling-tone is adolescent. It's a teenage boy's daydream of saving good guys from bad guys. This is even further borne out in the relationship between Walker the Ranger and his lady love, Alex the District Attorney. Chuck never seems truly engaged with her when they are supposed to be demonstrating their love.

His latest shtick with the flag is so clueless. Of course, patriots know that the 50-star flag truly represents one nation under God and our Founders' republic, but modernists simply don't get it. Sheesh, talk about a cardboard understanding of "modernists"!

Unfortunately for the rest of us, the tea-baggers seem to be frozen at an early adolescent stage of development. Chuck Norris is their perfect representative.

The fact is, the country that Chuck Norris and these Teabaggers love simply doesn't exist anymore. It never did. The land they love was last depicted in the Dick and Jane reader series they used in first grade.

And besides everything else I've never heard anyone mention the obvious: he hasn't aged well. He looks like Mrs. Bates with a beard.

Kool-aid stained would be so much more appropriate for these nutjobs.

"The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning." (4 U.S.C. § 8(k).)

I don't think that tea stained flags are "a fitting emblem for display" but saying that he should just be left to jabber. Giving him more air time is just as unproductive as giving air time to Republicans who were all up in arms about the flag burning. This hypocrisy is painful but I just can't be too worked up.

Aye, Tear that Tattered Ensign Down!

This may be the opening for liberals/progressives and Democrats to take back the US flag.

Think about it - for decades now, the right has seized upon and wrapped itself in the flag while calling everyone else a traitor or at the least, unpatriotic.

Now, they're talking about either dumping the American flag altogether or dumping on it - displaying a flag only after they've desecrated it.

So, the only ones carrying genuine, current, clean American flags will be - the Dems!

I suggest we encourage Chuck (bag'o'hammers) Norris's idea.

Bye bye Chuckie.... if you do not like our nation and its true flag that represents our FREE country by all means you can leave and go be your delusional self elsewhere.....bye....no great loss to us.

Maybe Edwards was on to something with that Two Americas tag. Norris wants a flag for his Country too.

While I disagree with them, I actually have a fair amount of respect for those anti-government conservatives who actually do oppose the government under all circumstances.

What I cannot abide are those who say they are against the government when Clinton or Obama may be in office - but can't get enough of the military and who found big government to be just fine when Bush/Cheney/Delay et al were in charge.

And where were all these anti-government tea baggers back when Bush/Cheney were in charge?

Authoritarians need markers to distinguish friend from enemy because if you talk to people you might discover that the enemy is a person just like you. Flags are the traditional marker for the purpose of determining who to attack and who to defend.

Just where are they selling this tea flavored Kool-Aid? I've heard that the stains don't run. It must be the national drink in Norrisland and it must be a big money maker for the corporate manufacturer.

Flag desecration: IOKIYAR!

Today's Day in Song:
Silent Running by Mike and the Mechanics (1985)

Take the children and yourself And hide out in the cellar
By now the fighting will be close at hand
Don't believe the church and state
And everything they tell you
Believe in me, I'm with the high command

Can you hear me, can you hear me running?
Can you hear me running, can you hear me calling you?
Can you hear me, can you hear me running?
Can you hear me running, can you hear me calling you?

There's a gun and ammunition
Just inside the doorway
Use it only in emergency
Better you should pray to God
The Father and the Spirit
Will guide you and protect from up here
(Chorus)
Swear allegiance to the flag
Whatever flag they offer
Never hint at what you really feel
Teach the children quietly
For some day sons and daughters
Will rise up and fight while we stood still
(Chorus)

When did modernism become a pejorative term? Is that common right-wing phrasing?

If liberals were at all like right-wingers, they would:

a) Have a "Senate Resolution" denouncing Norris as a traitor (see Acorn resolution the right-wing screamed about);

b) Demand that all Republicans publicly repudiate Norris. Scream louder when they wouldn't. If they do, then say it's not enough and that we need to "debate this controversy" for another few weeks on national TV to the exclusion of minor things like war and economic depression. (Acorn).

c) Pass a Congressional resolution against desecrating the flag with "tea or any other substance." Scream louder when Constitutional scholars denounce the bill as un-constitutional. (Bush I).

d) Accuse the Republicans of being "in favor of flag desecration." Stage a press-conference in a Flag Factory to make your statement (a la George Bush I).

Except that the media wouldn't play along the way they always do with the right-wing whenever THEY throw a hissy-fit.

Wait a second:

Aren't these the same clowns who told us disagreeing with the President in a time of war it treason?

Aren't they the ones who, while running for office, promised a Constitutional Amendment to prevent burning and otherwise desecrating the flag?

Aren't they the ones who claim to love America so much that, when anyone criticized it while Bush in office, they told those people to "Love it or leave it!"

So they've gone from believing America is the bestest ever and should never be criticized, ever, in any circumstances, lest you be hung for sedition ... to believing that trashing the flag, eliminating the government, and/or threatening to secede is the pinnacle of patriotism.

Conservatives are no longer part of a political party, nor do they have a coherent ideology.

They're a fucking cult.

Of course, patriots know that the 50-star flag truly represents one nation under God and our Founders' republic...

Which would come as a surprise to the Founders since there weren't 50 states at the founding of the country.

If you insist on posting a modern USA flag, too, then get one that is tea-stained to show your solidarity with our Founders.

I suspect that the Founders would be aghast at the waste of perfectly good tea. That stuff was hard to import, ya know, even if you bought the smuggled stuff from the Dutch.

Chuck Norris has long since become a joke: don't any of you guys have kids?

If you're gonna attack him for this, attack him for dissing the ONLY truly American flag, which is the one with a star for each state. It's contemptible to talk about earlier versions of the flag as if they represent We, the People -- period.

But staining the flag in protest is an Alinsky idea.

I forget if it was in Rules for Radicals, or in an interview, but as I recall he was asked about the never-particularly-effective protest technique of burning an American flag.

He said he didn't think it was worth the shock and offense, because that interfered with communicating a message effectively. People would say "those sons of bitches burned a flag", instead of "they were protesting the Vietnam War", or whatever the cause was.

He suggested that instead, protestors could take a big flag, announce whatever it was they were against, and throw mud or some water-soluble coloring on it (something with a sharp contrast, like black -- but you had to be sure it would come out with just soap and water).

Then, he argued, after displaying a huge flag stained with the various outrages to be protested, a speaker could simply WASH the flag in public, cleaning off all the crimes (Nixon comes to mind), and display the red,white and blue as they ought to be.

On the other hand, tea stains don't come out easily: I doubt Chuck does much laundry.

They should fly Norris' toupee.

Remember that Hawaii is represented by the 50th star on the flag. Drop that and you assert that Barack Obama isn't President of the United States.

The World Net Daily shop is selling tea-stained flags for $73.50. I wonder if Norris is getting a kick(box)back.

I've got to learn to laugh at Chuck Norris the hirsute hero who, along with Sly Stallone, won Hollywood's rematch with the Viet Cong. But a chicken hawk draft-dodging war-wimp just naturally pisses me off and I start venting. But I'm gonna try to laugh, I really am: Ha-ha, you miserable bag of dirt!

Read between the lines, Steve.

What Norris is calling for is for his fellow nuts to start waving the Stars and Bars.

Coming from a military background, desecrating the American flag like that for political views is beneath contempt. Too bad Mr. Norris doesn't realize this. It will not go unnoticed from the military sector.

It will not go unnoticed from the military sector.

You're tellin' me! My husband is a quiet guy (opposites attract) and he went absolutely nuts. He ranted for a full five minutes.

"The land they love was last depicted in the Dick and Jane reader series..." chrenson @ 1:54 PM.
I was thinking more along the lines of Margaret Mitchell's opus...

Look at all the Obama rage
at the teabagger recruiting drive
Look who it is up on the stage
Didn't know Chuck Norris was still alive

Look at those birthers
waving the stars and bars
It's a red white and blue flag
but it ain't ours