“Flag Burning Should Forever Be Legal”
Imagine this scenario: you are watching the news and they go to a protest rally in China. Students are protesting for women’s rights and start burning the flag. Immediatly armed military men come into the scene and grab the protestors. The reporter then says that this was done because such protest is illegal in China. What would you think of that? Nothing good, right?
Well the issue of flag burning in America is teetering dangerously close to reaching such status. The last vote I heard of was in the Summer of 2006, when Congress was looking for anything to validate its nebulous and corrupt nature, but this vote is going to come again and again until the end of all time. And what troubles me is that this issue is not just politcal currecny for some of these politicians. Some of them actually believe in it!
To vote on such a measure would take our democracy back a notch and make us look fascist to a world that has all eyes on us. It would in fact strengthen these forms of protest greatly-if not in our eyes then in the eyes of the world beyond the scope of our patriotism.
The First Amendment covers freedom of speech in all its forms. Just because a painting is not speech does not matter; it is protected. That is because we long ago knew the truth that freedom of speech means freedom of expression in any venue.
Shoot, maybe they want to protest the fact that Congress is spending time debating this at all!
“Love your country, surely, but love your governemtn only if you have to,” Twain once said. Flag burning is a form of criticism of government-and if it is not it is surely criticism of our culture. Either way people have the right to do it, and plenty of reasons.
I do not think Flag Burning is all that impressive a form of protest, but to the concerned politicians out there: keep working on it! With a few more laws in place, Flag Burning could be the form of protest in our “New America”. You play right into their hands with this one. Are you trying to make this a self contained act? They can burn flags as a protest over Flag Burning laws!
People should be able to buy and burn whatever material they please-until it becomes an environmental hazard. They should be able to shred the flag, spit on it, do whatever they wish with this piece of material. No symbol is so great as to imbue people who buy it with reponsibility for its care! You can buy a TV and break it with a bat but if you buy a flag you have to be careful, because it is against the law to tarnish it? How insane is that, and that this is what our elected officials spend their time in office debating?
They try hard to protect the symbol in its material form while they ravage everything it stands for. They are more interested in protecting a piece of cloth than a man’s rights. Maybe the people who are burning flags are just trying to reflect back to politicians what they have been doing with their policies all along. I guess they just can’t handle the criticism.