Should Flag Burning Be Illegal?

[Gemini Soul]

It's like people fail to see the obvious point that being deeply offended by flag burning, is the intended result. They are offending you on purpose, in order to show how strongly they feel about an issue.

1000% Agree, I'm surprised we haven't gotten a case of "Teacher burns country flag in front of class and gets awarded for it"

[Caolela]

1000% Agree, I'm surprised we haven't gotten a case of "Teacher burns country flag in front of class and gets awarded for it"

The way this place has been going for the last 15 years, I'd probably be the first in line to hand them the award.

[McFuu]

I'm American and was in the military.

You're talking brainwashed, jingoistic horseshit. The same kind of knee-jerk nationalism that every right-wing authoritarian shithole has ever done.

When you join the military, you take an oath to the Constitution - to protect it against all enemies foreign and domestic - which means anyone that's trying to subvert those principles, not someone that's protesting their gov'ts asshattery.

Not an oath to any flag, commander, army or navy, politician, or political party. Hopefully you're expected to have brains enough to know the difference.

Maybe if you weren't such simple-minded fool you'd realize that getting to stand around the flight-line in another country and watch coffins with your fellow brothers and sisters get loaded on to the plane home and your last real impression of them is the American flag, or maybe try going to someone's funeral where you watch the entire time that person's wife or mother is holding it together as best as they can until they are handed the folded flag and they lose it.
Try putting yourself in the shoes of that same mother as they get to watch some loud-mouthed liberal retard burn the flag because because they think $15 an hour is a good wage for unskilled burger flipping.

I'm not advocating making flag burning illegal. I'm advocating doing it for the right reasons, in a reasonable, respectable manor. Just because it's "just a flag" to you doesn't invalidate that other people will hold the flag in a certain amount of reverence.

Like I said earlier, your freedom to burn the flag can also get you attacked. The law of the country which protects your freedom, also gives a reasonable defense to any person you incite with your disrespectful show of patriotism.

infracted - minor flaming

[Deleted]

The flag represents the values of the nation. It's more than the cloth it was sewn out of.
It represents the nation, its culture, its history, its hardships and its glories.

Criticize and scrutinize the government, that's fair. That's the right of the people to free speech. Shit on the nation's values by burning their flag and you should be put under scrutiny.
A government can be replaced given enough scrutiny by the people. A nation can be.. replaced too? The point being that the integrity of the nation state will crumble if it doesn't have the support of the people. Have enough people undermining the nation state by burning its flag and you will have opportunistic revolutionaries tear up the nation or melt it into a pseudo-superstate, jeopardizing its people.
Yes, I am presenting a slippery slope argument. That was how the Arab Spring started, after all.

What keeps the nation state strong is patriotism and a love for its values.

[Tijuana]

The flag represents the values of the nation. It's more than the cloth it was sewn out of.
It represents the nation, its culture, its history, its hardships and its glories.

Criticize and scrutinize the government, that's fair. That's the right of the people to free speech. Shit on the nation's values by burning their flag and you should be put under scrutiny.
A government can be replaced given enough scrutiny by the people. A nation can be.. replaced too? The point being that the integrity of the nation state will crumble if it doesn't have the support of the people. Have enough people undermining the nation state by burning its flag and you will have opportunistic revolutionaries tear up the nation or melt it into a pseudo-superstate, jeopardizing its people.

What keeps the nation state strong is patriotism and a love for its values.

I see your side but, I think that as long as flag burning goes on, and as long as it pisses everyone off, we have not yet reached a level of apathy you describe. As long as there are those who hold the flag in high regard, patriotism is still alive and well. When flag burning no longer deeply offends people, that is when I will begin to worry.

[Deleted]

I see your side but, I think that as long as flag burning goes on, and as long as it pisses everyone off, we have not yet reached a level of apathy you describe. As long as there are those who hold the flag in high regard, patriotism is still alive and well. When flag burning no longer deeply offends people, that is when I will begin to worry.

Indeed, and it won't happen to the US because the flag burnings can be attributed to one politician. It's just dumb and potentially dangerous, I think.

[Caolela]

Maybe if you weren't such simple-minded fool you'd realize that getting to stand around the flight-line in another country and watch coffins with your fellow brothers and sisters get loaded on to the plane home and your last real impression of them is the American flag, or maybe try going to someone's funeral where you watch the entire time that person's wife or mother is holding it together as best as they can until they are handed the folded flag and they lose it.
Try putting yourself in the shoes of that same mother as they get to watch some loud-mouthed liberal retard burn the flag because because they think $15 an hour is a good wage for unskilled burger flipping.

I'm not advocating making flag burning illegal. I'm advocating doing it for the right reasons, in a reasonable, respectable manor. Just because it's "just a flag" to you doesn't invalidate that other people will hold the flag in a certain amount of reverence.

Like I said earlier, your freedom to burn the flag can also get you attacked. The law of the country which protects your freedom, also gives a reasonable defense to any person you incite with your disrespectful show of patriotism.

News for you: I've participated in official U.S. Army funeral details (as a member of firing squads or pallbearers) where military funerals were given for veterans and we handed folded flags to widows and families of the deceased. I've had family killed or permanently disabled in idiotic U.S. wars, including Korea and Vietnam, and who've been harassed, beaten or arrested by the gov't that they were lawfully and rightfully protesting.

Don't tell me about being in anyone's shoes. I've been on every side of it.

But I don't want to hear this faux-patriotism spewed from knee-jerk "Support R Troopies!" "Thank Yew for Yer Service!" brainless, bullshit sloganeering that is peddled at every high school or sporting event now to prop up unconstitutional, imperialist, interventionist conflicts among the people.

A flag is merely a symbol or a marker. They are not sacred and don't possess some holy or magical power. They can be used for anything from honoring a military event or person, to representing a nation or state, to protesting that same gov't for the unconstitutional or illegal acts it may have committed, or policies, politicians or institutions that you oppose.

Any citizen can hoist it and salute it or spit on or burn it because that's their right under the law.

[McFuu]

News for you: I've participated in official U.S. Army funeral details (as a member of firing squads or pallbearers) where military funerals were given for veterans and we handed folded flags to widows and families of the deceased. I've had family killed or permanently disabled in idiotic U.S. wars, including Korea and Vietnam, and who've been harassed, beaten or arrested by the gov't that they were lawfully and rightfully protesting.

Don't tell me about being in anyone's shoes. I've been on every side of it.

But I don't want to hear this faux-patriotism spewed from knee-jerk "Support R Troopies!" "Thank Yew for Yer Service!" brainless, bullshit sloganeering that is peddled at every high school or sporting event now to prop up unconstitutional, imperialist, interventionist conflicts among the people.

A flag is merely a symbol or a marker. They are not sacred and don't possess some holy or magical power. They can be used for anything from honoring a military event or person, to representing a nation or state, to protesting that same gov't for the unconstitutional or illegal acts it may have committed, or policies, politicians or institutions that you oppose.

Any citizen can hoist it and salute it or spit on or burn it because that's their right under the law.

So basically you are admitting to be so unfeeling of other people and apathetic to other people's motivations that you at best fall on the autism spectrum and at worst you are a pure sociopath.

You are a fanboy of ignorance.

infracted - minor flaming

[Caolela]

So basically you are admitting to be so unfeeling of other people and empathetic to other people's motivations that you at best fall on the autism spectrum and at worst you are a pure sociopath.

You are a fanboy of ignorance.

Basically no, I'm not admitting to any of that. Sorry to disappoint you.

[Yseraboy]

Try putting yourself in the shoes of that same mother as they get to watch some loud-mouthed liberal retard burn the flag because because they think $15 an hour is a good wage for unskilled burger flipping.

I'm not advocating making flag burning illegal. I'm advocating doing it for the right reasons, in a reasonable, respectable manor. Just because it's "just a flag" to you doesn't invalidate that other people will hold the flag in a certain amount of reverence.

Like I said earlier, your freedom to burn the flag can also get you attacked. The law of the country which protects your freedom, also gives a reasonable defense to any person you incite with your disrespectful show of patriotism.

Wow, where to begin.

1. You mean like trying to put myself in the place of the mother listening to the loud-mouthed conservatives from Westboro Baptist Church, waving signs that your son was killed because God hates gays?

2. You don't want to make it illegal if it was done for the "right reasons", and in a "respectful manner". You're gonna have to elaborate on that for me, if you haven't gotten too many minor infractions already. ;0

3. What law gives a "reasonable" defense to someone attacking me? I can't imagine a successful plea of 'temporary insanity' due to witnessing a flag being burned a) for the wrong reasons, and/or b) in a disrespectful manner.

[McFuu]

Basically no, I'm not admitting to any of that. Sorry to disappoint you.

Maybe you might want to go back and read the part where you state the flag is just cloth and where you inferred that anyone who sees the flag differently than yourself is jingoistic, which is a whole slew of insults in itself.
When presented with the idea that maybe you've never been presented with a situation where you could see that too some people the flag isnt just pretty cloth, you say you have first hand experience. Which brings up 2 possible conclusions. You are normal, but you are a liar.
Or you can't empathize with people because of an undiagnosed issue. Take a page from Patrick Bateman, if you can't actually feel you have to pretend.
You are simply so absorbed in your own ignorance that people other than yourself simply can't have opinion. Hence you being a fanboy of ignorance.

[wowaccounttom]

i could have sworn someone told me flag burning was illegal on the us.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Those poll results might be surprising to some, since Liberals tend to be anti-America. However, I think the desire (by Liberals) to exert authoritarianism upon others is clearly shown here.

Personally, I could not be more against flag burning becoming illegal. It's a free speech right, as established by the SCOTUS, in a great brief by Scalia.

It's funny that you didn't even read who is against flag burning. It's all conservatives in this thread who want to jail people for flag burning. Perhaps you should read the thread rather than assuming the political leaning of an anonymous poll's answers.

[McFuu]

Wow, where to begin.

1. You mean like trying to put myself in the place of the mother listening to the loud-mouthed conservatives from Westboro Baptist Church, waving signs that your son was killed because God hates gays?

2. You don't want to make it illegal if it was done for the "right reasons", and in a "respectful manner". You're gonna have to elaborate on that for me, if you haven't gotten too many minor infractions already. ;0

3. What law gives a "reasonable" defense to someone attacking me? I can't imagine a successful plea of 'temporary insanity' due to witnessing a flag being burned a) for the wrong reasons, and/or b) in a disrespectful manner.

1. Absolutely, they are a group of assholes too.

2. I said flag burning should be legal, and I've never moved from that stance. I warn that burning the flag and being generally disrespectful about it will turn more people against your cause. Also burning the flag for any old reason, like the teacher who stood on the flag in class because he felt like it, is going to turn flag burning into a meaningless gesture that will get you immediately labeled negatively.

3. Self-defense covers being incited into violence. And yes claiming self defense against incitement is a proper defense, it's the same as self defense against actual violence its covered under the same statute. And before you go pulling up fighting words which knocked down specifically flag burning, that's referring to flag burning as an offense, a back door way of making flag burning illegal.

You are also counting on a police force to actually arrest an individual who they will likely be sympathetic with, a prosecutor to bring charges against someone who clearly has a defense, and a jury to convict someone who will not find the plaintiff sympathetic.

[Caolela]

Maybe you might want to go back and read the part where you state the flag is just cloth and where you inferred that anyone who sees the flag differently than yourself is jingoistic, which is a whole slew of insults in itself.
When presented with the idea that maybe you've never been presented with a situation where you could see that too some people the flag isnt just pretty cloth, you say you have first hand experience. Which brings up 2 possible conclusions. You are normal, but you are a liar.
Or you can't empathize with people because of an undiagnosed issue. Take a page from Patrick Bateman, if you can't actually feel you have to pretend.
You are simply so absorbed in your own ignorance that people other than yourself simply can't have opinion. Hence you being a fanboy of ignorance.

I did not "state the flag is just cloth". I said it's a symbol or marker and it has its purpose. Keep pulling stuff out of your ass though to try justifying a need to think that your own country is always best and support needless, illegal wars against others.

[Caolela]

The supreme court has alright decided on this. So we're gonna go back to mob justice now?

It's just tossing red meat to the half-witted Trumpsters to keep them wound up.

Same shit Tricky Dick pulled 40+ years ago.

[lavaalamp]

it's a piece of cloth. It has no meaning but your own. If you're upset about flag burning you may have some Mental issues to sort out.

Pull the Stick out of your ass and Don't be so triggered. We have a Word for those types....babies.

It should be Legal, and Stay legal.

[TheramoreIsTheBomb]

No. In fact, lets get rid of the Pledge of Allegiance too. We shouldn't have to pledge anything to a democratic republic.

[McFuu]

I did not "state the flag is just cloth". I said it's a symbol or marker and it has its purpose. Keep pulling stuff out of your ass though to try justifying a need to think that your own country is always best and support needless, illegal wars against others.

No you didn't, you implied it was meaningless, you can go back on what you said or man up.

You're also applying to me that I hold the flag up in some patriotic way, which I've never come close to even imply the flag to me is some kind of representation of my love for imperialistic America. You should be able to figure out how I view the flag from my posts.
Like I said earlier you believe that your opinion is the only valid one and there are no other options or viewpoints.

[Caolela]

No you didn't, you implied it was meaningless, you can go back on what you said or man up.

You're also applying to me that I hold the flag up in some patriotic way, which I've never come close to even imply the flag to me is some kind of representation of my love for imperialistic America. You should be able to figure out how I view the flag from my posts.
Like I said earlier you believe that your opinion is the only valid one and there are no other options or viewpoints.

Anyone can go read what I posted. You've invented a lot of crap here but your shtick is getting old.