Okay, raoulortega said
Well, no message exactly, but here comes a possible message.
When I was a Cub Scout, I attended a couple of flag-burning ceremonies with my pack. I was given to understand that when an American flag becomes worn, dirty, and tattered, the only proper method of taking it out of service is to dispose of it in a suitably reverent cremation ceremony. The ones I attended as a Cub Scout were quite reverent. Color guard, bugler playing “Taps,” all marshmallow toasting confined to the secondary, or “non-flag” fire :D, the whole nine yards. The point is, you don’t sew, or patch, or re-weave, or dry-clean, or launder an American flag.
Here’s where I get into some extrapolation that may bring this post on-topic. I see no reason why such a reverent, ceremonious cremation could not be appropriately carried out by any private citizen, or any group. Let’s have a hypothetical. I like to fly Old Glory on the flagpole in my back yard while I barbecue on the Fourth of July. So, after the cookout, the neighbors and I set off our neighborhood-sized collection of safe and sane fireworks (and a couple of dozen bottle rockets that my father-in-law brought back from Singapore). One of the bottle rockets gets blown off course by a gust of wind, and flies smack into the flag, in which it gets enshrouded, eventually being smothered due to lack of oxygen, but not before it puts some nasty burns in the fabric. Obviously, the only thing to be done is to hold a suitably reverent flag-burning ceremony.
So, on a suitably reverent day, I hold one. Then I go to the hardware store and buy another flag. Labor Day comes along, so I hoist the ensign again, and go to light the barbecue. OOPS! I’m all out of propane! So I fling the tank into my car and motor over to the local U-Haul outlet to have it filled up. But U-Haul is closed on Labor Day. So, I wander through the back roads of the county until I find a place that fills propane tanks. Meanwhile, some skinheads (who just started moving into the neighborhood in August) are cruising around, looking for some trouble to cause. They hop the fence into my back yard, steal all of the beer from my cooler, and just to show some extra contempt for my property, they piss in my vegetable garden, crap in my hot tub, and take turns wiping their asses on my American flag, which they then raise up the flagpole again. They’re gone by the time I get home. What is there for me to do (with the besmirched flag) but hold another reverent flag-burning ceremony?
So, what is it that the pinko commie bastards who burn the flag in a demonstration in MacArthur Park saying? Simply this: The United States Government, by (insert government action being protested here), has befouled and besmirched the American Flag and has defecated upon every ideal and principle that this flag stands for. Our action in burning this flag, is the appropriate method for disposing an American Flag that has been thus rendered unfit to be flown.
[DISCLAIMER]The above (except for my Cub Scout reminiscences)is entirely hypothetical. I don’t really have my own house, a back yard large enough for a hot tub, a hot tub, a flagpole, an American flag, a living father-in-law, a vegetable garden, a local gang of recently arrived skinheads, or a cooler. And there really aren’t any backroads in my county that would reward a search for propane.[/DISCLAIMER]
Now thats a way to stop flag burning