It's that time of year again--Flag Burnin' Time!

Great Debates
21

**Because some “leftist-liberal” wants to burn the flag doesn’t mean I hate this country… **

But it means the liberal does?

The fact that I can disagree, can express myself in outrage at times, etc., is WHY I love this country.

But when someone else expresses themselves, its proof they must hate it?

Did someone actually say they hated this country? Or are you assuming? In the same way I was mockingly assuming you hated this country, because you were angry.

I was sure the “na na, na na na” at the end of my mock would imply its sarcastic nature.
I could be wrong…it happend once before…

22

I think it’s quite clear that the First Amendment protects political speech, and that that speech can be either verbal (e.g. “I hate the United States”) or nonverbal (e.g. “I am demonstrating that I hate the United States by burning its flag”).

If you’re damn fool enough to be hateful toward the United States and demonstrate it by burning its flag, I’m sorry for you. Go ahead and burn it. See who is going to listen to you.You won’t make friends for your cause, only more enemies. Make your pathetic little demonstration and then go home and live your sad little life.

By the way, here in Spain burning the Spanish flag is illegal acording to the Constitution. I don’t notice a lack of freedom in political discussion because of this law, since the Communists have seats in Parliament and the pro-ETA political party would have seats if they hadn’t boycotted the latest election. The radical right has zero seats, in case you’re interested.

23

As Otto mentioned, the Senate defeated the flag-burning amendment by 4 votes. :smiley:

If you’d like, you can fax yer senators to say “Thanks” or “Shame on you” by following http://www.aclu.org/congress/flag.html
]this link.

Your Quadell

24

The Canadian sees a loophole: the advantage of this is that it could be interpreted to mean that since you are pledging allegiance to a republic with liberty and justice for all, that means that if it isn’t dispensing same, you no longer owe it allegiance.

I’m so happy I never had to recite a pledge of allegiance. I wouldn’t have been very happy saluting the Queen every damn day.

25

Although Thomas Jefferson wasn’t specifically talking about flag-burning in his first inaugural adress, the words he said defends the practice eloquently.

26

Hmm my teacher told the class to “show some respect” the first few times no one said the pledge of alliegance. Then of course he got tired of it. :slight_smile: