This merely indicates that you have never read or listened to those people from the U.S. who have actually engaged in flag burning. Your interpretation appears to be based on the sort of wishful thinking associated with the “love it or leave it crowd” (who generally never understood what the protestors were actually saying and so invented things to believe about the protestors).*
While there have been tiny numbers of people who very possibly wished for the annihilation of the American people, the overwhelming majority of the flag-burners I have met or whose words I have read or heard wished to protest the actions of the government and change the hearts of the people who supported that government. They may have been deluded or loonies or simply very angry, but they were not looking to inflict death.
(Obviously, the ignorant extremes on both sides were capable of imagining the worst about their foes and both sides had their share of loonies, but the responsible and thoughtful people in those discussions could not be characterized as either “love it or leave it” loonies or as “burn it down” kooks.)
Ya’ll can argue the legal aspects until hell freezes over. The people visiting the monument are there to honor the dead. Spitting on the wall is the same as spitting on the memory of those people. You might as well spit on the Ka’bah during Ramadan.
<nitpick>Key was inspired by watching the bombardment of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. Fort McKinley is just outside of Baltimore, MD.</nitpick>
There is no need to protect popular speech. Freedom of Speech is there for the very reason to protect speech that is unpopular. Spitting on the VN Memorial is vandalism, is a public sanitation issue and all that. Burning a flag is not.
Even in the spitting on the Memorial issue, the system needs to be spring-loaded in the ‘allow’ position. To do otherwise would be to allow the blue-stockinged majority to stifle dissent.
Is it speech, though. I think that is the essential question. And I don’t think for one second that burning a flag is speech. It is conduct, same as spitting on a monument or burning a cross.
And legislation in DC, where I work, bans spitting on a monument. A Supreme Court decision held that a law passed by my own Virginia lawmakers banning cross burning was constitutional. Clearly some conduct of this nature can be banned with no constitutional qualms, can’t it?
If it conveys a political idea at all, and I think it does, it does so in a very crude and inarticulate way. Banning such conduct may still preserve free speech since the power to clearly express an articulate dissenting view is not infringed.
And are you stuck on the consideration that conduct must be excused if it makes any kind of political point?
How is genuine freedom of speech imperiled if flag burning is banned. People can still express displeasure and even anger with American society and the American government, and can do so in many ways. They simply cannot do so in that particular way, which didn’t in and of itself convey any reasons for such displeasure anyway.
We ban cross burning and spitting on monuments and public defecation and all manner of conduct, even if such conduct is for the purpose of making a political point. We have drawn a line of what constitutes acceptable political discourse in this country. For years, flag burning was on the illicit side of that line. Now it is permitted, though that change was hugely contrary to the popular will.
That shift seems a bit arbitrary to me, and it seems that it would have been better to have left things alone, and left the local flag desecration laws stand. The rarity of prosecution of this offense, and indeed the rarity of its commission, indicates to me that these were popular laws that were working, and that violated nobody’s rights.
You don’t have a right to intimidate someone with a cross burning. You don’t have a right to vandalize a monument intended to last for centuries. You do have a right to buy something and burn it. You do not have a right to stop someone from burning something that they own just because it offends you, reasonable public safety concerns excepted.
Yes, actually, since that’s the entire fucking basis of the First Amendment. To prevent people like you from shutting down speech they don’t like.
Doesn’t matter.
You keep throwing up this stupid strawman, even though it’s been refuted time and time and time and time again. I know righties go by that whole “repeat a lie a thousand times and it becomes truth” thing, but give it a rest.
Nobody wants a specific exemption for burning flags. If you make a law that says you can’t have any open fires on the Mall and it’s universally enforced, you don’t get to burn a flag there, either. But if you are allowed to generally burn things, you can’t specifically ban burning the flag. That’s why you people want to get a Constitutional amendment - that way you can carry on with your anti-free speech crusade.
What of it? For years, integration was on the illicit side of that line, too. Now it is permitted, though that change was hugely contrary to the popular will.
You know what, civil liberties are not, nor should they be, subject to popular will. They need to be safeguarded with zeal, especially when the speech is unpopular and offensive.
No, the local laws should not have been left to stand. They are infringements on civil liberties and need to be struck down.
Just because it is a popular law does not mean it is constitutional. Nor does it mean it is right.
How is genuine freedom of speech imperiled if calling the president a goat-felcher is banned? People can still express displeasure and even anger with American society and the American government, and can do so in many ways. They simply cannot do so in that particular way, which didn’t in and of itself convey any reasons for such displeasure anyway.
Did I miss the law that bans cross burning? Obviously I can’t erect a cross on your lawn and burn it, but it’s certainly legal for me to burn a cross in my fireplace. As it should be legal to burn a flag in my fireplace.
By stating this, you have no ground to stand on when you accuse Neurotik of making your words into a strawman. His words is an accurate summery of your own.
Because that is speech, and speech is clearly covered by the First Amendment. That amendment is less clear on the subject of conduct such as burning and spitting.