Anti-American? - Flag burning is

Anti-American? - Flag burning is like abortion - I believe one thing in my heart - and think our society may just need to do another thing.

A Small Victory has a take on the issue, in the context of yesterday's anti-war anti-liberation Pro-Hussein Anti-"occupation" rallies:

Debate is healthy. Even protests can be a great form of getting a collective voice heard. And we all have the right to hate the president, challenge his ideology or scream at the top of our lungs that his policies are unfair. But don't stand there and tell me that I'm wrong for calling these people anti-American. When you burn the flag, that automatically puts you in the position of being against the country. It is an act of defiance, an act of hatred. When one burns an effigy of a person, they are, in essence, burning that person. So when one burns a symbol it would have to be assumed that you are burning what that symbols represents. Oh, I'm not saying that the flag-burners don't have a right to their views. I'm not even saying that they are bad people for burning the flag. I just want them to be honest, and I want the people who defend them to be honest. They are anti-Americans. "

My head - especially the part that wonders about how you govern a country of nearly 300 million people and maintain a First Amendment - knows you have to allow it, and opposes any attempt to regulate it.

My heart notices that so many flag-burners will respond "It's just a symbol, a piece of cloth!" The next time I hear this, I'm going to say "Damned straight it's a symbol. An upturned middle finger is just a symbol, an ounce of bone and skin. A swastika is just symbol - eight black lines on fabric. No Irish Need Apply and No Coloreds were just symbols - ink on signs. So do symbols still not have meaning?"

I wonder - would it break the law to go to a protest with a fire extinguisher, and put out any burning flags? And when the mob of fly-bitten miscreants attacked, sue them for civil rights violations?

After all - if fire is speech, so is a fire extinguisher. Right?

Posted by Mitch at October 27, 2003 06:00 AM