Quote:In theory burning a flag is free speech and should be allowed.  The problem with burning the flag is most people are only doing it to incite violence and to try to make a certain segment of people mad.  It's no different than someone using racist language to a group of people to make them mad to incite violence. 

 

You now see burning of a flag done when members of both sides are clashing.  It provides a tense environment, puts police, people, the community in a more dangerous place.  If you can prevent these types of things from happening why wouldn't you?  If it was done during a peaceful protest that's one thing, but most people burning flags aren't doing it during those times.

All of this. I couldn't have said it better. And a peaceful protest is going to turn ugly when folks start burning flags. 

 

As a veteran I would like it is people wouldn't burn the flag or otherwise be disrespected. Too many people have paid the ultimate price for it to be used for purposes other than it's orginal intention. And I don't mean the flag just in it's material form but it's true symbolic form or original reason for it's existence. From wlkipedia: 

 

"The flag of the United States of America, often referred to as the American flag, is the national flag of the United States of America. It consists of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red (top and bottom) alternating with white, with a blue rectangle in the canton (referred to specifically as the "union") bearing fifty small, white, five-pointed stars arranged in nine offset horizontal rows, where rows of six stars (top and bottom) alternate with rows of five stars. The 50 stars on the flag represent the 50 states of the United States of America, and the 13 stripes represent the thirteen British colonies that declared independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain, and became the first states in the US."
There is nothing oppressive about that. 

 

It's sad that the flag, or anything for that matter, can have it's true use, meaning, etc., twisted into something completely different to where it's not recognizable anymore. I've heard people say in the last couple of years that the American flag is about the oppression of minorities. Where on earth did that come from? It's not a symbol of oppression, people choose to use it as such and still others see as such. If the misuse of a symbol trumps its original meaning, then the swastika, a symbol used by Hindus would forever be tarnished by the Nazis, which in most ways it certainly has been. Yet the (swastika) symbol adorns many temples in India and no one calls them Nazis (but this could be that not many people know about it, or perhaps don't care.) 

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