is it true now people can burn the usa flag?

[270winchester]

Heck me too...the Bay Area nevertheless. You just learn to remember who they are and kick them in the nuts when no one is looking....

 

[ikendu]

...is it true?

It has been legal to burn the U.S. flag ever since the founding of our republic and the creation of our constitution. It was legal while George Washington was President.

I can not see myself ever burning a U.S. flag.

I am proud that I live in a country where people can freely express their opinions without fear of imprisonment or persecution. That includes burning the flag. Many people have died to preserve that freedom of expression.

Our freedoms can be taken away, one by one, by well meaning people until there are so few left that we are no longer free. I feel far more threatened by the erosion of freedom than by someone that may decide to burn the flag to illustrate a point.

 

[RadarGreg]

Raggie, I think you have little to worry that your neighbors will climb up your flagpole and set it alight. Perhaps we as Americans put too much emphasis on our National flag, but I still stand at attention when one passes or is raised (I'm an Army Vet). It mostly annoys me when I see people burning our flag, but I appreciate the freedom we have that alows it. Some places I've been burning a flag, or lesser infractions, would earn you years in prison or long drop from a short rope. I think the flag burning crowd does it mainly to get our goat. When you burn an American flag, you get an immediate reaction from nearly anyone in the world, good or bad. What happens when you burn a Saudi Arabian or North Korean flag? Perhaps bewildered stares and a pile of ashes. Both do that in either of the aforementioned countries and you will most likely get a firsthand experience of their penal system. Freedom isn't free and beware of the zealots that would take away those freedoms.

 

[GJW]

Heck me too...the Bay Area nevertheless. You just learn to remember who they are and kick them in the nuts when no one is looking....

I'd bet that in the Bay Area we could be arrested for a hate crime if we tried buring a "rainbow" flag.
I shudder to think about what would happen to someone burning a Koran.
:devil:

 

[BB]

Here is the last, national story, on flag burning that I saw:

Thursday, July 28, 2005

Two Fairfield juveniles are facing felony charges in an arson involving American flags at the home of a dead soldiers' in-laws a day after his funeral.

Police said Thursday they arrested and charged the 15-year-old and 13-year-old boys who live near the Sando Drive home each with fourth-degree felonious arson.

The teens, who police said admitted their involvement in the Saturday morning arson, were released to their parents.

The arson at the home of the Wessel family came one day after the funeral of Army Pfc. Tim Hines Jr., who died July 14 from injuries suffered while serving in Iraq. The family of Hines' widow lives at the home involved in the arson.

And the actual charges:

The two teen-age boys charged with setting fire to American flags under a car on Sando Drive on July 23 will be before a Butler County juvenile magistrate Wednesday

Fairfield police said the boys, 15 and 13, admitted to the arson, a fourth-degree felony, in front of the in-laws of Pfc. Timothy Hines Jr., who died from injuries suffered in Baghdad on Father's Day.

The boys are also charged with two criminal mischief misdemeanors for other vandalism acts committed before the arson, police said.

Jim Wessel, Hines' father-in-law, asked the community to show restraint with the teen-agers.

"We ask the community to show no animosity toward the accused and their families," Wessel said last week while reading from a prepared statement.

The teens were unaware of the significance of the flags, said Fairfield police Lt. Ken Colburn.

And the general information on Remembering Tim Hines.

Some people are just "Stuck on Stupid."

-Bill

 

[BB]

Well, we know what happens when the "fake but accurate" news hounds talk about flushing the Koran, 15 people die...

-Bill

PS: But, I guess, it is OK if the Koran is in or around a Mosque when it is burned. -BB

 

[270winchester]

I'd bet that in the Bay Area we could be arrested for a hate crime if we tried buring a "rainbow" flag.
I shudder to think about what would happen to someone burning a Koran.
:devil:

I would imagine so.

I mean, we do live in an area where in a school paid for by the tax payers, Palestinian and muslim students can gang up and threat College Republicans, who were doing nothing more than tabling on campus, with physical harm, intimidation of force, and threat to bomb the American students and still be considered protected under the first amendment while chanting "down with America"...

I honestly live in fear in my school(US Berkeley) because I'm not a left-wing a-hole that goes along with whatever the ignorant, spoiled students are in mood to support for, so I became the target quite a few times just by saying I don't like suicide bombers and that the Israeli police has the right to profile and segeragate to protect themselves...boy did get s**t for saying that....

I just think most people in the Bay Area need a good, uh, information session from the rest of us....

 

[BentHeadTX]

Many years ago a missionary told the congregation that many bibles smuggled into the Soviet Union were used as rolling paper. Some people were horrified by this but the missionary did not have a problem with it. His thoughts were bibles were the form of communication and not a "holy" item. If the book were somehow thought of as something different, it would be a graven image or idol which is not the point. It is the message and ideas contained within that means something, not the physical item itself.

I don't burn flags (unless they are soiled) but if you buy one, it is your to play with. If you take someone else's... that makes you a thief and you will be delt with. If something is burned as a protest and was purchased by the protesters... it is just a thing and loses it's symbolic nature. Personally, I was given a flag that has meaning to me. It will never fly and remain folded.

Now the made in China cheapie flags that protesters burn around the world? If it makes them feel better or they think it gets me mad to see it burn... they are mistaken. I do find it ironic that they would protest something that gives them the right to protest. As far as protesting students go... the people with the most complain the most. Stupid is as stupid does.

 

[matt_j]

http://www.trinity.edu/tsiebold/funnies/priceless2.jpg

Unauthorized hotlinked image converted to a link - Empath

 

[bindibadgi]

LMAO!

 

[Big_Ed]

Talk about swift justice!

 

[this_is_nascar]

A flag is a symbol for something and not that thing. The USA Flag is a symbol of this great nation and the freedoms and responsibilities it engenders. It is not the freedom or the responsibility. If someone burns an US Flag, I don't mind, nor do I get angry at them. They are operating within their limited reality and are doing so with an intent to make a statement. What that statement is, I don't know, but a statement nonetheless. By destroying a symbol of the USA, they are not destroying the USA. Forgive them and move on. That is my action when I see that.

While I would never want to belittle your opinion, I hope you do realize that many have died to give the right to others that allow them to legally burn the flag. I don't understand how you don't get upset when someone burns the flag for any reason other than proper disposal. Yes, they have the right to, but that doesn't mean they should.

 

[tb2776]

America is a difficult place to live. You have to respect another person's action of burning the flag because it is a Constitutional right to freedom of expression and speech.

That is what makes this country unique and special.

 

[Empath]

Judging from the garb worn in the image, I'd suspect that the picture wasn't taken in the U.S. Relative to Raggie's question, even a constitutional amendment against it wouldn't apply on foreign soil. Only that countries' laws would apply.

Raggie's question was a reasonable question. It can be answered and discussed in a reasonable fashion. As a matter of suggestion, keep in mind that the more intense your posts become, the nearer it comes to unacceptable. There's been rather limited suggestion of violence, and fortunately no significant personal dispute against one another over differences of opinion. It has the potential to become otherwise. Hopefully, we'll keep it that way.

 

[PhotonWrangler]

Funny! But WHERE did he find gasoline for $2.00?!!

 

[Brangdon]

In the UK, we aren't nearly as uptight if someone burns a Union Jack, and as a result it very rarely happens.

Which would you guys think is worse: burning your flag or burning your President in effigy? (Replace "President" with some politician you actually like, if appropriate.)

I think here, burning in effigy is worse, because it is hate directed at a real person rather than an abstraction.

 

[Roy]

When all is said and done, a flag is nothing more than a piece of colored cloth! It becomes a symbol when people attach some importance to the flag....good or bad...your choice. In the end, it is still nothing more than a piece of cloth. Some individual flags have some historical importance due to their involment in historical events.

Before anyone jumps me about my view of a flag.....I spent 15.5 years in the US Army (SFC) defending our right to have an opinon.