FLAG burning being challenged by Trump

[Teamless]

Legal - yes
Right - no

[allisji]

I think anyone should be able to burn the flag if they get a background check,submit fingerprints and get a $200 tax stamp that will take 18 months to get.

That's a good point, how do we know that these people aren't communist sympathizers or Russian spies?

[bjrichus]

There are so many posts on this thread that I'd give a "thumbs up" or "like" (on Facebook) or whatever, but can't on here. Oh well, you know what I mean.

[equin]

I believe it is legal as protected speech (as long as it's not someone else's), but I also believe it is morally wrong and offensive.

However, when researching the proper etiquette in respectfully retiring or disposing of a torn or tattered flag, I discovered that burning it in a solemn ceremony is the way to do so, much to my surprise. In fact, a good friend, Vietnam Vet, retired pastor and Anerican patriot holds a flag retiring ceremony by burning it while saying the Pledge of Allegiance. So I think it's important to distinguish between the two acts (flag burning protest vs flag retiring ceremony).

[treadlightly]

I voted for it being legal but my answer is complex.

It should be illegal to incite violence, and laws against burning things in general should be obeyed. If it's not legal to start a campfire on the courthouse steps, it's not legal to burn a flag there.

In the present context, burning an American flag is an act of willfully ignorant disrespect. Anyone who does so earns my contempt.

Anyone who does so in the sight of a veteran is reprehensible.

I don't have to like a moron to support his rights, though, at least in principle. In practice I'd be a lot more likely to help save the flag than debate Voltaire's defense to the death of the disagreeable. My philosophical purity probably wavers in the light of how I was raised by a caring Mom and a World War II veteran. I can live with that.

[gringo pistolero]

Flag burning should be treated the same as cross burning and political effigy burning. If one is legal the others should be too. I'm flexible on which way it falls, but let's be consistent across the board.

In either case, actual speech should be protected by the First Amendment. No hate speech laws. No anti-cussing laws. The founders gave us clear examples how to deal with foreign and domestic enemies of the US Constitution.

[KD5NRH]

Freedom is messy, with freedoms will come things we don't like. Does not mean it should be illegal. Flag burning while heinous, should be legal. Now being charged with an uncontrolled fire because you are recklessly burning the flag or there is a burn ban during a drought or something like that would be another matter.

Agreed....and I wouldn't mind seeing a law that provides some serious and disproportionate Federal penalties for theft and/or criminal mischief if the property in question happens to be or include a US flag, military uniform, or other patriotic or religious symbol. Do what you want with your own stuff, but when it's somebody else's stuff, I have no problem with enhancing the penalties to reflect the item's sentimental value to the owner.

[dale blanker]

Hey, if a guy chooses to burn a flag that he owns and does not cause damage to someone else's property, then so what? Well, so he's obviously an idiot, not worth getting excited about. But suggesting that he should be jailed or lose his citizenship is beyond the pale, i.e. even dumber yet. I'm afraid our common sense is in decline.

[Bitter Clinger]

Just because it's a First Amendment Right, that doesn't make it right!

[mojo84]

Hey, if a guy chooses to burn a flag that he owns and does not cause damage to someone else's property, then so what? Well, so he's obviously an idiot, not worth getting excited about. But suggesting that he should be jailed or lose his citizenship is beyond the pale, i.e. even dumber yet. I'm afraid our common sense is in decline.

Do you believe a person can legally burn whatever they want on a public street or sidewalk as long as it's their own property they are burning? What about burning one's car, a pile of clothes or other items in protest?

[KD5NRH]

What about burning one's car, a pile of clothes or other items in protest?

Depends; does she really need that bra?

[parabelum]

Hey, if a guy chooses to burn a flag that he owns and does not cause damage to someone else's property, then so what? Well, so he's obviously an idiot, not worth getting excited about. But suggesting that he should be jailed or lose his citizenship is beyond the pale, i.e. even dumber yet. I'm afraid our common sense is in decline.

Do you believe a person can legally burn whatever they want on a public street or sidewalk as long as it's their own property they are burning? What about burning one's car, a pile of clothes or other items in protest?

I thought leftists were against pollution.

[dale blanker]

Hey, if a guy chooses to burn a flag that he owns and does not cause damage to someone else's property, then so what? Well, so he's obviously an idiot, not worth getting excited about. But suggesting that he should be jailed or lose his citizenship is beyond the pale, i.e. even dumber yet. I'm afraid our common sense is in decline.

Do you believe a person can legally burn whatever they want on a public street or sidewalk as long as it's their own property they are burning?

No.

[parabelum]

If I happen to be somewhere with a relative sensitive to smoke due to copd, and some doofus decides that it is his/her right to burn the flag or anything for that matter, thereby forcing us to move away from our spot, then how is that a. "Speech" and b. Not a clear violation of my and my relative's right to be in a public place without the disturbance and smoke?

You see, I've said it before, your freedom to be free and includes my freedom to be free from you.

By granting the right to one and thereby removing the right from another you've just created oppression for the latter, nothing to do with speech. Everything to do with upside down perversion of words.

[BigGuy]

This is a tough one. It's absolutely disgusting, but I don't want to give the government the power to make calls like that. It could very well go against me with the next administration.
Neither it shouldn't be free of consequences. Anybody doing that should be ostracized by the rest of America. And if a retired Marine happens alongs, and the flag burning hippy winds up a greasy spot of the side walk, I'm thinking the hippy must have slipped on a bar of soap.