Sorry I'm so long winded...

I shudder to contemplate the notion that burning a flag would get you killed in this country. If that really equates as a justified and logical response to someone burning a flag.. well, read no further.. we've not much to discuss and I pray I never live anywhere near where you do.

I've yet to hear one logical reason why flag burning should be banned. Everyone for the ban is talking from the point of emotion that they _feel_ the flag is to important a symbol.

Laws are, simply put, about protecting people from harm - be it physical harm, emotional harm or harm to things we own. I can see it as a bit of a stretch to say burning the flag causes emotional harm -- but surely no more harm that it would cause someone from the Religious Right to see two gay guys kissing openly in a public place. Some folks find this act just as distasteful if not more so as they feel it's an affront to god than burning a mere symbol of man... should this be illegal? You speak of morality.. do you really want morality governed by laws? I don't think you want the discussion to go down that road.. given that a great many things that folks enjoy on this site would be labeled "immoral" by the majority.. and therefore made illegal....

I don't feel that flag burning causes anyone injury or harm... at least if it's a flag I bought. If I steal a flag and burn it, well then I harmed someone else's property and theft is a crime.

As for important symbols.. what if someone burned a replica of the Constitution? Should that be banned? Surely it should.. it's just as important a symbol! What about burning a bald eagle in effigy? What about burning the president in effigy? You may dislike the man, but where's the respect for the office? What about the doormat above -- cleaning the mud off your shoes on the flag is ok? I mean after all, only a great patriot and lover of this country would want you clean your feet off on the flag! You can buy toilet paper with Bush's face on it - shouldn't that be banned? What's more offensive than wiping shit from your ass with our president's face?!

Again, simply because you find an act of dissidence distasteful.. doesn't mean you should seek to ban it.

Again, I've no desire to burn the flag.. I don't think it's anything more a desperate attempt to draw attention.. and if your cause is "right enough" you don't need to draw attention to it.

Again, read the amendments they are about protecting the people from various abuses or ensuring this or that right -- save for the 18th and 21st. Can you really read them and say protecting the flag is on the same level as the rest?

"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a communist..."