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To: one_less who wrote (20170)	8/27/2002 1:33:15 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21057

What does the flag represent and what does burning it represent. The flag is a symbol of our Constitutionally founded Country. It is PRECISELY because the flag is a symbol that burning it is a form of political expression and therefore protected by the 1st Amendment. In reality it is really just a piece of dyed cloth, right? You don't object to someone burning a patterned sheet, right? Then why is this different? Because it is a symbol. And destroying that symbol is a political expression about it and what it stands for. And that is political. And destroying that SYMBOL is NOT the same as attacking the country, its people, or its gov't. Not hardly. What you have really done is destroy a piece of dyed cloth. No buildings have fallen. No one is dead. If you burn it as a demonstration you are doing what? You are attacking and destroying the symbol of America. You are allowed to feel contempt for the US and its gov't and people. That is fully protected political belief. And you are allowed to feel it only when you think it is doing something particularly heinous, such as (in some people's version of history) napalming innocent babies. The fact that you are pissed at the gov't does not make your beliefs less protected; it makes them more so because you need protection against the gov't. Remember, any tinhorn dictator is perfectly happy to let you agree with him. It is when you violently (but without violence) disagree with the gov't that you find out whether a country has freedom of speech or not.

To: one_less who wrote (20170)	8/27/2002 1:58:03 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21057

The more excuses you make for flag burners the more I am convinced we should not make excuses for them. Jewel, I'm not making excuses for flag burning. I don't approve of flag burning. I was simply trying to give you an alternate way of looking at the act. I don't think that it necessarily a case of misplaced hostility as you claim. If you understand that people burning the flag are not attacking what our country stands for, rather they are expressing their extreme frustration over not being heard on some issue, then you react differently to seeing the flag burned.