This actually happened to me, shortly after the Supreme Court decision in 1989. I was walking by the Grand Army Plaza in Manhattan and a guy was up on a ledge either burning the flag or stamping on it. I think if he were burning it he would have been stopped on the grounds that it was a crowded area and therefore dangerous. At least that would happen today. I remember it as burning, though.
Thousands of people were walking by and no one was saying a word or stopping to watch or even giving him a second look. I stood there and shouted, “Why are you burning that flag!”
I think I made his point for him. We all have free speech but no one else was exercising that right except for him and me. Of course freedom of speech also means you have the right not to speak—otherwise the right to speak would have no meaning—so the people passing by without saying anything were using their rights as well.
He looked happy that I had yelled at him. As I said, I helped to make his point.
I also think it is a hideous, heinous thing to do. And quite illogical: He was burning the symbol of the country that gave him the right to burn that symbol.
I also think it is a hideous, heinous thing to do. And quite illogical: He was burning the symbol of the country that gave him the right to burn that symbol.
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Ditto for the “peace protesters” outside of Lockheed Martin’s main entrance a few times a year. The technology development they are protesting is the very thing preserving their right to protest it.
Morons.