Is Flag Burning a Good Method of Expression of Political Views? (nationalist, death)
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You cannot convince, persuade, or gain sympathy for your cause by pissing people off. Making people get stuck in traffic, kneeling during the National Anthem, burning the flag, only gives more votes to people the protestors don't like. They are only hurting themselves whenever they do the unpopular.
That is the lie that has always been told to the powerless or the people out of power by the people or group in power.
Fortunately, the people who led the French Revolution didn't believe the lie.
Neither did Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Thomas Paine, Paul Revere, Patrick Henry, Nathan Hale, Francis Marion, George Washington, or Crispus Attucks (and many others).
Neither did many civil rights leaders who realized that gentle protest (which you included in your statement) by the likes of Martin Luther King would not alone solve the needs of rights for Black people whose ancestors were brought up through slavery and Jim Crow.
Neither did union members who fought against child labor, company stores, and other abuses of big business in the 1800s and early to mid 1900s.
We know you want those who have a different opinion to shut up and get along. No thank you.
You cannot convince, persuade, or gain sympathy for your cause by pissing people off. Making people get stuck in traffic, kneeling during the National Anthem, burning the flag, only gives more votes to people the protestors don't like. They are only hurting themselves whenever they do the unpopular.
I would largely agree with this. My sympathy for a cause goes out the window if the most intelligent thing the opponents can come up with is to burn the American flag, the very symbol of our rights and freedoms. I'd be curious to know statistics regarding education level and IQs of the average flag burner.
To me, it would be like if a man was upset with his wife, so he took his wedding ring off, spat on it and stomped on it. Sure, the ring is just a "symbol" of their love, but to destroy that symbol is an asinine and completely ineffective way to improve the situation.
So, if an abused wife took off her ring, stomped and spit on it, you'd lose sympathy for the wife?
Ok
My example was not about an abused spouse. I said if one spouse were upset with the other (I guess I should have clarified that it was not a marriage-destroying thing such as abuse.).
But since you asked, yes, of course I would have sympathy for the wife in your scenario, and I would recognize that stomping on her wedding ring was her way of saying the marriage no longer has any value to her. When someone burns the flag, it says to me that the nation that flag represents no longer has value to them.
I was using an analogy since so many have said they don't see why it's a big deal to desecrate a symbol of something. They say, "It's just cloth." To me someone who burns a flag either hates America, does not understand that the flag represents SO much more than "just cloth," and/or they do not have the intelligence or skills to more effectively address their concerns.
How does someone burning a flag, their own personal property, trample on the rights of anyone else?
Shouting fire in a crowded theater is a public safety issue
Breaking another person's windows is destruction of another person's property
Breaking your own windows, like burning your own flag, harms no one.
Burning another person's car is destruction of another persons' property
Burning your own car, like burning your own flag, harms no one.
What's ridiculous about not making an action that harms no one illegal?
The same people who think flag burning is protected speech probably militate in favor of "safe zones" and against free speech for right-of-center beliefs.
The anecdote about Thanksgiving 2014 doesn't contribute to a discussion about flag burning.
Asking about BLM doesn't relate to flag burning.
People's feelings about Trump doesn't relate to flag burning.
Are you sure you want to discuss flag burning?
Yes.
What I am discussing is effctive ways of communicating. Taking actions that either simply inconvenience people or destroy federal property do not contribute to debate in any manner I can conjure.
They do it because they get attention from doing it. We need to stop giving them that attention because we are dealing with children here, children who have tantrums and need to stomp on their toys to prove to everyone what power they (don't) have. We have a whole mess of Peter Pans out there .. let's just prove to them who the grown ups really are.
No, I don't think it is a good thing to burn the flag but apparently it is legal - and as has been said, it is just a symbol. I certainly understand why it would upset some people however we all need to just stand by and laugh to make it stop I think. The wannabe anarchists apparently want to look like fools .. let's let them. When it stops having the desired effect (that of riling us up) I think they will stop this practice.
Soros is paying them handsomely to do so. Maybe we can collect the taxes they should pay on that money from them while they are dancing around the fire and looking silly.
That is the lie that has always been told to the powerless or the people out of power by the people or group in power.
Fortunately, the people who led the French Revolution didn't believe the lie.
The French Revolution is not a great example. The bloodshed that accompanied the Revolution forced the counter-revolution in which Napolean. made himself dictator and then emperor. Blood flowed freely in the streets of Paris. The French Revolution is an example of how not to do things, not how to do things.
Quote:
Originally Posted by phetaroi
Neither did Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Thomas Paine, Paul Revere, Patrick Henry, Nathan Hale, Francis Marion, George Washington, or Crispus Attucks (and many others).
At least some of those people if not most were builders and not destroyers. I don't know much about Francis Mario or Crispus Attucks. I also know that protest has a place. But how does flag burning parallel what Thomas Paine was doing, for example. He wrote extremely persuasive pamphlets. Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and John Hancock were similarly persuaders. What does burning flags or tying up traffic have to do with persuasion?
Quote:
Originally Posted by phetaroi
Neither did many civil rights leaders who realized that gentle protest (which you included in your statement) by the likes of Martin Luther King would not alone solve the needs of rights for Black people whose ancestors were brought up through slavery and Jim Crow.
That's a real whopper. The Jews who fled the Holocaust arrived penniless. What solved "the needs of rights" of those people? Maybe accomplishing things? Gee, a radical thought.
Quote:
Originally Posted by phetaroi
Neither did union members who fought against child labor, company stores, and other abuses of big business in the 1800s and early to mid 1900s.
There was some violence but most of that was in opposition to the unions. Again most of their activity was persuasive.
Quote:
Originally Posted by phetaroi
We know you want those who have a different opinion to shut up and get along. No thank you.
How about what you used to tell your students, "use your words"?
The purpose of civil disobedience is to inconvenience people in order get people out of their "Comfort Zone", while simultaneously raising awareness.
There's nothing inherently wrong with flag burning. If people are shocked, then that is because their "Comfort Zone" is being impinged.
I guess that goes in one direction. Why do so many of the snowflakes believe it's OK to suppress free speech they don't like, see Syracuse cancels Israel film screening: Will offend ‘BDS faction,’ gender-studies faculty? Is certain kinds of non-violent free speech suppressible, whereas other violent expression OK because, after all, the objective is President Trump?
The same people who think flag burning is protected speech probably militate in favor of "safe zones" and against free speech for right-of-center beliefs.
Oh, I don't think Antonin Scalia thought any such thing. He was, after all, part of the majority in Texas v. Johnson (1989), the Supreme Court decision which established flag-burning as protected speech.
PS - If you think 'safe zones' violate free speech, then you might want to familiarize yourself with the concept of both. Freedom of speech does not include being provided a forum for speech (ex: Neither you nor I have freedom of speech on this website, which is privately owned by people who are neither you nor I. We merely post here at the pleasure of the owners and their designated agents.). Similarly, neither of us have some sort of right to be provided with a forum to speak at, say, a university.
Last edited by Unsettomati; 02-06-2017 at 06:23 PM..
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