Flag desecration should be legal

"Here's a tip for debating. When someone provides a definition which may not entirely be to your favor, always check the dictionary. Did you look at 1B? "Something that oppresses especially in being an unjust or excessive exercise of power. " I feel like it is excessively using power. I also feel like it is unjust and cruel, but the "excessive" really stands out. " I did look at 1B, but I kind of find it a bit redundant to use the word that you are defining in the sentence that is suppose to define it. "Which is quite a good argument for the first amendment, which you earlier said was not good. He wanted to take away our freedom of religion, as well as other reasons. I might also want to point out that, while there isn't any documented evidence of a British flag burn, there was the Boston Tea party. So we say that that is justified? It only made the British government more mad at us. " What I mean it wasn't good was it wasn't worded good, this brings me to this point. The point is interpretations, many people when they read the first amendment. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances" Think that the government can't stop them from expressing themselves, but we must understand the mindset doing the time the Bill of Rights were written. When our foundering Fathers got together to form our nation and wrote this amendment they weren't thinking about burning flags as a form of expressing. Our Foundering Fathers might consider that a violent act or an attack against the government even though it may not look like it. Even though there are lots things they didn't know could be use as expressing, generally they might accept some forms, I would doubt they would accept Flag desecration. Flag desecration would be illegal because it goes against what our Foundering Fathers had it mind when they wrote that amendment, the only way that would be consider legal is if our government became controlling and went against our rights, caused suffering to its citizens, and became unreasonable, which they haven't yet. What my opponent missed is that I understood his fear of the government talking over, That is why I talked about the American revolution, the fear of a government that controls everything, but my opponent also missed why I was talking about the Wild West, this is my fear that the government may become too limited(or have no power to stop their citizens from committing crimes) in its ability to help its citizens with the basic needs. "I think a good example of when they went overboard is abolition. They made a law which they realized was unfair and oppressive, so they fixed it. " A oppression government would have not changed the law, in my eyes the way the government can be oppression is if all three branches of the government work together to make people suffer, and other ways I said, but this comes back being subjective one person may state that something is cruel when another person would not think of it as being cruel. The government is design to represent the people and if 80% of the people since abolition is wrong then the government will make laws against abolition, but say 80% of the people think that abolition is right then the government will make laws that reflect that, of course in most Controversial problems it is spilt down the middle and it is hard for a government to represent the people if half believe it is wrong and the other believes it is wrong , of course there are many factors that are part of the government but generally that is their job. "You are still missing the point. I am not against laws, I am only against the unfair sort. " Because there are so many people in the country and because some many of them have different opinions there is no way that the government can create laws that ever single person in the USA will agree on. One person may say it is unfair that you have to wait to you are 18 to vote, but another person may say it is fair because generally that is when most people start to or are mature enough to vote. "Would it realistically endanger anyone to burn a flag? " Sorry I was only stating part of the governments job is to protect their citizens. "But is it abusing any rights to exercise your right of peaceful protest? " No peaceful protest doesn't abuse any rights because the first amendment protects peaceful assembly, but when I mean abuse I mean hate speeches, I mean harassing people with words, and that is what I mean by abusing our rights. Our foundering Fathers didn't think about hate speeches; I am not sure if there was such a thing as a hate speeches back them, but whatever it was called that is not what they were saying in the first amendment. "You make a very valid point, but there are definitely flaws. The first of which is that you don't own the statue of liberty, so it's arson. Also, there is only one statue of liberty, and there are probably people in it, so it would also be murder or at least attempted murder. Also, honestly, Lady Liberty is a huge landmark, and there are millions of flags, and they're usually died pieces of either cloth of vinyl. Yes, it does have a wonderful image on it, but it shouldn't be sacred. " You are right on many points, but your last point I don't agree with all the way. This statue symbols our values, and many immigrants who came over to America and saw it would consider it sacred, because it gave them hope of a better future and it give Americans hope. "So you are arguing for a totalitarian regime? We have to limit our government. Have you ever looked at what happened in Stalinist Russia and Maoist China? They didn't limit their government, and the results were awful. In each, many, people died. The results of every single totalitarian regime have been absolutely devastating. " I would never argue for a Totalitarian regime, when I said a limited government would not work I was referring to the Articles of Confederation, it ran America for some time and it was flawed(Like any form of government). The government could do very little to help its citizens because in order to pass any laws ALL states had to approve. This government showed that a weak/limited national/Federal government would not be able to run the government effective, and I believe that is why I think that we shouldn't limited the government too much. The interesting thing to note is that the Articles of Confederation had no power to make the government we have today, what they did was illegal but they did it for the greater good of America. Now of course making Flag desecration illegal will not make the greater good of America, but the point is sometimes the government may do something that is illegal and it is up to the people to decide whether it was necessary or not. I would also like to note that people who desecration the USA Flag Contradict themselves, for they support the first amendment because they love how it gives them the freedom to do what they want, but by burning the Flag it means that they don't like American Culture, they don't like our values, and they don't like our Constitution. To answer your question on R2: why should it be in the law's place to stop them? Because it goes against what our foundering fathers mean in the first amendment.