Flag Burning Should be Legal

First and foremost I look forward to this round, now onto the refutations. "Well, I will be honest with you, I was expecting someone living in the United States, but I shall put up with your conditions because I like you. Please understand that if you live in the United States, and not Iran (currently) I shall not consider Iran your country, only your country of origin." Thank you for understanding and debating Flag Burning in Iran. "First off, you state that flag burning is unconstitutional in Iran, however, flags have been burned in Iran. A good example is an American flag that was burned in Tehran, Iran back in 2009. No legal action or attempts to stop the burning were made. Furthermore, Iran does promise a freedom of assembly, which gives people the right to gather so long as they have no firearms, I am going to assume that also counts for protests." This could have been a clever tactic in order to attack the constitutionality of flag burning in Iran, but you don't actually attack the constitutionality of the action. But when we look at this statement what we can see is that Flags have been burned and that people did not stop the flag burning. However neither of these two things necessarily mean it is constitutional to do this. Breaking down the two claims we can see why. A) No legal action was taken or attempts to stop the burning were taken. This first off all is unverifiable, we are not sure if actions were taken either way, and judging by the illegality of the act we can assume their were. Secondly we must keep in mind that just because no one was persecuted doesn't mean it is legal. For instance if I shoot Chuck Norris and kill him, and no one finds out that doesn't mean killing or shooting Chuck Norris is legal. B) Freedom of Assembly, and Protests. Pleco assumes that because their is the right to assemble than their is the right to protest, but that is a fallacy. This image http://amautadiaries.files.wordpress.com... shows police breaking up a protest, which is illegal. Further more the U.S. separates the rights to protest and gathering, meaning they are two different entities and thus not protected by the same thing. Ergo the same logic can once again be applied to the already stated gathering of people "Flag burning certainly can be legal, and I will be interested in you explaining the circumstances where it is illegal. I fully understand the safety concerns (fire hazards and smoke), however, I am willing to argue that if done safely, you have a right to be heard." I will gladly post how it is illegal, burning the current Iranian national flag, even by political opponents, violates the spirit of the words Allahu Akbar and so that would be seen as a religious insult, and thus unconstitutional. However it is the affirmative job to show how it is illegal. So I will gladly refute those claims once presented. "You say that freedom of speech is bad, well, your talking to a guy who believes that there should only be one country ran under military dictatorship... So in most cases I would have to agree with you, unless it conflicted with that political viewpoint." I will interpret this remark as meaning free speech is bad. My opponent states that flag burning is a way to voice opinions, and because free speech is bad flag burning is bad. And because bad legislation is a no-no it need be made illegal in places where it is not. This does two things it shows how my opponent concedes, and fills the other half the resolution (determining whether or not it should be banned). "And, it is justifiable to speak out against your own country, especially if you disagree with a law, action, or political philosophy taken by the country which you disagree with." This is conflicting with your personal views and expressed view. Furthermore this is untrue, speaking out against your country breed anti-government fervor and ultimately terrorism. So we ought to negate.