Flag burning should be illegal.

Alright, I'll throw my normal ideas at flag burning into this debate and see how my opponent responds. Reasons for flag burning: Reasons for flag burning to be legal. 1. The constitution. You can dislike flag burning all you want, you can call it Un-American or anti-patriotic all you want, but at the point when you tell someone that they can't burn a flag you are the Un-American one. Even if I hated flag burning to its very core I would still have to support the right to burn a flag. This country was founded on the principles of freedom of expression. You being a conservative advocate for less government control, to advocate government control on this issue is to go against the principles of conservativeness. I sight the 1st amendment as the foundation of this point. My opponent on the other hand tries to discredit the 1st amendment by saying that speech and expression are two different things. This is not true, the precedent has been set countless times by the supreme court. Under by opponents theory people who could not talk would have no rights. However even if one did not want to believe this the 1st amendment also protects the right to assemble. Flag burning often happens in groups. 2. It is a more preferable form of protest than most. Where as our politicians are bombarded with angry letters from citizens daily, our soldier are slandered by the news, our president is hated across the world; flag burning doesn't actually do anything except for burn a piece of cloth. It has no harmful effects on anyone except possibly the burner if they are not careful. This makes it much more preferable than forms of protest such as crime, true arson, parades (potentially clogging traffic), and many others. Even civil disobedience has draw backs that flag burning will never have. 3. It fuels the American economy. Who produces the flags? We do. Let them burn our flags all they want. To burn, they have to buy. If someone is stupid enough to burn an American flag let them do it. 4. Takes power from our enemies. Look at all the people America despises that burn our flags. You've all seen it on T.V, Iraqi's parading the streets burning American flags. Wouldn't be nearly so fearsome if American protesters were already burning their own flags would it? When the government puts a stance on flag burning such as, "We don't care, burn our flags" it takes power from the act of flag burning. Everyone remember the story of Brer Rabbit? "No don't throw me into the briar patch!" And of course he was thrown in because the bear thought it would hurt him. But it was all a trick, Brer Rabbit wasn't hurt at all. Same thing in this situation, we trick everyone else into thinking that we don't care at all and they'll stop doing it. Americans burning the flag steals the thunder from others burning the flag. Finally. Examine my opponents final statement, "Burning the flag is a sign of disrespect. Period. It is unecessary and there are much better ways to protest without showing disrespect to this country." Yeah, this is probably true, however this does not mean that it should be illegal by any stretch of the imagination. Limit government control, not expand.