BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
The national flag is a symbol of nationhood and national unity that ought to be protected from abuse...

The national flag is a symbol of nationhood and national unity that ought to be protected from abuse. The flag is a unique symbol that has been cherished by the population since the foundation of the Republic. It represents the turbulent struggle for unity through the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. The protestor burns a flag not in order to damage the material per se but to harm or criticise the ideals that the flag represents. It is not necessary to show that patriotic feeling is in fact damaged by flag burning. It suffices that the act of desecration is designed to offend these ideals. The learned jurist Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes warned that 'a page of history is worth a volume of logic'. Patriotic principles do deserve and do receive the respect that is manifested in obedience to the flag. Saluting the flag is conventional (though no longer constitutionally compelled) throughout the American school system. The flag is raised and flown on public buildings and at major public events. Citizens express their adherence to the flag through the votes of their elected representatives in state legislatures to pass laws that prohibit flag burning. The law properly protects the principles that are important to its citizens from attack: blasphemy laws protect certain religious beliefs from desecration, slander and libel laws protect personal and group reputations from abuse. Furthermore, even if we assume that flag burning is a valid means of expression, the freedom of expression must be balanced against the important societal interests that are represented by the flag. Given the existence of alternative methods of expression that do not harm these ideals of national unity, the balance is in favour of the prohibition of flag desecration.
The prohibition of flag burning prevents the breaches of peace that are prompted by such protests. G...

The prohibition of flag burning prevents the breaches of peace that are prompted by such protests. Given that the flag does enjoy such respect amongst the citizens, those near such an act of desecration might rightly be angered. The stimulation of shock and outrage in the immediate audience is in fact the intention of the protestor. It is not necessary to condone the actions of an audience that might physically assault the protestor. Yet, it suffices to note that flag burning amounts to inciting a breach of the peace. Most societies generally prohibit this form of incitement. A ban on flag burning merely informs a potential protestor that such desecration is likely to lead to a breach of peace and is properly prohibited within the ambit of an existing offence.
The law should draw the distinction between the protest and the opinion of the protestor. We alread...

The law should draw the distinction between the protest and the opinion of the protestor. We already accept that we can prohibit one and not the other. Certain forms of protest ought to be prohibited, without officially condemning the opinion that is expressed by the protest. For example, terrorists, anti-vivisectionists, and other political activists who damage property and inflict injury and death as a means of protest do commit crimes. English law is not unusual in providing a detailed statutory code for the regulation of public protests. This code enables protest to be conducted peacefully and safely, for example by requiring the permission and assistance of the local police force in advance of a planned march. The prohibition of flag burning similarly precludes a dangerous form of protest without prejudice to the viewpoint of the protestor.
It is trite law that free speech is not and should not be unlimited. Article 10 of the ECHR expressl...

Free speech can of course be restricted. Nevertheless, if we are to assume that free speech is a general or utilitarian good, every limitation on its exercise must be justified. Flag burning is unlikely to endanger national security or public safety. A uniform prohibition on flag burning must be justified. We do not dispute whether free speech can be restricted, but, in a democracy that accepts the vitality of free speech, we do need to know why. Free speech is protected both because of and in spite of democracy. Free speech is of course fundamental to and symbiotic with the democratic process. This process cannot thus simultaneously justify the denial of free speech. Human rights and civil liberties are granted to protect the minority from the wishes of the majority, howsoever democratically expressed. Ronald Dworkin thus defined constitutional rights as the 'political trumps' that are held by the minority and which represent the promise by the majority that the freedoms of the minority will be respected. To deny a means of free speech in the interests of democracy is avowedly harmful to democracy. It forecloses discussion. It precludes any challenge to the ruling majority. It is the route to tyranny.
It is controversial even to regard flag burning as an example of free speech. First, the law cannot...

To question whether flag burning is an example of free speech is to engage in a futile semantic discussion. The law ought to protect the freedom of expression. Expression includes both conduct and speech. Article 10 of the ECHR does in fact protect expression rather than speech. The US Supreme Court in the case of O’Brien v. United States, that in fact concerned the burning of a draft certificate as a means of protest, recognised that ‘symbolic conduct’ can be protected under the First Amendment. Moreover, the purpose of free speech protection is not limited to the exchange of ideas. Further or alternatively, the act of flag burning does of course express an idea. A protestor burns a flag in response to a given issue or incident. The act of burning merely signifies the importance of the issue, it is not the issue itself.
Flag burning is a wholly unnecessary means of protest. It does not convey an opinion that a protest...

The conduct of flag burning is often necessary to enter the marketplace of ideas. Political debate is presently dominated by global news media, and in particular the television bulletins and the front-page photographs of leading newspapers. In these reports, actions speak louder than words. The act of flag burning is likely to capture the attention of these journalists and thereby bring the issue that prompted the protest to the public gaze. Notably, perhaps the most dramatic and vivid protest against the Vietnam War was apparent in the actions of the self-immolating Buddhist monk at a Saigon crossroads. The conduct was burning, but few would dispute that it was also conduct conveying a message of critical importance which merited and received global attention.
The national flag is a symbol of nationhood and national unity that ought to be protected from abuse...

Flag burning is in fact a patriotic act. The assumption informing this form of protest is that the flag represents national ideals and that these ideals usually require respect. When a protestor desecrates the flag, she conveys the message that the political cause or incident is so important that it is connected to the very ideals of citizenship of that country. The protest might indicate that if the government of a state tolerates a given policy, it deprecates the meaning and pride taken in being a citizen of that state. Moreover, flag burning does not harm the patriotic feelings of the audience. In fact it might stimulate a patriotic response. The Supreme Court in the case of Schacht v. United States in fact observed that it could imagine no more appropriate response to the flag burner than waving a flag of one’s own or saluting the flag as it burns. Further or alternatively, patriotic principles do deserve to be questioned. The idea of nationhood and national duty frequently justifies the decision to commit the citizens of a country to war. These citizens must be able to criticise the credo, embodied in a flag, that could cause the loss of their lives. The analogies to blasphemy and libel laws are badly drawn. The advocate of free speech can consistently oppose both the prohibitions of blasphemy and flag burning. Libel laws preclude only inaccurate statements about factual reputations. Yet protest does not concern the accuracy of any opinion and the flag does not represent any concrete fact. Finally, it should be noted that flag burning directly harms no one. Assuming that the flag is the property of the protestor it causes no criminal damage. Therefore, prosecution and conviction for flag burning is penalization solely for criticizing the ideals that the flag represents. This approach approximates to Orwellian thoughtcrime.
The prohibition of flag burning prevents the breaches of peace that are prompted by such protests. G...

The prohibition of an act because it is likely to cause offence or disruption amounts to a heckler’s charter. No matter how unreasonable the reaction of the audience, or how important or rational the cause connected to the protest, the audience, (or worse, the audience conjured by the court or legislator), can prohibit the protest. J. S. Mill in his seminal treatise On Liberty and, the jurist H. L. A. Hart one century later in Law, Liberty and Morality, recognised that such prohibitions amounts to banning a viewpoint simply because the majority disagree with it. Further, the purpose of a protest is to cause the outrage that might unfortunately result in a breach of peace. The US Supreme Court in Terminiello v. City of Chicago held that the 'purpose of protest is to invite dispute'. Banning flag desecration because the audience should challenge it amounts to prohibiting a protest because it is a protest! Moreover, it is noted that an audience member who commits a breach of the peace undoubtedly commits a crime. There is no defence of provocation to the commission of assault or damage or criminal damage. Banning flag desecration on account of the threat to public order is the prohibition of an otherwise lawful act for the reason that others will commit crimes in response.
The law should draw the distinction between the protest and the opinion of the protestor. We alread...

The law cannot draw any distinction between an act of protest and the opinion it expresses. Laws that prohibit flag burning, penalize not only the act of burning but also the underlying opinion. These statutes are particularly bad because they allow a government to criminalise viewpoints critical of its policies. The government of the day is commonly associated with the flag. By banning desecration of the flag the government suppresses an expression and an opinion that is hostile to its interests. Government for the interests of the rulers and the denial of debate are tendencies towards tyranny.
It is trite law that free speech is not and should not be unlimited. Article 10 of the ECHR expressl...

It is trite law that free speech is not and should not be unlimited. Article 10 of the ECHR expressly acknowledges that freedom of expression can be curtailed in the interests of national security or public safety. Notwithstanding the unqualified language of the First Amendment, the American state legislatures and courts have consistently prohibited various categories of speech, such as bribery, perjury and counselling to murder. Free speech does of course sustain democracy. However, a vague appeal to democracy cannot support flag burning as a means of protest. The American state legislatures that have consistently prohibited flag burning have participated in a democratic process. The citizens of these states have freely expressed their opinions, through the votes of their elected representatives. It is their majority opinion that flag burning should be banned. When a court nevertheless permits the desecration of the flag, it protects the freedom of expression of one individual against the democratic freedom of the vast majority.
The Olympics gives athletes a goal and young people a chance to believe in themselves

Most young people can't hope to be Olympians. While it is true that the Olympics is a great opportunity for an example to be set on what hard work can achieve, it is also a competition which, of course, inherently focuses on the winners: a small percentage of competitors, and an even smaller percentage of the youth population. For many young people today, an Olympic gold (or even a place in any large sports competition) is a distant, irrelevant dream. The government should spend more money on helping young people feel like they themselves are enough to contribute to society.
Every Government has a duty to help its people fulfill their potential.

This is ridiculous line of argument because there are thousands of professions in which people could ‘fulfill their potential’, why should the government single out people who have an interest in sport? Why not invest the money into nurses and medical researchers, here people can fulfill their potential and play a vital role in society. Athletes who make it to the Olympic arena have sponsors and they often come from the wealthier walk of life, why should the money not be invested in the poorer segments of society, it is here the money will make the most difference. It may not win Britain a medal, but it will decrease the gap between the rich and the poor.
Money is spent on academia yet not everyone is academic

The investments into sports by governments and corporate giants are beneficial to the society at large. We must appreciate the fact that all of us have varying abilities and interests, and that not everybody is born academically gifted, goes through university education and lands himself or herself a well-paying 9-to-5 job in the city. Some of us are more active physically and sports-inclined. With the right amount of government funding, these people do not have to go through the traditional route of getting a tertiary education which may probably work against them. Instead, they could enrol themselves in sporting institutes and become full time athletes. This will provide them with the right platform to develop their abilities further and excel in their chosen field. Subsequently, they can make a career of out sport by being a private coach, fitness instructor, professional trainer and even a professional footballer who earns £80,000 a week! Just as in academia where governments invest heavily in research and development activities, postgraduate funding and research facilities, governments should do the same to the sporting arena as this would create job opportunities for the people.
People that do not care have to fund the Olympics

Our society funds all kinds of things which not everybody likes.Taxpayers' money is used every day for things which not everybody enjoys. Should the government stop giving funding to universities because less than half of the population will ever enjoy a university education? It's not fair to say that everybody should have to benefit directly from something the government spends money on (although this would be everyone's preferred choice!) because, thankfully, we live in a very diverse society. So long as the beneficiary(ies) is/are honourable, and the spending is transparent, it should not have to be spent exclusively on things that everybody enjoys - for one thing, there is almost nothing which everybody enjoys or needs.
British athletes are not paid for their efforts

The medal count at the Beijing Olympics seems to suggest that Britain's approach is working just fine. We do not treat our athletes like prize racehorses, training them up and isolating them from the real world; they have lives outside of sport and are thus happier, better rounded people. A career in sport is often a short one, and if you cannot get any media work in the aftermath, you don't want to be left without options once you're past your physical peak. Why should we follow the 'hothousing' methods of other nations, when we are achieving very respectable levels of success without putting our athletes under unnatural pressure.
The Olympics gives athletes a goal and young people a chance to believe in themselves

The Olympics gives young athletes something to look forward to and aim for in life. The satisfaction of competing for your country and competing with the world cannot be a better accomplishment, and winning a gold medal for your country in the Olympics is considered one of the highest honours for anyone. Despite the medal count, the Olympics itself is worth the money. The government and older generations constantly talk of youths in trouble, with no future, and no career paths, but with Olympic funding, they have a path and a goal to achieve. Athletes can compete at all ages and this is money well spent if it gives people something to believe in. Some adolescents leave school not knowing what they would like to do and feel that they cannot excel at anything except from sport, so events such as the Olympics makes them feel as important if competing, as a barrister in a courtroom or an estate agent closing a deal.
Every Government has a duty to help its people fulfill their potential.

Britain showed at the Olympics that we have a number of world-class athletes. We brought home 47 medals, 19 of them gold. But this kind of achievement requires a great deal of money, without which, some of the most talented people in the world would go through life without their greatest achievements. Perhaps we should change the way we spend on the Olympics: if it is true that athletes are wined, dined and paid to party, perhaps we should consider paying them to practise instead. But to take away the money spent on their development would be unfair.
People that do not care have to fund the Olympics

Officials in charge of building projects for the 2012 London Olympics have claimed more than £100,000 in expenses on top of their taxpayer-funded salaries. Some of the taxpayers may not even enjoy the Olympics. Some of the general public does not consider the Olympics a worthwhile event that should be funded by the tax-payers money, so should only the people that would watch the Olympics on television aid towards its costs?
British athletes are not paid for their efforts

British athletes have only ever been given their equipment and merchandise by companies to advertise their products and merchandise. British athletes have full-time jobs outside of the Olympics and are not paid to win and be top of the medal table. Perhaps if we paid our athletes and gave more money towards them, which is a good cause, then there would be a higher incentive to win? Or perhaps the fact that the British athlete is so tired from working during the day and training during the evening that athletes feel that they have not been able to practice like in the other countries because they do not have the full support of their country? Why do other countries pay their athletes to compete and treat it as a full-time career while we expect heavyweight champions to work as full-time plumbers and Paula Radcliffe to win the marathon when they feel under trained? Countries such as China value getting a gold medal so highly that they put enormous pressure on their athletes to spend most of their time training in order to achieve it.
Factory farming is very cruel. Confinement to the point at which suffocation is commonplace is the ...

Factory farming is very cruel. Confinement to the point at which suffocation is commonplace is the norm. Many animals never touch the ground or see direct sunlight. They cannot behave in natural ways: e.g. chickens cannot spread their wings or peck the ground, pigs cannot root or nest. That’s just the normal unpleasantness. The extremes are truly horrible. Chickens are bred selectively and genetically modified until the birds cannot stand up and their bones cannot support their weight. Battery hens are crammed into tiny cages and to stop them doing damage when they attack each other (as they inevitably do in such unnatural conditions) their beaks and toes are cut off. Roosters are killed at birth by strangulation or asphyxiation in a bag. Pigs, highly social animals, are kept singly in cages they can’t turn around in – and a number of diseases are very common because of the cramped conditions. Veal calves are deliberately and permanently squashed so that muscle growth is inhibited and the flesh is tender. They are fed on an iron-deficient diet so their flesh is pale.
The meat produced by factory farming is cheap because it is of very low quality. It is ‘mechanicall...

The meat produced by factory farming is cheap because it is of very low quality. It is ‘mechanically recovered’ (i.e. ripped from the bone by machine at suck force, and then pureed and reconstituted), and parts of the body that most consumers would say shouldn’t be used – lips, eyes, testicles, anal tracts – are included in sausages and patties. The quantity of the meat is enhanced by the industrial process of water injection (this is why your burger shrinks so much when you cook it - the water is evaporating). The animal is often injected with cocktails of drugs and hormones to encourage faster and greater growth, which are then often passed on to you, the eater, in your meal. The animal is fed on foodstuff designed to achieve fast growth rather than a healthy animal. And so on. The apparently low price of industrial food does not reflect the true costs of production. Hidden costs include environmental degradation, fossil fuel use, damage to human health, and the destruction of rural communities. The owners of factory farms do not pay these costs; they are paid by the communities in which these operations are located, by taxpayers, and by society as a whole.
Factory farming sees animals as ‘products,’ ‘commodities’ for production and sale just like bricks o...

Factory farming sees animals as ‘products,’ ‘commodities’ for production and sale just like bricks or bread. But animals are conscious and aware and know pleasure and pain. They shouldn’t be treated like this. Even if we are to continue eating meat, which on a utilitarian judgement may be necessary, we should nevertheless treat them humanely, and with dignity. Factory farming does not. It is true that we are capable of higher thought and animals are not – but this means that we have a duty of stewardship and of care for them – how terribly we fail in fulfilling that duty.
Factory farming is effectively ending the practice of healthier, traditional farming methods that we...

Factory farming is effectively ending the practice of healthier, traditional farming methods that were more in tune with nature, and which were the backbone of a whole rural way of life, now being destroyed. The countryside as we know and love it was created by traditional farming methods, particularly grazing, not vast sheds full of imprisoned animals fed on imported feed. Health risks to humans are also greatly magnified by factory farming, with epidemics swiftly spread between overcrowded animals and antibiotic resistance encouraged by medicated feed.
Factory farming is very cruel. Confinement to the point at which suffocation is commonplace is the ...

There is very little cruelty or suffering in factory farming – certainly no more than in traditional forms of farming, which is the correct comparison to make (rather than thinking of a ban in a standalone sense) since food will still have to be produced in one way or another. Foie gras has been produced since time immemorial by the force feeding of geese. Animals have always been herded together, confined, branded, killed and eaten. This is not the fault of the modern intensive (or ‘factory’) industry, it’s just the way things are when people eat meat. Furthermore, the large firms responsible for ‘factory’ farming are more easily monitored by law so the animals often fare better than they would have done in normal farming – so it’s not true that factory farming is particularly cruel. What is true is that activists have ensured the few isolated incidents of cruelty or bad practice have received publicity well out of proportion with their significance.