I don't really know quite yet.

"Seeing as the resolution says should, I believe we should be debating whether or not it is morally right or wrong. Should implies whether or not something is good or bad, it implies an ought. So we are not debating whether or not it is legal. We are debating whether or not it should be legal." First, this is a pretty big logical leap, saying should implies ought, and ought implies a moral question, stretches the definition of should far beyond what it means. The American Heritage dictionary defines should as "Used to express obligation or duty" that says nothing about ought or about morality, obligations can come from law or contractual obligations as well, and given as the resolution references legality, the question is not about the morality. Second, if it is a moral question than to answer that question you have to present a view of morality on which to evaluate whether or not it is moral. Without that, it is impossible to answer the resolution the way you have defined it. Either we do not view it through morality, or you need to present a view of morality that we may argue if that is the right view, and use it to determine if it is moral or not to burn the flag. However, let's say that it is, than you vote con on the general principle, in a free, democratic society morality is not how we determine the law. There are multiple different views of morality held by the citizenry, but it is not up to the state to decide questions of morality. The state exists as an agent to protect the rights of the individuals it resides over, no more. It violates no rights to burn the flag, thus the state has no reason to make it illegal to do so. If we allow the state to start regulating morality it can only do so by being at least partially totalitarian, controlling far more of individual's lives than a free state. Opponents Arguments First, the last issue my opponent brings up is completely irrelevant to the debate. IF there are flags that are toxic to the environment the regulation would be against burning toxic substances, not the flag. Burning the flag would still be completely legal, so long as the flag being burned was made of non-toxic materials, which if such a regulation was passed people would, if they are not already, make flags of non-toxic materials, at least for protest purposes. My opponents main argument is that the flag stands for a representation of our country. It is true that lowering the flag in a war or conflict indicated surrender, but that in itself is not what the flag really stands for, that is simply how it was used. It may have inspired men, but the same thing can be said of individuals burning the flag in protest, so it's not a unique argument. There is also no explanation of how this makes it immoral, absent that there is no reason to believe it is immoral. "When we look at the history, we see that the British told the Americans that all they had to do to stop the bombarding was lower their flag. The Americans chose not to." Yes, because to lower the flag meant to surrender to the British, surrender their freedom. It was not out of respect for the flag that they did not lower it, but because they were not going to surrender, they were fighting for their freedom. "every time the flag fell, someone would pick it up and hold it in place. Many people died that die just to hold the flag up. By burning the flag, people are dishonoring those who died to defend it." The individuals fighting were not fighting to defend the flag, they were fighting for what the flag stood for to them, freedom. That is what the flag truly stands for. A symbol of freedom only stands for freedom so long as the people in the country it stands for are actually free. Making it illegal to burn the flag in protest violates that freedom. Burning the flag in protest is an exercise of the very freedom that those soldiers died to defend. The flag was a way to rally troops to fight and defend freedom, but the flag itself is not freedom, and it should not be extrapolated to being so. If we live in a free society that guarantees freedom of speech and expression, which in theory at least we do, than burning the flag should also be a protected form of speech as well. If it is not, than we do not live in a free society, and the flag symbolizes nothing because freedom does not really exist. If you want to claim that we ought not live in a free society that's fine, and if you do so ill argue why we should in the next round. But if we should live in a free society, than that society should not outlaw a peaceful form of protest.