Outlawing the burning of Americas flag will hurt patriotism

Hello Tom, glad to hear what you think about the Boy Scouts Vs Dale case. Its sad when politics interferes with our organization. A lot of Order of the Arrow members have turned in their sashes to boycott the OA in a similar controversy about the admittance of women into the OA. I myself am not participating in this, I don't see what there problem is. Well, time to get back on topic.... My opponents arguments seem to summarize as 1) I'm speculating, I don't actually know any of this 2) I'm biased, and 3) combinations of the previous two. I'll address the biased part first. You know marian biologist are also biased when they try to tell us about the fantastic fish they study in there field, of course they want us to believe they are fish so fantastic they can change colors or come with night lights, but we can not take there word the people who study the field since there biased. If my opponent can see where I'm going with this then his response will likely include stating I make the fallacy of arguing from authority. http://en.wikipedia.org... But they are clearly limits to witch this fallacy can be applied because its not logical to tell an electrician his authority is not good enough to proclaim that a resister in dead (or open) in a circuit we need him to fix. the fact that the marien biologist is in field studying those fish makes him reliable enough that we can say those fish are there on that simple authority. We would also be foolish to ignore him if he tells us don't corner the stingrays cause they can kill you should we decide to go scuba diving where he says those are located. If I'm biased simply because I'm debating I could always invite the navy veteran who oversaw the ceremony to tell you about its importance, and its effects. But this notion is ridiculous cause I could never prove that its not still me typing from this computer. For this website my authority is as good as it can get in hearing about the retirement ceremonies and it should be good enough. when questioning experts from there field like the marien biologist you have to do more than call them biased to discount them, you have to show you know enough about there subject also that contradicts them. Like if he tells you two bones on the back of the whale used to be legs because they serve no function now you need to show him that you know in fact that those bones do have function relevant to reproduction today. Since you are familiar with scouts Tom perhaps you have been part of the organization yourself and can testify that outlawing our retirement ceremonies will not damage our next generations patriotism? If your not perhaps you can give a hyperlink to a Scoutmaster who testifies to something similar. Concerning Comment A: (A) "The first time I participated in a flag retirement ceremony I was told one of the reasons we do this is so that none may ever see our flag in a garbage dump. If we are not allowed to burn them this outcome will occur." (A) COMMENT: This is unsupported opinion ( see definition 2a, http://www.merriam-webster.com...... ), hearsay ( http://www.merriam-webster.com...... ), and speculation (see 1 as transitive verb, http://www.merriam-webster.com...... ). Neither I nor the forum/members/potential voters who are following this debate can assess the credibility of the person who made the statement to you. Thus, argument and evidence is unreliable. My response to that is by the safety of Occam's razor http://en.wikipedia.org...'s_razor we can safely say that the flags will in fact go to the garbage dumb. Throwing things away to the garbage and burning them are the two primary ways of dispose of outworn things. To recycle is a third option. with flags there is no way of recycling them ( that's not a POSITIVE so I shouldn't have to prove that) this leaves incineration and landfill. the purpose of this debate concerns itself with the outlawing of incineration. so that leaves garbage. You could try returning to the recycling idea since its not outlawed but it would take far to many assumptions compared to the dump. So with Occam's razor we conclude the worn out flags destination will be the dump. as for comment B: you can call it an anecdote, I call it data. Historically shown effects of the dignified retirement of our nations flag on the patriotism of the next generation of this country. Patriotism organs in an individual must start somewhere, the most prime example of where its taught to our youth is scouts. Comment C: I said that not in assuming the proposition but in conclusion from the already provided historic data of the retirements ceremony. You know typing in so many CAPITAL letters could be interpreted by shouting by voters and hence poor conduct. but no big deal with this occasion it could also be merely seen as emphasis of importance. Comment D: fair enough. But it is believable speculation. Now when I say 'fair enough' I mean for the first half. the second half "redirecting our patriotism away from our country to a non-existent country is most certainly going to be harmful to our patriotism for the country that is real, America." I see nothing wrong with this logic. I don't think there's any doubt about the patriotism so many in the south decide to show for the Confederacy though this country no longer exist. With that factor to consider allowing for weakness in patriotism of our real country can only amplify when there is something else to turn in patriotism toward, especially when this thing encourages rebellion against the former. Well that's all I have to say for this round. you are clearly more experienced than me at debating so I look forward to your response.