Flag burning should be banned.

Thank you for debating me. 1.First of all, it hurts the morale of the American people. Although no one is physically hurt from this, psychologically, it may have tolls on the conscience of people. If seeing someone burn a flag is psychologically harmful to someone, they must have very thin skin. And even if it is psychologically harmful, are we going to ban everything that can be psychologically harmful? What about disturbig books? Most great classics can be very disturbing. What about the news? If seeing someone burn a flag is psychologically harmful, seeing most of what is on the news is surely much more so. 2. Secondly, for what kind of protest would it be effective on? Anti-America? There are lots of things it could be an effective protest on, as burning the flag could call attention to whatever issue is being protested. And whether it would be effective isn't really the point- you can say flag burning is an ineffective means of protest because it won't stop what's being protested against, but the same logic applies to most means of protest such as picketing. Usually the point of protests is less to directly stop the problem than to call attention to it. The main issue flag-burning would be a protest on is first ammendment rights- if flag burning is banned, people will burn flags to protest for their right to do so. Actually, people are far more likely to engage in flag-burning if it is banned. 3. If you don't like this country and our ways, then get out and this won't be a problem. You can disagree with some things in our country and still love America. If you really love America, you should work to make it even better by fixing the problems, not just ignore them. 4. If you're Anti-Bush, that's fine, but he's still the leader of our country and we must support him. No, we don't have to, in America we have the freedom not to like our political leaders, but that's a matter for a different debate. 5. Any protest you want, flag burning isn't a reasonable means of solving anything. As I said, it's less likely to be a way to solve problems as a way to call attention to them. 6.There are limits to any rights we may have. Yes. But the limits to first ammendment speech are if it hurts someone. Which flag-burning doesn't do. 7. For example, if I were to say "I'm going to kill the President," I would have broken the law because, although I'm guaranteed freedom of speech, saying that is just wrong. No, you would have broken the law not because it's just wrong but because it is a threat, which could cause harm to the president because you may plan to actually carry it out. 8. That's why we have laws against libel and slander, it violate both freedom of speech and press, but if it's untrue, then it shouldn't be said. Again, libel and slander hurt people's reputations. 9.If a victim is seen, then yes, it is a crime. But there is no victim in flag-burning!! 10. Flag burning is extremely disrespectful, but, as with all laws, if there is a victim, there should be a crime. Again, flag burning does not have a victim!!! 11. In a perfect world, nobody would be a victim, therefore, we should be striving towards the ultimate goal of a better society. Absolutely. But banning flags would make our society worse by curtailing freedom, not better. You make the point several times that if there is a victim,l it should be a crime. But flag-burning does not have a victim. It might annoy or even anger people who see it, but you can't really say that seeing someone burn a flag actually hurts anyone. The flag cannt be said to be the victim. After all, it is only really a piece of red white and blue cloth. It symbolizes America, but the country is not the victim either- it is not hrt when someone burns that piece of red, white, and blue cloth. Rather, America would be hurt much more if people's freedoms are taken away.