Flag burning should be illegal.

For my final speech I will be covering the four points which I brought up in my 2nd round and proving each of them. From there I will give the voters reason to prefer. 1. My first point was simply that we should obey the constitution. I brought across the point that if one is truly of American values then one must support another's right to burn a flag no matter how much they disprove. My opponent agrees with this part of my first point when he states, "I feel that we should curb the amount of power the government has in our everyday life" However my opponent goes on to state that he feels there are better means to protest such as verbally or by writing your opinion on a poster. This is simply a red herring argument being used to distract the voters from the issue at hand. The resolution quite clearly states, "Flag burning should be illegal." To say that there are preferable means does in no way prove my opponents position. My opponent is advocating for illegality not the ability to prefer. 2. My second point can be summed up as, "preferable means of protest." My opponent obviously attacked this in my first point and once again attacked it here. So my first point against his attacks, my opponent drops my points saying that flag burning is preferable to true arson and crime. Thus I can only ask that these points be extended. Flag burning is far more preferable to arson and crime. Secondly my opponent states in defense of his preferable methods that, "Although I agree that civil disobedience is simply the next level of protest I find that flag burnings lead to a less peaceful environment," However this can be seen as a very fallacious argument. Flag burning in itself does not lead to a less peaceful environment and neither does halting flag burning. Its people themselves that lead to less peaceful environments, burning the flag in no way changes the environment. This in a reality gives other citizens a benefit as it allows them to pick out the extremists who are burning flags over every day citizens. If we make burning flags illegal then it becomes that much harder to avoid extremists. Finally my opponent takes up an argument with me calling the flag a piece of cloth. He says, "there are many people that feel that flags symbols and books are not simply bound to earth made material but are rather a living breathing extension of the ideal they hold true." My answer to this is rather simple. It's there problem. If those people require a personification onto a flag, symbol, or book to uphold their ideals then perhaps they should find better ideals. The flag is a piece of cloth, and yes it does represent our country, but that does not somehow deify it. To say that there is something morally wrong with burning the flag is ludicrous within itself. 3. My third point was economic stimulus my opponent simply responds with, "it will hardly boost our economy out of the trouble it is already in." I fully agree with my opponent when he says it will not dig us out of our current hole but that does not change the fact that it will still help us. If someone is dumb enough to waste their time burning our flag then let them, it gives us, at least, some money. 4. My fourth and final point was aptly articulated by my opponent as, "If we show our protest towards our own government it will steal the thunder so to speak from our enemies(.)" This is true. My opponent argues that if we are not a unified country then it will make it easier for us to be overthrown or more likely for people to attack us. This is false and can be seen through empirical examples. Our country has protests and rallies every day in order to change many different parts of our government. In fact, there are protesters that gather once a week only a few blocks from my house. Whether they burn the flag or not does not somehow increase the amount of protesters or show our country to be any more divided than it already is. Our country is divided right now between democrats and republicans and people protest both sides all the time. Once again, like I said in the first argument: It is people who do these things and not the ability to burn our flag that does them. People protest our government and will with or without the ability to burn the flag. When Americans are allowed to burn the flag themselves and do so it essentially steals the thunder from un-Americans doing such an act. As we cannot control what people in other countries do this is a good thing. Finally, in conclusion, my opponent has attempted to give many reasons why we should not prefer flag burning but this quite simply isn't what the debate is about. The resolution states, "Flag burning should be illegal." my opponent however actually advocates that he stands for the right to burn the flag. Thus there is no feasible way to vote for my opponent, I can see nothing but I vote for Con. Thank you.