flag. The same decision applies to the Holt v. Hobbs case in which the Supreme Court…
• Isn't it very painful for veterans of foreign wars, some permanently disabled, to see someone burn the flag that they fought for?…
Passage 1, "American Flag Stands for Tolerance," asserts direct ways that rights, freedom, and choices can be snatched. In the article it is stated that "each individual is to have the freedom to develop by his or her own lights, and not by the command of officialdom." Individuals should be able to live how they intent to instead of having the government decide how they should live. Furthermore why can people not stand up for their rights when "the flag stands for free expression of ideas, no matter how distastful?" People do not want other people interfering with how they want to live their lives. Having freedom snatched away can cause many individuals to do wrong things, such as burning the flag.…
This article talked about how the students of UC Berkeley were protesting against a speech being given at their school, and how the sponsors of this group were forced to pay $15,000 in security fees. Then on top of that fee the school paid an additional $600,000 to create cemented barriers and have armed forces on campus during the meeting. Personally I feel these precautions were unnecessary however due to the way students were reacting it had to be done. Another subject brought up in the article was the fact that 44 percent of students said that the First Amendment does not protect "hate speech", 51 percent said that they would be in favor of students speaking out against a speaker "known for making offensive and hurtful statements" and 19 percent of students said the use of violence against controversial speakers is acceptable. This information frustrates me because freedom of speech is black and white, personal opinions shouldn’t interfere with our rights.…
Many states have laws in place that punish those who mistreat the American Flag. This goes from burning to various other activities that some may find rude and uncalled for. In this newspaper for Illinois, Mercer describes the numerous amounts of cases all around the United States where people have been jailed for such acts. While this is a newspaper, this view was that it should not be against the law to burn flags.…
Does freedom of speech still protect you today? In 1988, the case Texas v. Johnson, a protester named Gregory Johnson, grabbed an American flag and drenched it in kerosene, then proceeded to light it on fire. Desecrating the flag was illegal in Texas, so he was convicted one year in prison for this. This made Johnson and others argue that what he did was his right, due to freedom of speech, it was a political message, and it was legal to burn the flag in other cities. Johnson was justified in burning the flag because of his freedom of speech.…
In today’s society, the first amendment is taken advantage of in many ways. Many people express that they can say whatever they please because they have the Freedom of Speech. They might burn the USA flag, make a racist remark, or some other kind of action, but what they do not realize is that this may hurt people. The First Amendment should be limited so that individuals can speak their mind so long as it does not hurt other people, or violates their rights.…
The flag that many people say he is disrespecting, stands for the very values that he is demonstrating. Having an unpopular opinion in a free democracy is never going to disappear, and trying to silence someone’s freedom of expression is even more disgraceful to the flag than kneeling during the national anthem.…
In the discussions of if burning the flag should be illegal, one controversial issue has been that it shouldn’t be. On the one hand, many american argue that it should be illegal to burn the flag. On the other hand, some americans contend that burning the flag is a way to get there point across. My own view is that it should be illegal.…
Flag desecration is intended as a political statement against our government and to evoke an emotional response fueled by a personal agenda. In reality, the American flag represents our country and not our government, along with the men and women of the armed forces, police forces, and firefighters that died in the line of duty. Even though flag desecration is protected under the First Amendment, it is still widely considered to be an insult and disrespect to anyone who has ever received our American flag from the passing of a loved one. Flag desecration should be made illegal and disregarded as a form of free speech because it's a misinterpreted form of political expression, it inherently dishonors and disrespects every person ever buried underneath our American flag, and it is completely hypocritical act to burn the flag of a country that gives you the exact same freedom of expression.…
In the document “Texas V. Johnson” that statement is demonstrated. “Texas v. Johnson” is a formal document of the court’s opinion on the burning the flag. On lines 37-39 it says, “The way to preserve the flag's special role is not to punish those who feel differently about these matters. It is to persuade them that they are wrong.” Even though the court had stated in lines 26-31 “We are tempted to say, in fact, that the flag's deservedly cherishes place in our community will be strengthened, not weakened,” The court did not punish Johnson for his actions of burning the flag because even if the court does not agree with him, they also believe “...nobody can suppose that this one gesture of an unknown man will change our Nation's attitude towards its flag…” (Lines 17- 19). In “Texas v. Johnson” the court may not agree with Johnson, but they do not punish him. Although he was being disrespectful, he did not break any laws. Additionally, in this document Brennan stated, “We decline, therefore, to create for the flag an exception to the joust of the principles protected by the first amendment.” (Page 15, Lines 1-2) Again, you should persuade them that they are wrong to burn the flag over compulsion, because our flag is founded on…
Burning the flag in protest is our right as stated by the Constitution. If we allow our government to ban flag burning, it is no longer a matter of protecting our flag's meaning because the more restrictive our government becomes, the more we lose the meaning of the flag. Our flag symbolizes the freedom of our nation and its immense diversity. With this much diversity, we must keep everyone's opinion in mind. If we take away the power of the individual, we become weaker as a whole…
The young lady at Harvard had hung up the the flag to celebrate George Washington’s birthday and understandably enough the colored students at Harvard were offended. So as a retort directed towards the young lady another student put out a Nazi flag(Mansfield). Mansfield said that “You take offense by giving offense.” This is an example of how freedom of expression may just be racism and why politically correctness matters to an extent. Free speech is important in order to solve any problems at all but because people are taking politically correctness to such an extreme it is as if somebody were “there’s a black man standing.” They would be deemed as a racist when in all reality all they did was state a…
In America, we are founded upon the rules and guidelines provided by our Constitution, but those rules and guidelines are constantly open to your own interpretation. When certain conflicts arise, we turn to our Constitution for admonition. But where do the provisions of our Constitution end? In the articles “Texas v. Johnson: Majority Opinion” and “American Flag Stands for Tolerance”, the issue of whether or not the First Amendment allows for people to use the burning of the American flag as a form of protest—but one does it better than the other.…
Does the creation of the American flag should be illegal. The main reason this has not been made illegal yet is because of the First Amendment, freedom of speech. The argument still stands that desecration of the flag is not a type of speech but A behavior. Behavior is the way in which one acts or conducts oneself, especially towards others. Therefore, I do not believe this could be considered speech…