Ultron

I wouldn't go that far. However we don't have a Constitutionally-protected right to Symbolize hehe. The real question is: are there laws prohibiting flag burning in South Korea.

Ultron

Where does this right come from? I don't see flag burning as a right spelled out anywhere in the Constitution, including it's Amendments.

Ultron

The word "expression" isn't in the US Constitution at all.

Furthermore, if there was such a flag-burning Amendment to the Constitution, it could be repealed by another Amendment. Case in point would be the 18th Amendment, which was repealed by the 21st Amendment.

All of which is Constitutional.

Ultron

People can burn the flag if they want, as long as there are no laws against it. However there is no Constitutional right to burn anything.

Ultron

I personally don't care if people burn the American flag. However I don't see how burning anything is a right, regardless of what statement such burning makes. If someone burned a cross on my lawn I wouldn't let it slide because it's "just speech." hehe

Melkor

Just because something isn't listed specifically as a "right" in the Constitution doesn't mean that we don't have it. The Constitution doesn't "grant" us rights... it recognizes them, and it even goes as far as to ennumerate ones that the framers found particularly important, but doesn't limit our rights to those specifically ennumerated.

And that comes from the Constitution itself.

And flag defacement (because the proposed amendment wasn't restricted to merely burning), as despicable as it may seem, is protected speech. You might not see it as such, but it is.

Ut

The flag burning amendment would have banned not only actual burning of flags, but also virtual burning of flags (like on the link posted by Krieger on the first page).

When it becomes illegal to merely produce images showing the American flag burning, the issue clearly becomes one of freedom of speech

Melkor

As a side note, if flag defacement WERE so clearly NOT protected speech, why have some bothered to go through the rather arduous and likely unsuccessful process of attempting to amend the actual Constitution itself to effectively outlaw it?

Perhaps because it is not so clear, and perhaps because the only way to Constitutionally remove a right is to make it specifically so, as part of the Constitution?

Grad Student Humanist

The fact that you think free expression is not protected by the 1st Amendment reveals only your ignorance of the Constitution.

Where in the Constitution is the right to smoke cigarettes? How about the right to sky-dive? How about the right to eat cheeseburgers? And what about the right to participate in an online forum?

According to your logic we don't have the "right" to do any of these things since they aren't in the Constitution.

Ultron

I agree.


Well let's test this line of thought out using an extreme situation.

Let's say someone goes into an elementary school cafeteria with a room full of kids. Without harming anyone or burning anything else, does that person have the Constitutionally protected RIGHT to light up the flag there and let it burn?

Now if that action was speech, the local fire code laws couldn't touch that person.

There is a freedom to express opinions in this country, but not an unlimited right to convey them through any and every means. The fact is that the US Constitution literally only protects speech.

I'm not. I think it's stupid, and I would disagree with the anti-American sentiment behind it. But I personally wouldn't categorically accept burning a flag wherever and whenever.

Honest public debate. I can agree with that.