FREE ESSAY ON US FLAG: A SYMBOL WORTH PROTECTION

US FLAG: A SYMBOL WORTH PROTECTION

The Flag of the United States of America:
A Symbol that Requires Protection
Most people have at one point in their lives looked up at the American flag waving in the
breeze on a light, clear day and thought about how lucky they are to live in the country
that lies beneath that flag. And when you see those broad stripes and bright stars waving
on the bow of one of our countries noble naval ships, you can't help but feel proud of
all those who have come before you and given their lives so that our lives might be
better. And most all of us have also seen footage of that glorious flag being burned by
those who are so pompous and arrogant that they feel they have the right to spit in the
face of this great nation. Even though I believe that those people have the right to say
and show what they believe in peaceful rallies, but burning the Flag of this great nation
violent, wrong and should not be allowed to happen.
The Flag is the ultimate symbol of our country, democracy, and of all the people who have
sacrificed their lives so that our freedom may be protected. Anyone who serves our
country (policeman, military members, and political figures) and passes away, has the
Flag of our country draped over their casket with the union at the head of the casket,
over their left shoulder. During the funeral service, the Flag is folded and presented to
the wife or mother of the deceased. Every single time the American Flag is burned in
protest, the patriotism and pride of the person under that Flag is violated. Worst of
all, the families' memories of their son, daughter, mother, father, husband, or wife who
served our country is burned with it. Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., John F.
Kennedy, all these people and thousands more have been buried in this manner and are
disgraced every time fire is put to the Flag.
Not only does burning the Flag disgrace our country's hero's memories, it also disgraces
the reason that they died and what they died for. A person being buried in this
traditional fashion usually died because they were protecting our country, either from
foreign enemies such as in the World Wars, or domestic enemies such as slavery and
racism. These people gave their lives so that we (including those who burn flags) could
live in a free country. By burning the flag, they show the ultimate ingratitude for those
lives and spit in the face of the freedom and democracy they died for. Because of these
brave people's sacrifices, the United States of America is a free country with the
highest standard of living in the world. What if our soldiers hadn't fought Germany and
Japan and instead just protested what the other countries were doing? Two racist
governments would now cover most of the world and eventually would attack the US at home.
We owe our forefathers and all those who came after them a huge debt of gratitude, and we
should therefore not burn the very symbol of all they did for us.
After considering all this, many people still believe that they have the right to burn
the Flag so that they may have their voices heard, and that that right is protected under
the First Amendment of the Constitution. There are two major problems with this belief,
though. First, by burning the Flag, you make so many people so angry that they won't
listen no matter what the protesters are saying. This is because they know that they
don't like what the protesters are doing and therefore don't want to have anything to do
with what the protesters are saying. Second, if you read the first amendment carefully,
you can see that it actually doesn't give the right to people to burn the Flag. What the
First Amendment actually says is, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment
of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
petition the Government for redress of grievances. I completely agree with what the First
Amendment says because it is very important for the people of this country, or any
country, to be able to protest against something the government may be doing wrong. By
having that right, the people can have their views heard and can change unfair laws and
policies. This freedom to voice your opinions does not include the burning of the
American Flag, however. The amendment specifically says, or the right of the people to
peaceably assemble. Fire is the violent decomposition of molecules into more simple
elements and can hardly be considered peaceful. And besides what fire actually does, it
also has very violent connotations in our society. In our culture red is usually
associated with evil which originally derived from the destructiveness of fire which is
red. And in colonial America, towns such as Salem, Massachusetts would burn witches at
the stake because they were supposedly evil. The simple fact is that fire is destructive
and cannot be considered peaceful, but this applies only to assemblies. If that was all
the First Amendment said, it could be interpreted that the individual could burn the Flag
if the wished because there is no reference to the individual. But the First Amendment
goes on to say, and to petition the Government for redress of grievances. Here, both the
individual and the group are refereed to since both can petition the Government. The
definition of a petition is, a solemn supplication or request to a superior authority.
Solemn supplication means a deeply serious plea or request while burning the flag is an
outrageous act that is used to make a point heard, but is never actually used to
seriously request that something be done. Proper ways to petition the government would be
to: peacefully protest, make lists of grievances, go on strikes, or boycott things, ect.
Burning the flag just kicks dirt at people and serves no real purpose in requesting or
demanding action. 
Burning the Flag is a symbolic act of aggression against our countries' values, which
were summed up best by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence when he wrote,
We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The symbolic act of violence towards out values
are only the first step towards real violence. Jimmy Carter once said, Aggression
unopposed becomes a contagious disease. In the case of Flag burning, this would mean that
if we were to let these people get away with this symbolic threat of violence, soon it
could spread and eventually lead to real violence. For example, look at Hitler's Germany.
Anti Jewish sentiment started with just the decimation of Jewish symbols and hate-filled
speeches, which led to the formation of the getos and eventually to the infamous
concentration camps. This shows how symbolic threats of violence can eventually lead to
violence and destruction. 
Besides those who think that it's their right under the Constitution to burn the flag,
there are those who feel that if they go out and buy a flag, it is their property and
have the right to burn it if they wanted to. After all, graffiti may be a terrible crime,
but that's only because it's defacing someone else's private property. The problem is
that while you may have bought that Flag with your own money, it's still not your flag,
it's your country's flag. It wasn't you who labored your entire life to create the
country that the Flag represents, nor was it you who gave your life so that the Flag
could exist. The Flag being burnt is George Washington's, Thomas Jefferson's, Abraham
Lincoln's, and all those who strived to make this country a better place and to keep it
safe.
But what if you own a building and you want the tear it down? You're allowed to tear it
down as long as you do it safely, so why shouldn't you be allowed to rip or burn the flag
that you bought as long as its done safely? The truth is though, that if the building you
own happens to be a historic building, you most likely either won't get the permits
required to tear down that building, or the public will come out in force to stop the
destruction of the landmark. So while you may own the building, in some cases you still
can't tear it down because of it's importance to other people, just like you shouldn't be
able to burn the flag because of it's importance to your country.
So not only is burning the flag immensely disrespectful to those who made this country
possible and unconstitutional, it's not even your flag to burn. Burning the flag of the
United States of America is a display of violence toward our country and everything we
hold dear. By burning the flag, that person is saying that the peace and freedom our
forefathers worked so hard to create should not exist and it can easily be inferred that
if someone's views are so strong that they would hurt the symbol of our country, those
views might be strong enough to hurt the country itself. By burning the US Flag, Flag
burners destroy the very symbol of democracy and freedom thereby showing that they are
against those qualities that make our country great. And if they feel so strongly that
they must burn the Flag in order to attract attention to their cause, who's to sake that
terrorism with the burning of buildings won't be far behind. 
Bibliography
Work Cited for:
The Flag of the United States of America:
A Symbol that Requires Protection
- Simpson, James B. Simpson's Contemporary Quotations. Politics and Government of the
World: Jimmy Carter Columbia University Press, 1994: 55