American Flag: The Right to Burn

Burning the American flag is positively constitutional. Not only is it a right guaranteed by the First Amendment, it is one of the very rights that the founders intended to preserve when creating the laws for this nation. America could not have been formed without the banning, burning and dumping of many symbols of the British Empire, such as the British flag. Had we not discarded the image of the British flag, the American flag would have never been created in the first place.

The United States government is designed to evolve with the changing times, be they timely and evolutionary or rapid and revolutionary. The rapid times often test the validity of a governmental structure. If citizens of a democracy lose their voice during a radical time in the nation or world, the democracy will fail. Often, the government, in desperation, will overlook the general opinion of the public. Flag burning is one way to reclaim their attention, to bring forth a serious realization that the people think that whatever the government is doing is wrong and/or unjustifiable.

Flag burning also offers a form of attention to the minority, as exemplified in the Johnson (Texas v. Johnson) case. Although Johnson was a Communist in the United States and therefore a minority, he still had every right guaranteed to him by the Constitution, regardless of his lack of confidence in the document.