On flag burning.

I was thinking this morning in the shower about that whole “I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” thing. You’ve probably gotten a similar email like I have, which is supposedly written by some guy who was in the Vietnam War or the current situation in Iraq or some other official war. This alleged soldier talks about how great life in America is, how terrible it was in Iraq. How we are so free and Iraqis were so oppressed and how everyone in Iraq is so much better off since we invaded their country, overthrew their leader and screwed up everything so badly that suicide bombs and shootings don’t even make it onto/into most mainstream American media outlets very much anymore. This person who claims to be a soldier of some war (and the wars change, while the email does not, proving at least half of it a lie) goes on to talk about “protesters” and other people who speak their minds. It goes something like this:

“Boy, I sure don’t know why you’re saying that and blaming us for how screwed up Iraq is now. I mean, it was not our President’s fault, not my fault. It was the bad guy’s fault. [That things have only gotten worse without the bad guy is, evidently, irrelevant.] Can’t you hippies just shut up? But, you know, I am over here defending FREEDOM, your freedom. I’m fighting for your freedom of speech. And then you just use it against me. I don’t understand. But I am a better person than you are for fighting for your free speech that you throw at me, and everyone who put me and all these guns here is right and better than you. We have Jesus on our side, one nation under God, etc. etc.”

The email I’m paraphrasing is about free speech, obviously.

So I was thinking of flag burning and how that is related. I mean, do we have freedom of expression or speech? I mean it; I don’t really understand. And what kinds of expression are Okay? Am I free to express my anger at racist bungholes who do everything but drop the N-word and then say, “What? I’m not racist. I didn’t call him a n—–. Don’t be so sensitive”? Because, you know, not liking negative talk about “them blacks” makes me a sissy. Am I free to express my rage when some jerkass on his cell phone almost flattens me with his SUV making in illegal right turn while I’m out cycling somewhere? Or when some yuppy can’t control his or her kid in a coffeeshop? Rather, my question is not whether or not I can express my rage but whether I can do it with fire and/or destruction.

Of course not. I am not free to hurt another person’s body or property. But that’s my point.

Maybe advocates of flag burning are invoking the wrong American right (funny, I know). Maybe it’s not our right to speech but our right to property they should cite. A nylon piece of material with colors on it is a piece of property, no? No one can take a flag that I own. But I can do what I want with my property, so long as it does not hurt anyone else, right? So maybe we have the right to safely, within fire codes and laws, of course, burn whatever piece of our own proptery we want to, so long as the taxpayers don’t have to pay for that hook and ladder to roll up and put out all our flaming crap?

Better keep your receipt.