regardless of your feelings on the matter there are 350 million ish people here. any protests of sufficient size will always have someone willing to burn a flag. you can either get blamed and be forced to answer for that person whenever it happens or refuse to participate in the discourse at all.
It's fairly easy to say "I don't think flag burning is a good idea and I don't like it, but I also think it shouldn't be criminalized".
It's an important part of protected speech. It symbolizes a nation in crisis. If that doesn't do it for you, it's also a part of the flag code when dealing with damaged flags.
Hanging a flag upside-down communicates a nation in crisis. Burning a flag just symbolises hostility to the average voter. We can argue about the niceties and finer points of symbolism, but that's how it will be taken.
I'm not making this point because I think flag-burning is completely beyond the pale, I'm making it because I think it's counter-productive.
Everyone could stop burning flags ten years ago and never have done it again and Republicans would make things up about it anyway. It's pointless to capitulate to the fascists, they will lie about it no matter what.
Exactly. Even if it never happened in the US they would just use footage from other countries or use AI to make it look like protestors were doing it. Trump and Vance are both on record admitting to just making shit up to "bring attention to issues" and other nonsense to justify lying.
Refraining from doing dumb stuff is not capitulating.
God, you're pathetically stupid.
Letting fascists dictate what speech is and isn't allowed is capitulating.
Just because your opponents dislike something, doesn't mean that it's a good thing.
Let’s put it this way Torching a flag to cause property damage - DUMB. Torching a flag because it’s symbology is meaningless and may as well burn away into the nothing that it has become under the current government’s administration - Protest that is protected speech
but i think flag burning IS a good idea, so long as it is burned in a safe way that won't cause the fire to spread.
I mean fine, you're entitled to think that, but very few Americans agree with you.
i don't give a fuck? fuck them
Not the best attitude to have if you want to win over voters.
i'm not going to take advice on winning over voters from the class that lost to trump twice by trying to appeal to his base
You don't know how to win, why would i listen to you
ok but they'll just say you and every other Democrat supports flag burning. They don't care what you think and throwing people under the bus for protected speech won't change that.
We're not obliged to defend dumb people because other dumb people will act in bad faith. If Democrats don't condemn examples of flag burning, then those will be used against them and they'll be more likely to chime with non-MAGA types than invented or old outrages.
I do not believe - and I'm getting a bit frustrated that I keep having to restate this point - that Democrats discouraging people from burning flags is a panacea. I just think it's better than the alternative.
What I'm saying is they don't need us to invent ammunition. They won on "eating cats and dogs." A condemnation by Dems has no bearing on what Reps will or will not say. The alternative is to not participate in their stupid debate that you won't win, and talk about shit that matters.
Same thing with liberals saying trans kids can't play sports. They never think, "now I can vote for Gavin Newsom since we both hate trans people." What they actually think is "see? Even the stupid lib gets it! Still not gonna vote for him." Never "hand it to them". It validates them.
It's not about 'handing it to' someone, it's about urging people not to shoot themselves in the foot unnecessarily.