Reason and Rhetoric on Flag Burning and Free Speech
By urging the Supreme Court to make expressing objection to what the U.S. government is doing by symbolically burning a flag, the Bush Administration is trampling on what that very flag stands for, freedom of expression.
It recalls to mind the wrongheadedness of that infamous reasoning of some years ago during the Vietnam disaster when some military excuse maker said “we had to destroy the village to save the village,” or the stupidity of the parent who says to the child, “I’ll teach you go around hitting people!” and gives the child a smack on the head.
Even in Moscow recently a protester who publicly defiled a Russian flag was not taken to task for this act of expressing disagreement with government policies!
WALT HOPMANS
Santa Barbara
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