Defacing the American Flag

[Anonymouse]

And that is how you enforce compliance with the State, by fear and compulsion and threats, that if you do this or that it is "treason" or if you don't support us you are at a "loss of liberty".

It works the same in any nation and political idea.

[sSsflamesSs]

Well I guess the whole point is that if I touced a Brazilian flag on my campus and threw it on the floor, I can gauruntee a riot would start and I would arrested. How come our flag is not defended with such merit.

Ok, I don't know much about politics, but this here doesn't make sense to me.

Wouldn't it be more rational to get worked up if the US flag was defamed as opposed to the flag of a foreign nation?

Tell me if I misunderstood you.

[Shangh_Hye]

If you decided to live in this nation...you should not be discracing its symbols...then youre just discracing yourself...BTW, same goes for the eagle thing...

[sSsflamesSs]

If you decided to live in this nation...you should not be discracing its symbols...then youre just discracing yourself...BTW, same goes for the eagle thing...

That's my point. If you choose to live here, then have respect for it.

I still don't understand why surferarmo said he would get arrested if he defamed a foreign nation's flag on US soil.

[Anonymouse]

If you decided to live in this nation...you should not be discracing its symbols...then youre just discracing yourself...BTW, same goes for the eagle thing...

That's my point. If you choose to live here, then have respect for it.

I still don't understand why surferarmo said he would get arrested if he defamed a foreign nation's flag on US soil.

So you're saying to have respect for something illusory?

The nations, boundaries and its symbols are all illusory and only exist with faith that it means something.

I guess I'm not a faithful person.

[sSsflamesSs]

If you decided to live in this nation...you should not be discracing its symbols...then youre just discracing yourself...BTW, same goes for the eagle thing...

That's my point. If you choose to live here, then have respect for it.

I still don't understand why surferarmo said he would get arrested if he defamed a foreign nation's flag on US soil.

So you're saying to have respect for something illusory?

The nations, boundaries and its symbols are all illusory and only exist with faith that it means something.

I guess I'm not a faithful person.

If you are so brave, why don't you just go around doing as you please?

The thing is, you are not in power. And until you overtake the ones that are, you are no more wise than the rest of us. We are limited by the same system.

Fact is, nations DO exist. They are a form of organization, whether you like to admit it or not. Now I must agree that the system holds us back and cuts down on the so called concept of 'freedom'. Certain people are in power, and it is not in their best interests to give up that power to you or anyone else. This is why they keep all citizens in a state of fear, as you mentioned in the other thread, so that they can go about doing what powerful people do - what they please.

[jahannam]

The Supreme Court considers burning the American Flag an act which is protected by the First Amendment right to free speech.
"Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech."
The only way Congress could make such anti-flag-desecration laws pass constitutionally is to amend the very document that protects our rights.
as for those of you who are arguing whether or not flag burning is a form of speech. lets see: hmmm... If it is not a form of speech, then it is just the act of burning a peice of cloth (However the admendment would allow people to burn the flag as the proper way to dispose of an old worn out flag.) This means that sometimes you could burn the flag and sometimes you could not, depending on the intentions of the individual. This means that the actual act of burning the flag is not what is considered wrong but rather the intentions of the individual. Intentions are nothing more than thoughts. Expressing thoughts (ie burning the flag) is called speech (in the terms of the constitution).

[Anonymouse]

If you decided to live in this nation...you should not be discracing its symbols...then youre just discracing yourself...BTW, same goes for the eagle thing...

That's my point. If you choose to live here, then have respect for it.

I still don't understand why surferarmo said he would get arrested if he defamed a foreign nation's flag on US soil.

So you're saying to have respect for something illusory?

The nations, boundaries and its symbols are all illusory and only exist with faith that it means something.

I guess I'm not a faithful person.

If you are so brave, why don't you just go around doing as you please?

The thing is, you are not in power. And until you overtake the ones that are, you are no more wise than the rest of us. We are limited by the same system.

Fact is, nations DO exist. They are a form of organization, whether you like to admit it or not. Now I must agree that the system holds us back and cuts down on the so called concept of 'freedom'. Certain people are in power, and it is not in their best interests to give up that power to you or anyone else. This is why they keep all citizens in a state of fear, as you mentioned in the other thread, so that they can go about doing what powerful people do - what they please.

Your missing the essence of my argument. My whole point was that nations, naming them, naming boundaries and naming laws against the citizenry are all outward manifestations, not intrinsically natural, but rather artificial in that we have created and given meaning to these things. In my example of the state getting away with genocides and mass murder, yet punishing an individual for either conspiring against the state or killing someone else, why shouldn't he be allowed to it, and the State is allowed to? If the State is what you call organization and something "higher and more nobler" then why do they rely on such inhuman acts in order to survive?

Nations are not real. People use man made language to define and create mythical boundaries to reinforce this idea with the whim of a gun. A nation just like freedom or equality is an idea. Like I said, the continental landmass known as the Americas was simply a piece of land we just gave a name to. It was a piece of land for millenia and as far back as it existed before we came and named it. Other minor examples can be brought up which show how we define the past by definitions from the present using methods that would get any high school student an F, because logically you cannot compare the passed past with the context of today. In doing so, the men behind the curtains have created a past where there was none.

To suggest that anarchism is a form of disorganization is unfounded and reflects a lack of knowledge about the basic tenets of it. I'm not trying to proclaim anarchist thought here, merely trying to give an equal weight of attention to something alternative from the established view. Anarchism is actually the natural order and organization of things as opposed to the artificial order imposed from above in this system. My only contention with the form of nation states is that their artificiality is essentially what eventually causes its decay.

[Shangh_Hye]

If you decided to live in this nation...you should not be discracing its symbols...then youre just discracing yourself...BTW, same goes for the eagle thing...

That's my point. If you choose to live here, then have respect for it.

I still don't understand why surferarmo said he would get arrested if he defamed a foreign nation's flag on US soil.

So you're saying to have respect for something illusory?

The nations, boundaries and its symbols are all illusory and only exist with faith that it means something.

I guess I'm not a faithful person.

Thats ridiculous...since when are Nations illusory?... If someone asks you where you live what do you tell them?...Planet Earth? Nations are not religion to have a faith in pal...they exist and you are bound by their boundaries whether you choose to belive or not...its this kind of loose-ended thinking that gets people into trouble...

[Anonymouse]

If you decided to live in this nation...you should not be discracing its symbols...then youre just discracing yourself...BTW, same goes for the eagle thing...

That's my point. If you choose to live here, then have respect for it.

I still don't understand why surferarmo said he would get arrested if he defamed a foreign nation's flag on US soil.

So you're saying to have respect for something illusory?

The nations, boundaries and its symbols are all illusory and only exist with faith that it means something.

I guess I'm not a faithful person.

Thats ridiculous...since when are Nations illusory?... If someone asks you where you live what do you tell them?...Planet Earth? Nations are not religion to have a faith in pal...they exist and you are bound by their boundaries whether you choose to belive or not...its this kind of loose-ended thinking that gets people into trouble...

It's not up to me to believe it or not, it's up to you.

You believe they exist because you have been condition to think that way. Where is the boundary which you speak of? There is no natural occurence that created a line that said "here is the boundary". Studying the history of America only shows how elastic and pliable "nations" are and "boundaries" always change. The Pledge of Allegiance, the Constitution, our passports, are all artificial creations trying to set definitions and create a context for us to see that "hey this is what it means to be in a nation".

If the self appointed government, ( which in reality is really self appointed not elected and the idea of nations is precisely counter to allowing individual self management ) were to say fall, what value would your passport or your dollar or the boundaries have? The mythical boundaries do not prevent from immigrants coming or going through. The mighty American dollor purely exists on the concept of faith. You have faith that it is worth something because of government decree. The State, our government, has said that this money is worth something. In reality it's just paper and nothing more.

That is the way it is, I cannot change it. But you will find that some people are like Agent Mulder from the X-Files, they like to believe.