The First Amendment: Your Right to Burn the Flag

Okay, I have a thought I want to share.  President-elect Trump tweeted about burning the American flag, and those who do it, should be punished by either putting them in jail for a year or have their citizenship taken away.  Talk about setting people’s heads on fire!  LOL!  Yeah, I know some people are annoyed by the President tweeting, but at least it’s his voice, and not someone else’s (far as I know).  He didn’t say he was going to do it.  He was expressing his feeling, and to tell you the truth I feel the same way.  I know the U.S. Constitution guarantees our first amendment rights, and the U.S. Supreme court interpreted that flag burning is a freedom that’s guaranteed by it.  Okay.  I got it, and in truth, much as I hate it, I can accept it.  Doesn’t mean if I see you do it, I might not accidentally throw water on your sorry ungrateful butt (the way I see it), or maybe give you a disgusted look, but I won’t beat you up. 

 

I was watching “The Five” earlier this evening, and Greg Gutfield said something to the effect that being a flag burner was like wearing a tattoo that says, “I’m an ***hole.”  It identifies someone as what they are.  Those aren’t his exact words but it was something like that.  Still the point is a good one as far as I’m concerned.

 

I know that (some) people see flag burning as an expression of freedom, but I’ll tell you the way I see it is this: Just because I enjoy freedom doesn’t mean I have the right to walk around and use the F-word or use the Lord’s name in vain in public just because I can.  I’ve always thought and will always hold to the opinion that with freedom comes responsibility.  It’s a privilege to be free, not a right to abuse those who don’t see or share your view of the world.  We’re free to murder, commit adultery, support abortion, and finance Planned Parenthood.  We’re free to do all of that, and yet I’ll freeze in hell before anyone ever convinces me that it’s right or that you’re being responsible in doing so.

 

Still, I respect a person’s right to disagree with me, and even to express themselves.  I even encourage you to do it.  Use your voice, but as my Grandma said to me, “if you really want me to pay attention to you then use your inside voice. If I yelled, I only got a stern look and a firm, “be quiet or go outside” from her.  You know what I’m saying, and if you don’t then ask someone who’s over the age of 55 with gray or thinning hair, and has enough lines on their face to show that they’ve had plenty to laugh and cry about in their life.

 

Then there are the ones who, like me, see something completely different when they see someone burning the flag.  When I see someone doing this, you know what I see?  I see someone who has absolutely no respect or regard for anyone (not even themselves), and who have no knowledge  or appreciation for what others have done throughout the whole course of our country’s history, and all the men, women, and children, who have served it, and made sacrifices so that husbands, fathers, and sons could do so.

 

What’s worse is that they dishonor all those people who died, who gave up their right to live so that other people, like me, could be free.  When I see that kind of disrespect, when I see that lack of comprehension of duty and sacrifice to an ideal higher than any one person or thing it just makes my blood boil.  If they can’t appreciate someone dying so that they can have their precious right to protest and walk the streets then I’m fairly sure they don’t understand the sacrifice their parents have made on their behalf either, and if any of you have read any of my posts on my blog Wayne Augden, or on here then you know how I feel about people being ungrateful and who have no feeling of thankfulness for all that they have.

 

So though I respect people’s right to disagree with me, and to express their displeasure, don’t expect me to just sit back and take it without expressing to you how I feel about your doing it, and if judging by the American people’s last vote is any indication then there’s a whole lot more people who feel like me than you.  You might give that some thought.

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An Interesting Quote

As I was reading today I came across the following quote, and it got me to thinking:

“Curiosity is often reprehensible. It is the fault of many to wish to pry into matters which they had much better never know. But there is one direction in which inquiry is never out of place. We can never be too anxious to know about Christ, the reasons of His movements, and the explanations of His doings (1Pe_1:10-12). Here anxious interest and casting about for light are not only legitimate, but necessary to our proper instruction, comfort, and salvation (Jam_1:5). But just here it is that the human heart is most sluggish. People spend their lives searching into questions of political and domestic economy, finance, commerce, agriculture, education. They toil and experiment touching the character, relations, and classifications of rocks, metals, soils, plants, insects, reptiles, animals, birds, and flowers. They explore and labour, at every expense and inconvenience, to make and test theories about the world. They rummage the darkest histories of the past, and exhaust their powers speculating upon the phenomena of human life, and perplex themselves about a thousand things in reference to which the best wisdom is as useless as it is scanty. But when it comes to the great and mighty movements of the Lord of all, the incarnation of Jehovah for the redemption of a world labouring under the curse of sin, and those moral and spiritual administrations, without which all the universe must be as nothing to us, they have no inquiries of living interest to propound. And to many an energetic sage and earnest searcher in departments not a thousandth part the account of this, the wronged and burdened Saviour is compelled to say, “I go My way to Him that sent Me; and none of you asketh Me, Whither goest Thou?” And especially in times of affliction, when the good Lord seems to withdraw Himself, and leave us to ourselves and our weaknesses, does the Saviour find occasion to complain of the deadness of men, paralyzed with their griefs, when they ought to be inquiring of Him about the reasons and objects of them. He has His explanations for all our days of darkness, and an antidote for every pain or privation we suffer, if only we had the faith and interest to ask after it. But the human heart is such an inveterate doubter, and so ready to give way before what is afflictive and dark, that we often miss the very consolations which are at hand, just because we are too dull and despondent to make the requisite inquiry” (J. A. Seiss, M. A.).

What did it get me to thinking?   The first thing I thought was how true this is of people, and then I thought how true this is of me.  Especially those last six lines!  I can’t tell you that I’ve fully digested all that these lines have brought to my mind, but I can see the light of truth shining through them, and I can see myself in them.  Perhaps, you can, too.