Fistful, Im glad to expand on the part-of-the-symbol comment that I left too open. At the foundation of the American Revolution and resulting Constitution is the idea that the government is necessary, but should never be held as above reproach or treated as divine (evidenced by the revulsion to the ideas of the divine appointment of the king and the separation of church and state). As I understand it, those who burn flags as part of their discontent with government are burning what they believe to be the symbol of the governments authority. The bigger problem, which I should have addressed, is that a metaphor is never a perfect vehicle for conveying complex subjects that it is meant to indicate. Necessarily, metaphors are vague in order to provide succinctness. They rely on a network of associated ideas, but this network varies for each person, and even at different times/contexts for the same person. The very mad person burning a flag at a protest may be only thinking of the flag as a metaphor representing political domination. Another may be seeing the flag as a metaphor for soldiers who never came home. I cannot guess at what every persons interpretations are when looking at the US flag. When someone chooses to burn it, however, if they are an American citizen then they are part of that metaphor as a nation, and they are a part of the rebellious history.
CAnnoneer, I do not think that anarchy is a viable economy. People do not always think rationally, and a permanent rational mindset would be needed for an anarchic economy. You did not accuse me of thinking anarchically, but I wanted to dismiss any suspicions that may have been forming. It appears that my term negative expression was what led to your concerns of basing everything on negation. I chose my words poorly. By negative expression, I meant expressing opinions that are unsupportive of the government, where negative was used as having the opposite of a positive emotional response.
To have a government that is meaningful, constructive, and long lasting, the government and citizenry need to be dynamic. People will never hold unanimous opinions across a nation, and so dissent, even fervent dissent in the form of burning a flag, must be allowed by a meaningful, constructive government that will represent and serve is citizenry in order to provide long lasting protection of civilized behavior. To disallow it would create a neutered nation that could only effectively dissent through violent revolt, since physical action is the only recourse when communication is silenced. I would rather see an upset college student burn a flag than throw a Molotov cocktail at the police. I would much rather see that student talking rationally and distributing literature than burning a flag.
CAnnoneer, I am confused on one of your counter arguments, though. You said that a compilation of people like that which I described could not form a nation. Are you referring to a group of people who treat the flag as a metaphor and not as an idol?
