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I was infantry in the Army. I never, once, felt that if I went to combat I would be fighting for a flag. When you really get down to it, it isn't a big deal. Burning a flag is a way to show utter contempt for the powers that be. Americans who burn flags aren't usually anti-America. They're anti-establishment. They don't like whoever it is that's calling the shots. They aren't being disrespectful to this country; they're saying fuck you to the special interest pandering politicians sending the bottom 10% of your high school class off to die. It's a way to get your point across. Dread Scott (an artist) had an installation exhibit titled "What is the Proper Way to Display the U.S. Flag?," in which people had to stand on an American flag to write their ideas in a book, and Kate Millet's "The American Dream Goes to Pot" was an exhibit with an American flag half stuffed in a toilet in a jail cell. Both of these were "unacceptable" to the conservative right wing moral majority parrots, but both were considered influential works of art. It's just a flag. And for those of you who wondered why this is considered protectec under freedom of speech... It's because in 1989 the United States Supreme Court said it is free speech.
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