First off, my apologies, I came at this incorrectly thinking about what should be legal or not because of some recent reading about the supreme court which I’ll mention in a bit - but that’s not what the thread is about. Also, I really love a good dialogue too! Hopefully this comes through as sincerely as it was meant to be written.

Yeah, I 100% have felt negatively about people abusing symbols of things that I hold dearly. I think that’s natural. People who are unhappy with burning the pride flag are likely thinking of the millennia of abuse, mistreatment, and killings that have gone by because society didn’t accept certain people in the past, and see burning it as trampling the current, sudden shift toward tolerance (even celebration) and also as a real threat of reversion to the past, of rekindling of violence against those groups. On the flip side, people who are unhappy with burning flag of the US I think see it as disrespecting the sacrifices of so many soldiers toward national and international security, almost as if to spit on a grave, a grave whose headstone bears birth and death years so tragically close together, ended not by accident, but in service to the pursuit of noble ideals. It sounds like maybe you’d agree with that. Both of these reactions I think are understandable. Almost the definition of what it is to have a human reaction I think. Maybe what I’d say is that those reactions/feelings are probably counterproductive, since instead of fostering the asking of questions and seeking of understanding, they seem more likely to lead to intolerance and separation. If we can put aside our angry first responses, even eventually teaching our minds that they aren’t necessary, I think we will be able to actually have a chance at world-wide peace.

More on flag burning, and that supreme court decision that I think definitely was the correct outcome, despite only having a narrow margin (5-4!). At the time, 48/50 states had laws against flag desecration. Here’s a link for more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._Johnson

“Is freedom an idea, or God-given right?” - I don’t know which rights were and weren’t God-given, or when they were given. Is there anything concrete behind this language? I’d love to know if there is. I always thought it just was a way that old-timey philosophers would refer to things that seem so obvious that it *must* be divine mandate. Just thinking about what these God-given rights might be, it seems to me like the list of God-given rights should include the right for a God-fearing person to live in harmony with their neighbors where they please while not paying taxes to whatever the local powers are when they feel those taxes are wrong - even when their neighbors don’t agree, which I don’t think is recognized in any populous countries.