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June 16, 2020 - Davis Aurini
28:21
The Joys of Flag Burning (Requested Video)

Originally published January, 2017.

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Hey folks, so we are back with another requested video.
This one from Star Spangler Banter, who wants me to address the question of burning flags.
Should it be legal?
Why should it be legal?
Is it freedom of expression?
And for the sake of this video, I decided to use an old picture of myself in my dress uniform along with my company colors right behind me.
Those are the flags that represent my unit that are given the same respect as we would give Her Majesty herself.
So let's start off by reading the question problem concern.
Americans treasure the First Amendment, and in particular the unabridged freedom of speech, and now included the freedom of expression.
Over the past few decades, there are there are Americans who use that freedom to burn the American flag.
But the only people I ever see who ignite this flag turn out to be anarchist Marxists, edgy, and leftist college students, and groups like Black Lives Matter, all who have no constructive critique for the United States, but rather the complete dismantling of the American system.
Yet, it is typical to tolerate the dissenting act without supporting it, but there are still passionate fights over this issue.
I recognize the case for private property, the ownership of a particular purchased flag, and I also recognize the freedom of dissent our nation upholds, as well as Americans who don't care much about nationhood.
But this go-to decision of burning up the American flag seems more like the symptom of a demoralized, dying nation than a worthy cause of freedom to tolerate.
That Americans will tolerate a mindset of destruction because, well, it's in your right to do so, I suppose.
So, my thoughts on this issue.
It actually it is a bit of an interesting issue.
I think it is.
Let's start off, because we're going to be going through a few different parts in this.
Let's start off by talking about what freedom of speech and freedom of expression actually is.
Recognizing, of course, that I'm not a legal scholar, nor am I claiming to be.
Okay, some if you want a legal discussion, you could find somebody to have that for you.
I'm here to have a moral and practical and strategic discussion about the whole thing.
But that said, let's talk about autism and the legal process.
Here's the thing, folks.
At the end of the day, laws are designed to be interpreted by common sense individuals.
Okay, it's uh we're not looking for barracks room lawyers, we're not looking for autists, we want to have a conversation about principles.
Okay, laws are always going to be a little bit fuzzy, and you do need common sense.
You need uh good will, you need a good intention, uh you need a common understanding of the good, uh an understanding which thankfully is universal to all men.
So let's try not to be too autistic about this, uh particularly with the next point I'm going to bring up, that sex is not freedom of expression.
Common filth pointed this out recently, that having sex on camera in and of itself is not freedom of expression.
You're not expressing anything.
There is no speech being uttered there.
There is no meaning, there is is no purpose to this beyond to beyond the desire to titillate.
This isn't to say that nudity should be banned.
Okay, this is the autism gun.
You know what, we need to ban all sex on camera.
Well, no.
If you have a good movie, I thought the movie Antichrist, I thought that was an excellent movie myself, about the horrific nature of unbridled female sexuality and its connections to witchcraft.
I quite enjoyed the movie, and it had some very graphic depictions of sex in it.
There was a message.
There was speech going on in that movie, and sex was part of it.
Could they have filmed it without the graphic scenes?
Well, maybe.
But I've heard some songs that were absolutely ruined because of that radio edit where they remove one swear word.
And that swear word really did make the entire song.
The problem with pornography is that it's not freedom of expression.
You're not saying anything.
And this is where you get autistic.
Well, what if you start the porn scene with a pizza guy showing up to deliver a Italian sausage pizza?
Well, now you have a story and it's part of the no, that's still not freedom of expression.
Common sense, people.
Common sense.
Pornography is there to titillate and nothing else.
It has no cathartic value.
It has no speech value.
It expresses absolutely nothing.
That is not freedom of expression.
I'm not necessarily saying that we should ban it.
I'm just saying that trying to use the First Amendment to protect pornography is absolutely and utterly absurd.
Because freedom of expression, freedom of speech, it is a very valuable thing.
I think it's a very important thing.
Eliezer Yudkowsky once quipped that which can be destroyed by the truth should be.
And I'm in agreement with him there.
I believe in having a diversity of opinion, of the freedom of debate.
I do believe it leads to greater human flourishing.
And this is coming from somebody that describes himself as a Catholic medievalist, which we will get to by the end of the video.
But I am largely in favor of freedom of speech, despite the fact that I find burning a flag to be extremely distasteful.
Which now leads up not just distasteful, but as Star Spangler Banter points out, it does speak to a nation that's lost its will to live in certain ways.
I do find it a very troubling thing.
Now, before we get to that, though, let's move on from the whole topic of freedom of expression, freedom of speech.
Okay, useless, ugly knowledge or expression.
Pornography.
Somebody performing a bowel movement in public is not freedom of speech.
Okay, there are times that nudity can be used in freedom of speech.
A beautiful painting of a nude woman, that's freedom of speech.
That has a message, that has content.
It's a subtle thing.
You need to approach it with common sense.
But like I said, let's move on and discuss flags.
What exactly are they?
Now, the flag originally, you guys probably know this already.
The flag developed initially as a form of communication on the battlefield.
That's the two flags you see in the background there.
Those are the unit colors.
Okay, the flags that, you know, had my unit been around 500 years ago, we would have used on the battlefield.
Of course, those two flags are far fancier than what you would have stitched, you know, back in the medieval era.
But that is what they represent.
They are the flags that if we were fighting a land war with swords and shields, we would be carrying those flags to represent the unit.
They are a way of communicating in the chaos of the battlefield.
Now, as time went on, eventually we saw these flags begin to appear more and more in the era of sail.
So this was in the 17th century, so that's 1600s.
You know, that's when you start getting the naval communications.
One of the ways they used to communicate over long distances with ships is they would take two flags and move them into various positions.
Perhaps you've seen diagrams of this.
I think it was called the Semaphore Code.
And not long after that, given that each ship would be registered to a certain nation, they were expected to fly flags identifying the nation that they came from.
And so these maritime flags eventually became the national flags, starting in the 19th century with the rise of nationalism.
And so really the whole issue of flags, it's a very, very new one.
It wasn't until the past couple centuries that we started thinking about a nation having a flag.
You know, like royal families would have crests, units on the battlefield would have different identifying markers.
But the modern flag is a very new thing.
And so how is this dealt with across nations?
You know, here in Canada, the United States, Australia, on the bleeding western edge of civilization, there are no laws against flag desecration.
In most of Europe, however, there are laws forbidding it.
And quite frankly, I'm not too impressed with the governments of most of Europe.
Okay, like when we're talking about Merkel's Germany banning flag desecration, you know, when we're talking about Israel banning flag desecration, or Spain or Portugal, I'm really not impressed with the governments of those nations.
The people are another question entirely.
The governments I'm not too impressed with.
One standout of all of this, however, which was rather amusing, is Japan.
In Japan, it's illegal to desecrate the flags of a foreign nation with as long as the government recognized that foreign nation.
So back in, what was this, 1958?
Yeah, some of the Japanese decided to desecrate the flag of the People's Republic of China, but Japan didn't recognize that country, so they said, go right ahead, we don't care.
But with Japan, there's a certain consistency to that, which I admire.
Because Japan is an ethnostate, and as far as I am aware, Japan does represent the interests of their people.
And so the Japanese government is saying to their people, like, listen, no, we're not.
We are going to handle the foreign affairs for our people.
Don't mess up foreign matters by burning a flag to make some kind of stunt, to make some kind of opinion.
If we've got a problem with China, we'll deal with it.
We will take charge of that.
Don't go burn a flag and make the situation worse for us.
But that said, yeah, you can burn the Japanese flag in Japan, just not a foreign nation's flag.
So yes, it's a fairly new problem that we're dealing with.
And it's all about what exactly does a flag represent and what does it mean to desecrate it.
See, I don't like the flag desecration because it really comes across as a stunt.
What are you saying when you're burning the flag?
What are you trying to get across when you're burning the flag?
What is the casual observer going to see when you burn the flag?
For instance, there is here in Canada, back when they passed the gay marriage nonsense, a bunch of Baptists, US Baptists, came up to Canada to desecrate the Canadian flag in front of the Parliament building.
Now what did they accomplish by doing that?
They made themselves look like intolerant jerks that hate gay people and Canadians for no reason and don't understand our country and just want to push us around and tell us what to do.
Now, the fact of the matter is that I actually support them in their stance, but burning the flag didn't accomplish anything.
By allowing them to burn the flag, the Canadian government came out as the more mature and the stronger party.
And I guess that's ultimately why I would support the freedom to burn flags, because is it childish?
Yes.
Does it speak to great division within our population?
Yes.
But it makes the government, the government looks weak.
You look like a weak European government or a totalitarian Israeli government when you ban the burning of the flag.
So I do not think it's a wise move or a strategically healthy move to try and prevent that.
Because again, what does the flag represent?
The flag, well, it can represent many things.
It can represent the people of a foreign country.
So you burn the flag of Iran because, you know, you listened to some George Bush speeches, so you hate everybody in Iran.
You can burn your own nation's flag because you're angry at the way the nation is being run.
It is a statement.
It is freedom of speech.
It is freedom of expression, perhaps not expressed in a particularly intelligent manner, but it is that form of speech.
And the fact of the matter is that nations can err.
Nations can go wrong.
And while burning the flag is prurient and childish and you do it for shock value, it is nonetheless pointing out that you are upset with something.
And if you're trying to ban it, I mean you can't ban it on a freedom on it is freedom of speech.
You are expressing something.
At most, you could describe it as incitement to riot because the citizen is protesting against the way their government is being run.
Except even this, this will not accomplish anything.
It certainly will prevent people from burning the flag, but what is incitement to riot?
If there's a group that's burning the flag because they're inciting a revolution against their government, well, then that's no longer speech anymore, that's an act.
If there's a group that is inciting revolution against their government, then either they're going to win and they'll become the new government, or they will lose and they will be crushed because the government is stronger than them.
Banning the burning of the flag accomplishes absolutely nothing if you're looking at it as an incitement to riot.
Okay, so if Black Lives Matter is going to burn the American flag and they're inciting a riot because cops be racist, yo, well, then arrest them for the riot.
You don't need to arrest them for the burning of the flag.
And if you just make burning the flag illegal, then they'll do something else to incite the riot.
You know, if that is the goal, if revolution is the goal, then revolution will be what is performed.
Burning the flag might be part of that, but burning the flag is not a necessary part of that.
It is a unique and distinct entity, statement from all of that.
But again, all of that said, I don't think it's a very productive or useful.
It's an angry outlet.
It's a symptom of a sick society.
However, it is still freedom of speech.
Same way that a Marvel movie, and listen, I know Beckloff likes those Marvel movies.
I don't.
They're too paint by numbers.
They're too obvious.
They're bubblegum.
They're popcorn.
They're high fructose corn syrup.
Don't like those things, but you know, yes, those are part of freedom of expression in a way that pornography never will be.
But all of this, as I said at the beginning, I consider myself a Catholic medievalist.
Yeah, I would certainly like to bring back the Inquisition and have a fifth crusade.
So where do I stand?
Where do I stand on blasphemy?
Where do I stand on desecration of holy relics?
This I'm opposed to, and this I think should have the full force of law behind it because of what the relic points to.
When you're burning a flag, you're saying that the people of Iran are acting like assholes.
Or you're saying that my government be racist, yo.
Or you're saying something.
You're saying that something in the fallible human world is fallible and it needs to be fixed.
When you take a religious icon, a religious building, a religious text, and you desecrate it, you are attacking the very foundation of truth, love, beauty, justice.
You're not saying that things are a little bit wrong.
You're not protesting perhaps a pope that overlooked a whole bunch of child molesters.
Didn't give them the just.
You're not protesting the fallible human world.
You are protesting the divine itself.
And you are promoting heresy.
You are promoting chaos.
You are promoting darkness.
You are promoting evil.
Now, this was much easier, much easier several centuries back.
A little bit more difficult nowadays.
How would we go about making religious desecration unlawful?
Well, in my perfect fantasy world, we would actually have some theological discussions on the matter.
Because here's the thing.
C.S. Lewis has pointed this out.
That no religion which predates Christianity is necessarily false.
Okay, Christ chose the Jews to be the tribe which manifested him.
But he corrected a great deal of the Jewish traditions and the Jewish faith.
He fulfilled it.
And when you go and study Buddhism, Taoism, you study Celtic religions, you study the Nordic religions, you study the American Indians.
There are echoes across all these faiths.
There's a lot that agrees with one another.
There's even some pieces that those faiths have.
There's a lot in Taoism, for instance, that the ancient Jews did not have.
And there's a great deal of compatibility.
Taoism is pointing towards the truth.
Okay, same as Hinduism, same as the Buddha.
These people, these faiths are pointing towards that same ineffable quality.
However, there are those religions which are clearly not.
If you want to read about a horror show, look up the ancient Incans.
And these people would torture their own children.
They would torture them for a week because they thought that's what the gods wanted.
Look at the ancient Carthaginians and what they did to their children.
Reports coming from the Romans, granted, but there does seem to be some archaeological evidence backing it up.
Look at the modern death cult of Islam.
Or for that matter, the cult of the Antichrist known as Talmudic Judaism.
Look at these religions and look what they promote.
Look what their works are upon the world.
It's one thing to desecrate a crucifix, or a statue of the Buddha, or a symbol of the Tao.
It's something else entirely to protest a self-proclaimed prophet who molested children and who peed like a girl.
When you protest against religious symbolism, even if you are not of the faith yourself, you are protesting against the Most High.
And now even that said, let's say I were the general in charge of the Fifth Crusade, and we had routed the Muslims and beheaded all of the Imams.
What would we do with the mosques which we had taken over?
Would we destroy them?
Would we burn every single Quran?
Maybe it's just the historian in me, my love for Indiana Jones, this belongs in a museum, but I don't think so.
I don't think that destruction of culture would be appropriate because despite the foundational flaw in Islam, there have been many, many good and wise Muslims over the centuries.
And so all of that shouldn't be lost.
So to recap all of this, freedom of speech is only a threat to those who are weak or those who have something to hide.
If a government is good and just, and we're not talking about extenuating circumstances like wartime when you need to crack down a little bit, if a government is good and it is just and is representing the interests of its people, and it's not working for foreign interests or what have you, then it has no reason to fear freedom of speech.
And freedom of speech overall will lead to human flourishing, to greater richness and understanding of the world, even if some people spread lies.
You know, one of the things that just, you know, I'm not going to say it confuses me because I don't really respect these people, but it amuses me.
The way these evolutionists, you know, these atheists called evolutionists, they absolutely love debating, you know, creationists.
Because the vast, vast majority of creationists have no idea what they're talking about, and they come off like complete idiots.
And it provides fertile ground for the evolutionists to explain evolutionary theory.
And yet these exact same atheists called evolutionists think that questioning the Holocaust should be banned.
Very interesting that.
No, freedom of speech doesn't hurt you if you don't have anything to hide.
Certainly you need laws for for lying about people, for causing damage, for incitement to riot, planning to commit a crime, but none of those are true freedom, true examples of freedom of expression.
You're not expressing anything, you're just planning to do something bad.
Or you are doing something bad.
Now, true freedom of expression is not a threat.
And burning a flag, crass and vulgar, though it might be, is freedom of expression, and only a weak state would ban that.
However, blasphemy, that is something a bit more, and it is something that should be dealt with.
Perhaps not with all the force of the law, but it is the sort of thing that, well, Maybe we don't just need another crusade.
Maybe another Inquisition wouldn't be such a bad idea either.
Now, that said, Star Spangler Banter, thank you very much for the requested video.
It's an interesting question.
Gave me a lot to chew over.
There's links to those Wikipedia articles down below.
If you want to study the history of flags, the different laws in different countries, if you want to go more in depth about that, yeah, links down below for you.
If you want to do a requested video, if you want to send me a request, there's a link for that.
And folks, take care of yourselves.
Stay warm.
Keep your powder dry.
Deus Volt.
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