Marvin Johnson Quote

"China, Cuba, countries where the only freedoms are those bestowed on a whim by the state -- these countries jail their kids for burning the flag. We do not. America was created around dissent. Our freedom is founded upon the right to make known our opinion without threat of government interdiction -- Old Glory is the ultimate, tangible expression of this national belief."

by:	Marvin Johnson a Legislative Counsel for the ACLU
Source:	circa 2001
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Categories:	Government, Independence, Power
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As a Liberation I agree, but one must also add ethics and responsibility when exercising their rights. I am not a flag burner.  -- Cal, Lewisville, TX      3
Amerika is a country where the only freedoms are those bestowed on a whim by the state. Burning the flag is only allowed by the occupying statist theocracy infesting this land. Rule of law in said infesting State is what ever the god/law maker and State administrator says it is. Freedom, based on the right to make known our opinion without threat of government interdiction was recently displayed by a rodeo clown. The once land of the free and home of the brave is a distant fable where compelled compliance, license, victimless crimes, larceny with impunity and non-recognition of inalienable rights is the now China, Cuba, etc. exemplar.  -- Mike, Norwalk      3
p.s. The de jure States united, built upon natural law (each individual is sovereign with inalienable rights being held sacrosanct, and where codes, ordinances, regulations, rules, statutes, etc were/are not law BUT !, only define the law that already exists - - - long since gone) was a land of liberty where the free and brave could make known their opinion without threat of government interdiction or reprisal.  -- Mike, Norwalk      2
Complete nonsense. The nationalist flag serves the same purpose in this country as it does in all countries... as a symbol of the omnipotence of the authoritarian sociopaths who presume to own everyone within a geographic territory. Just another sacred cow that should be served medium-rare.  -- Matthew, Peoples' Republik of Kalifornia      1
It is bad enough that we now have a Moslem COMMIE PIG in OUR White House that HACKED the last election and was elected the 1st time by illegal means from contributions from PAGAN A-RAB countries!!! NOW to read this MANURE makes me want to empty my stomach on the floor! I love my country, it's flag and the principles it ONCE stood for. I AM so GLAD my DAD and MOM and Grandparents did NOT LIVE to see the HELL HOLE America has become!!!!!!  -- ray, Ohio
Marvin Johnson must be less than forty years old. Otherwise he would know that all the things he said did happen in America during the Vietnam Era.  -- Charles McGee, Andalusia, AL      1
First of all I loathe and dispise the anti-Christian ACLU or Anti-Christian Liberties Union. Burning the flag, or making it into clothing is deeply wrong and disrespectful on so many levels. This organization itself has no respect for our flag or the servicemen and women who've sacrificed more than I can imagine under this very meaningfully significant banner. Men have given their lives just to keep it from touching the ground in battle. There is a deeply rooted reverence for this flag; it's not just a piece of cloth.  -- Denise, Durango      1 1
Not sure the problem here -- if I want to burn my own flag, I have that right. Mind you, I have never wanted to do so. Does the flag represent the State or America or what America has become? Frankly, the US has certainly killed a lot of innocent civilians in their nearly 20 years non-stop wars in the Middle East, and the American flag means something different to them than it does to me. Burning the flag is obviously a controversial way of expressing dissent and gets press that otherwise peaceful demonstrations do not. How about burning Obama or Bush in effigy? I am worried that only politically correct forms of dissent are allowed in free speech zones, and to say outright F#$% YOU, American government will get you locked up. You don't see people burning the Canadian flag, do you. Maybe if the US stopped bombing, burning, and killing people in third world countries the issue would be moot.  -- E Archer, NYC      2
The nation's flag far antedates the involution of its government. The flag is powerfully emblematic of the American Ideal. Accordingly, it ought to be honored.  -- Patrick Henry, Red Hill      1
Appropriately as this stems from the land of free enterprise this quotation has given me a business idea. It's probably been thought of already and may even exist, but for the market created by the disenfranchised and disillusioned what about toilet paper depicting the national flag. People can then be subversive in the comfort of their own bathroom and subject the national banner to arguably a worse fate than setting fire to it. I'm sure there would be an international market for this product also.  -- Mick, Manchester      1
Though correct, our opinion means little (if not nothing) to the current political system - It is corrupt to the core, and only listens to their deep state masters and psychopaths like Soros - they get what they want with provocateurs and their proxy terrorist factions. We must fight to take back the America that once had integrity, reason, and honor. Our two enemies, silence and order followers. Until we rid the corridors of power of these sycophants and the deep state, nothing will change, it will only spiral into oblivion...  -- Robert, Somewhere in the USA      1
ACLU was founded by Roger Baldwin, a card carrying communist of the worst kind. His entire foundation for the "American Communist Liberties Union" was to ultimately destroy any semblance of Christianity and personal liberty. Beware the grass hidden poisonous snake that is the ACLU....deception is their game, destruction is their aim.  -- Denise, Durango      1
My preceding vote was cast in error.  -- Patrick Henry, Red Hill

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