What is the difference between burning the flag and staying seated during the American anthem?

If you ask me, sitting down during an anthem, even if it’s not of your country’s, is impolite and bad mannered. Standing is a sign of basic respect for your or someone else’s country.

Burning the flag is straight up offensive and and act of pure hatred towards someone’s culture and nation. You know who burns flags? Right wing apes. It is done deliberately to insult.

Neither, it’s all about tradition and programming when, infact, the flag is nothing more than a piece of material with attached symbolism and whether you sit or stand has no bearing on enjoying the music, short of it being a tradition of respect. Personally I think it’s all silly.

….I mean if wrong at all? Which is worse in the eyes of the people who are outraged?

@flo Most likely burning the flag.

The Allies fought for the freedom not to stand. To have your private beliefs. The impact of Symbolism has gone overboard.

If I see someone burning a flag, I will buy more flags.
As fuel.

What if you as an American happen to be in Russia let’s say and you just needed to be at an event where they were playiing the anthem?

@flo Just stand still until it’s over. It’s like three minutes, your crown won’t fall off your head.

…Or how about the reverse? A Russian, North Korean….in America?

On its most basic level, both are manifestations of free speech, which is a right that we are supposedly guaranteed in this country. Both actions are protests, both are utterly and completely legal.

And curiously, both have to with the flag, which, as others have said – is a symbol. Not an icon.

The flag that guarantees me the right to protest (and burn it) is a symbol of the freedoms we have.

@Coloma and @RedDeerGuy1 and @elbanditoroso You know the concept of freedom.

If you make me choose, burning the flag. If someone wants to stay seated during the anthem I’m not traumatized, as long as no one is being disruptive I’ll just ignore what others are doing and stand because I want to.

I generally think stand when others stand, it’s nice and respectful, even if it’s not something that involves you, but I don’t think it’s necessary.

Isn’t burning the flag the correct way to dispose of a flag?

“Go ahead and burn the flag, just make sure you don’t do it with a shitty attitude, or you’ll break the magic protection circle.”

We have free speech in the USA. What I think about the acts that you mention does not matter. As long as no one or thing is in danger then people have the right to do stupid things.

Both are protected under the Constitution. So….

Freedom of speech should permit either act, so the question becomes one of determining what is being said.

The implication of sitting down during the anthem is that the person feels excluded from the U.S. It is not immediately clear if the person wishes to included. Sitting is a passive form of rebellion. It is a matter of what the person does not do.

Flag burning is an open act of rebellion. The implication is that drastic changes are required.

All this standing & clutching your heart shit, give your heads a wobble
No one I know has had the remotest thought of singing, let alone standing for our anthem, it all really is a load of bollocks.

@Seek yes it is. Burying it is also acceptable.

What about using it as a bath towel or horse blanket or in a dog bed? lol