By Daniel Archuleta

By Daniel Archuleta

I feel a sense of pride for my country, pride for all the accomplishments and strides forward this country has made.

However, some of those strides have been a bit off course. In a political atmosphere of unjust wars and huge blunders at every level of government, people need to be shaken up.

Sometimes, in order to do that, you need to make a bold statement.

Burning the flag in hopes of something better rising from the ashes isn’t unpatriotic. It’s an act of hope; hope of a better future and a rejection of a hateful past.

No matter what your political persuasion or personal feelings toward this country might be, there is still something called the First Amendment. Your given rights, which include freedom of speech, say no matter how offended you are by what someone says or does, they have the right to do so as long as no one is hurt and no personal property is destroyed.

If what someone says or does is wrong, their actions will eventually reveal that. This is a nation built on revolution and conflicting ideals, but the one concept the founding fathers held true was freedom.

Shy by one vote, the flag desecration amendment failed to pass the Senate. Despite being legal, burning the flag to express discontent with the government will never be universally accepted. Flag burning will always be an issue for those that want to chisel away at our freedoms. It is unfortunate that they only break the chisel out during elections.

In the end, no national laws should be allowed to strip us of the fact that we all have civil liberties. Even if the U.S. is in the business of swaying dictatorships into democracies, it must do so the only way that shapes the minds of everyone.

Passing an amendment to ban flag burning does not show how strong we are but only how insecure we are about criticizing our own government.