This meme went viral over Independence Day weekend. In it, a collage of photos shows a young man burning an American Flag and an older man snatching the flag from the flames, shoving it into the younger man’s face and pushing him down on the ground.
Regardless of how you feel about flag burning, you should know that the Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that it is an act of protected free speech under the First Amendment. You should also know that initiating physical violence on someone for burning the flag is not exercising your First Amendment rights; it is the criminal act of assault. Being aware of these two facts already puts you way ahead of the cops and cop apologists posting at Survive the Streets: A Page for Cops and Police Beat, two pro-police Facebook pages that shared the series of images above.
The comments left on the pages speak volumes about the cops and cop apologists who wrote them, and it isn’t that they are fine upstanding Americans.
