Conviction of protester for burning American flag as part of political
             demonstration held to violate Federal Constitution's First Amendment. While the 1984 Republican National Convention was taking place in Dallas, Texas, a group of people staged a political demonstration in Dallas to protest the policies of the President of the United States, who was being nominated by the Convention for re-election.
             One of the protesters (the defendant) accepted an American flag handed to him by a fellow protester, who had taken the flag from a pole outside one of the targeted buildings, doused the flag with kerosene, and set the flag on fire. While the flag burned, the protesters chanted, "America, the red, white, and blue, we spit on you." The protester who allegedly had burned the flag was subsequently prosecuted in a Texas trial court for that act and was convicted of violating a state statute.
             In which prohibited the desecration of, among other things, a state or national flag, and defined desecration as the physical mistreatment of such objects in a way, which the actor knows, will seriously offend one or more persons likely to observe or discover the act. Several witnesses testified that they had been seriously offended by the flag burning. The United States Supreme Court affirmed that the conviction of the defendant protester was inconsistent with the First Amendment under the particular circumstances presented.
             I fell flag burning un-American, but it is every Americans right to protest. Under the First Amendment of the Constitution. People should understand that freedom of speech has to be protected at all cost, even though it means allowing thoughts and ideas in our society that are obviously distasteful. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo LaFayette Black once said, "My view is, without deviation, without exception, without any ifs, buts, or whereases, that freedom of speech means that you shall not do something to people either f...