Desecration an Abomination?

Flames roaring, children drinking, laughs in the most dainty voice I am so often noted for, a mass of bodies huddling around the pit for warmth. Bonfire on a Saturday night, as usual, my typical Saturday night when I haven't made better, more appealing plans. Music blasts, we're getting a little rowdy now; the newest cell phones, provided by Apple, ready to strike two o'clock in the morning. Uncontained from any inhibition, any accidental slurs or actions. We run low on substance to keep that fire going; friend causes a bit of a ruckus and reaches for a flag, one with those stars and stripes to familiar to you and I. The canvas dips into the molten flames, corners burn, a release of emotion flows from the intoxicated and inebriated them and I. A question as to "why" the fellow just did that flies as the ash travels through the night sky lit by cars placed around our scene with people doing who knows what. I step in: Who cares, I retort, its just a nicely made piece of canvas, and represents a place that has done some crappy things to some crappy people. Nausea and looks of disgust beam from the eyes of my fellow friends and mates.
Emotions fly higher. I don't expect it at all; I expect agreeance across the board; apparently I was wrong. Apparently personal expression of the American flag is something more: something to not be tampered with. But I think, who makes that rule. We are in America: to get attention, you need to create something to direct attention to, and when you destroy or deface the flag of our country, that is what you are doing. Does that make you a "bad person" in the poorest terms?
Most recognize there are men and women that fight under this flag, and we respect that, or at least, it should be an act of respect towards their career decisions. Is it any more wrong to be an artist that paints of defacing the flag and making a debauchery of this country. Political cartoonists, peace activists, individuals trying to get their word out. These people all must be "bad people".
As I watch the flag peel into itself, into nothing, I feel a release that I could never let out; I have conformed to the society that will thrust forth a thousand lashes for a deed like that. It is not acceptable to society, but acceptable by the mass of individuals, a border to close to the same, they are polar.

Is it so wrong do to something so justifiable as destroying a national flag. A national flag that yes, it displays a universal symbol, but that symbolism can be completely translated differently among the individual.
They attempted to to pass the amendment to prohibit this individual freedom again in 2006, but failed by one vote. That amendment to me: radically idiotic. No?

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