How many flags?

How is it that every time anyone in the United States says or does something that offends someone, that group of people feel the need to burn our flag? With all the talk, and so far it has only been talk, of burning korans by a small church in Florida, what makes anyone think that they will win over the American people to their cause by burning our flags and showing images of people burning our flags. I have not been able to see a news paper or see a news cast in the past week that didn’t have a United States flag burning. The part I really can’t understand is that everyone in our government has come out against this pastor and his publicity stunt and it's still not enough, but if it was a Christian Bible that someone was burning it would probably be considered art and receive a grant from the National council for the Arts or something, of course someone would want to put out the fire with urine in that case just to complete the sculpture.

Now there are muslim activists calling for a worldwide burning of US flags all over the world on September 11, I wonder what would happen if Americans got offended at the world burning their flag, would the world stop and say ‘oh, we didn’t mean to offend’, no, they would try to kill us for being offended and showing how weak we are. Will leaders of these countries condemn those who seek to burn what we hold dear? One thing we wont have to worry about is having our leaders saying that we are offended, the leaders of this country will probably apologize for not having a flag that was more environmentally friendly to burn, or start a fund to provide flags to people who are too poor to be able to afford to buy their own flags to burn, and drop flyers in native languages to give safety tips for flag burning. In my mind if it is considered free speech to desecrate what one person holds dear, then the same rules apply for everyone else.

I can’t even think of how many times I have seen someone displaying a crucifix or bible or US flag in a manner that was completely revolting and completely offensive, but no one is afraid of a bunch of Christians, because by and large we are a peaceful and tolerant people, and unbelievers are not afraid of us retaliating. Sure we have our extremists that some will point to, and tell of the many that have been killed in the name of God, but no one is really worried about wide spread Christian violence no matter how offended we are.