The interesting thing is that almost everyone believes that flag burning ought to be totally legal; the argument is just over the circumstances. As is routinel

The interesting thing is that almost everyone believes that flag burning ought to be totally legal; the argument is just over the circumstances. As is routinely pointed out, burning a flag is the approved way of "retiring" one when it's no longer fit to be flown. If you fly a flag every day, this will be about once a year or so. In my area, the American Legion or Boy Scouts do "flag retirements" as a fund raiser once in a while; you turn in your old flags and they respectfully burn them. (Maybe they play Taps at the same time or something.) So the argument isn't over flag burning per se, and it never was. It's over flag defacement or "desecration," i.e. burning the flag in the context of a political demonstration, or as an overtly political act.