Frankly Speaking

A couple of things:

First of all, no action is intrinsically patriotic or not patriotic, since it is a matter of motivation. Protests can be patriotic, or not patriotic.

Second, I'm not sure how often you see flags stepped on or burned, but I've been to a few protest and I've seen more on TV, and I don't see a lot of that kind of activity -- even though it's largely inspired by the presence of TV cameras.

Is it possible that you live in a parallel universe dominated by lefty stereotypes? Because I'm kind of a lefty and I don't see the stuff you seem to think dominates the picture.

I've attended a few protests in a couple of different states, and the one constant I always see is this: no American flags, but plenty of Cuban flags. There us usually also a heavy representation from various communist and socialist movements, along with the few bandanna covered anarchists who pop up at these things. And when someone does display the American flag, they are almost always immediately called a fascist.

Personally, I usually try to stay neutral during the protests and just walk around taking pictures of everything I see on both sides. Last time I attended one, however, I didn't do much to endear myself to the hippies because I wore a pro military shirt from Ranger Up.