Posted on 12/05/2016 7:26:20 AM PST by reaganaut1
Last week, president-elect Trump sent a tweet that ought to alarm the majority of Americans who voted for another candidate as well as most of those who voted for him. Here’s what Trump wrote: “Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag – if they do, there must be consequences – perhaps loss of citizenship or a year in jail!”
The very last thing we need in America is more activism meant to punish people for thinking the wrong things. Our college campuses are awash in left-wing thought control, whereby students who say or write anything that hypersensitive students or administrators find offensive can be punished. That’s bad enough. We do not need a right-wing counter-movement led by Trump doing the same.
One troubling aspect of Trump’s declaration is that it bespeaks either ignorance of or hostility to the Supreme Court’s First Amendment jurisprudence. We have considerable history with cases involving governmental efforts at stamping out dissent generally and involving the flag specifically.
In the early 40s, West Virginia punished and expelled students of the Jehovah’s Witness faith because they, following their religion, declined to salute the flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance in school. The state had sound precedent for doing so, a Supreme Court decision (Minersville School District v. Gobitis) that permitted such punishment.
But when the Court heard a similar case in 1943, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, it wisely reversed itself. (As I recently wrote, stare decisis shouldn’t matter when constitutional rights are at stake and this is a good example.)
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
It even was illegal in Ca when I was a kid 50 years ago.
I wonder what would happen if I went down to city hall and torched a gay flag?
I believe that in the 1970s the Supreme Court struck down all laws against flag burning as being unconstitutional violations of the individuals free speech rights under the first amendment. This makes us one of about five countries in the world where it is legal to burn the national flag.
Personally, I think every individual that works for the government should have to state the pledge of allegiance, publicly, in front of a judge, as a condition of employment.
HRC did more than express an opinion, she cosponsored a bill to criminalize flag burning if it was done to incite a riot- an attempt to get around the Supreme’s ruling that burning was speech by narrowing the scope of the existing unconstitutional statute.
“So it is now OK to....
1. Burn the homosexual rainbow flag
2. Burn the ISIS flag
3. Burn the koranimal’s war manual
...with no blowback from leftists. Got it!”
There is nothing you can do that won’t receive blowback from leftists. Best to accept that and disregard their blowback. They lost. Elections have consequences. Or so I’ve heard...
So do I ...
It is ironic that the same group that has spent the last 8 years criminalizing the 1st Amendment freedoms are now embracing it.
I don’t really think that flag burning is speech. I think speech is speech for the most part, except for those who use sign language, I suppose.
If burning a flag is speech, then so is building a building on my lot. But, I can’t do it without approval, and without paying property taxes. It’s an expression of my individuality....if burning a flag is an expression of someone else’s.
Actually, it's not. There's no speech involved in burning something. Neither is sitting in a puddle of drool on the floor, stoned out of your mind a form of "free speech".
It's more like an act of vandalism. I wonder if libertarians think that taking a dump in the elevator is free speech too.
The expansion by judges that decided ACTIONS were SPEECH and covered by the first amendment was a bad decision.
Speech is speech, actions are not.
Texas Vs Johnson was a bad decision. There is no such thing as “symbolic” free speech.
Speech is speech... Your right to print, distribute and say whatever you want fine.. but actions beyond that, are not protected by the first amendment and this was a horrible and wrong decision.
I think flag burners should be dipped in honey and tied down on top of fire ant hills.
However the US Supreme Court thinks differently so my opinion, or for that matter Donald Trump’s opinion, is irrelevant to the Law.
Its not troubling at all, the 1989 decision was a bad decision.
The entire idea that the first amendment covers actions, is ludicrous on its face.
Actions are actions, speech is speech. The founders knew exactly the words they chose and why.
Its hard to argue its vandalism, unless the flag being burned is stolen, or someone else’s property.
However the expansion of speech to cover actions, at its face was a bad decision.
I know the 1989 decision did this explicitly for flag burning, but don’t know if this was the first case to say actions are speech... and that is absolutely a wrong and bad decision.
Speech and actions are 2 different things... to believe the first amendment extends to actions is repugnant.. unless someone can show me anything in the federalist papers that implies the founders intended actions to be covered by the first amendment, any and all decisions claiming actions are SYMBOLIC speech and protected by the first amendment is a total garbage argument
Wrong.
It is Free Speech to burn the American Flag, according to the United States Supreme Court, who has already ruled on the question.
Notwithstanding that, if I own a rectangular piece of fabric, my private property, with a blue field of 50 stars in the upper left, and 13 alternating red and white stripes on the rest of it, I damn sure have the right to ignite that piece of fabric, use it as kindling, etc., subject to relevant fire safety considerations. Period. End of story.
Now, I choose not to do that with rectangular pieces of fabric which are colored in that fashion, but nobody is going to tell me whether I can burn that piece of fabric or not. That's my private property, it's not alive, and I will do with it as I please, as long as such act doesn't infringe on the unalienable rights of another.
You can treat your similar rectangular piece of fabric in any way that you feel.
Probably. They’d also say that it ‘isn’t hurting anyone’
That’s the point I was making...
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