Oh, Oh -- Trump Thinks That Flag Burning Should Be Criminalized

Forbes ^ | December 5, 2016 | George Leef

[Leep]

The alt-commies think opposition should be criminalized.

[meyer]

What is the proper way to dispose of a worn, tattered flag?

Frankly, I think that burning a flag in demonstration constitutes fighting words and should be dealt with through a good, old fashioned butt whuppin’.

[sargon]

If you consider the American Flag nothing but a piece of fabric, you are not an American! Certainly not a patriot!

I don't consider it "nothing but a piece of fabric", sister.

Regardless, my patriotic bona fides are well-established, and certainly not subject to your pronouncements.

In its essence, however, any flag is a colored piece of fabric, and, furthermore, can be owned as private property. Inasmuch as such private property is inanimate, I will do exactly as I please with my private property, absent infringement of another's Unalienable Rights.

Consequently, any other individual who is not a slave may similarly do as they wish with their own inanimate private property.

Attempting to "solve" the flag-burning problem by resorting to Tyrannical Law is possibly even more un-American than burning an American flag as a symbol of protest. Indeed, such (currently un-Constitutional) Law rather negates the very concept of Liberty in the first place.

Part of being Free means that other people have the plenary right to do certain things which may offend you, just as you have the right to do things which may offend others.

There is no inherent right against being offended. That sort of nonsense is the purview of the SJW (Social Justice Warrior) crowd, and is antithetical to American Liberty, even if it means someone pisses you off by burning their American flag.

By the way, when an American flag is worn out and no longer suitable for display, the preferred way of retiring it is to destroy it by burning, and then burying the ashes.

Also, please accept my thanks for your critical help manning a Continental artillery piece at the Battle of Monmouth in the aftermath of the British evacuation of Philadelphia in 1778, after your husband fell wounded...

[dasboot]

Mass. General Laws.....

Section 5: Flag; penalty for misuse

Section 5. Whoever publicly burns or otherwise mutilates, tramples upon, defaces or treats contemptuously the flag of the United States or of Massachusetts, whether such flag is public or private property, or whoever displays such flag or any representation thereof upon which are words, figures, advertisements or designs, or whoever causes or permits such flag to be used in a parade as a receptacle for depositing or collecting money or any other article or thing, or whoever exposes to public view, manufactures, sells, exposes for sale, gives away or has in his possession for sale or to give away or for use for any purpose, any article or substance, being an article of merchandise or a receptacle of merchandise or articles upon which is attached, through a wrapping or otherwise, engraved or printed in any manner, a representation of the United States flag, or whoever uses any representation of the arms or the great seal of the commonwealth for any advertising or commercial purpose, shall be punished by a fine of not less than one hundred dollars or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or both.