Burning The American Flag: Free Speech or Crime Worthy Desecration?
It seems as though every week, there is a new firestorm revolving around the Trump administration, family and associates. This weeks melee revolves around “Old Glory”. The spark that has cause discussion about this subject came from Donald Trump Jr. on Twitter. He wrote:
This was in direct response to a tweet from Senator Steve Daines (Montana) who is pushing for a constitutional ban against the act. It reads:
The question was even raised on C-SPAN this morning on Washington Journal, and as you might imagine, the responses were quite mixed. Some were outright calling for it being called criminal and unpatriotic. Others were calling it an expression of Free Speech.
Reference: C-Span Washington Journal:
Source https://www.c-span.org/video/?434084-2/washington-journal-news-headlines-viewer-calls
The concern is how quickly some people are willing to ignore the importance of free speech when it does not fit their world view or harms their personal sacred cows. It seems as though the whole point of free speech has been forgotten. So this is a good time to have a refresher course on what it is for.
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Source: Cornell School of Law
First thing to note is that The First Amendment essentially states that congress can not prevent people from peacefully assembling and expressing themselves. If those individuals are causing harm to others and interfering with their right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, then that is a different situation entirely. Burning a flag, regardless of how little you may like it, is not doing damage to another person.
You may consider it personally offensive if you wish, but it is not inherently violent without intent to do harm to others. If you have a problem with that, feel free to counter-protest. You can express your point of view as well. Freedom of Speech does NOT mean freedom from challenge to your speech. That’s the whole point of The First Amendment.
I am quite sure there are some people on the far right that would argue that it is harmful as it is disrespecting the memory of veterans past and present who have fought and died for this country. In this instance, I pose the following argument. A little over a month ago, a “Unite the Right” protest with KKK members and Neo-nazi protestors were marching through Virginia with Tiki Torches in the night yelling “Jews will not replace us!” and other racist mottos. This is offensive to minorities, particularly those whose ancestors were terrorized at night by Klan members in this country who would lynch and kill them.
Regardless of how despicable and vile it was, they still had the right to march and say whatever offensive things they wanted to say. If you want to take away the rights of either one of these two groups, you are equally willing to take away the right of any unpopular speech, no matter how innocuous it may be. This applies to both sides of the argument. If we start down that rabbit hole, we are no different than some other third world nation under rule of a despot.
President Trump is of the same mind as Senator Daines & Trump Jr. His tweet from late 2016 read the following:
Let’s change a few words in this tweet and see how well it settles with you. What if the first part of this tweet said “No one should be allowed to question or protest the state” or “No one should be allowed to practice religion”? How acceptable is that to you?
What if it said “Citizens should not have the right bear arms” or “All property belongs to the state and should be surrendered upon request & without resistance” How far are you willing to go in order make an exception for a president who happens to share you personal dislike of something? Are you willing to allow the same exception if it run in contradiction to your own personal beliefs and values?
If you are willing to go to the wall and accept one, but not the other… then you are a hypocrite. If you accept all of the above statements, then you may as well support totalitarian rule. If you reject all of the hypothetical scenarios above… then maybe you can start to understand why all speech, especially unpopular speech is protected. That also may mean that there may be some hope for understanding that burning a flag, despite your personal feelings about it, isn’t as bad as wanting to silence those whose views differ from your own.
