![]() But if the cloth you’re burning happens to have a specific design, so that by burning it you are conveying the message that you hate the USA and wish it were burning, then we will punish you, because we don’t like that message. Burn a nazi or confederate flag? We agree with you, and will cheer you on. Laws that punish an action based solely on the message it conveys.īurn an old pair of jeans? No problem. That was the kind of law that the Supreme Court struck down nearly 30 years ago. This debate that Trump has reopened is about people who burn US flags in a perfectly safe and legal manner, so that if they were burning anything but a US flag nobody would think they were doing anything wrong, but because it is a US flag they’re burning people get upset and want to punish then for it. ![]() No court has ever entertained such a defense. Right now, anyone who burns a US flag in a way that violates the fire code is charged and penalized in the usual way, and no civil libertarian has ever objected to it, or would think of doing so. Creating a fire hazard is still illegal, and nobody has ever suggested that one can get out of such a charge just because the thing one was burning happens to be a flag. They’re disputing the bizarre notion that an incoherent action-creating a fire hazard by burning a piece of bunting-is “speech” at all.
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