Trump Flag-Burning Ban: Unconstitutional, Un-American, and Trifling

Originally published via Armageddon Prose Substack:

 

The Trump administration yesterday announced an executive order attempting to criminalize the burning of the American flag — the right to do which having already been adjudicated by the highest court in the land (twice).

Related: MAGA Influencer Accuses AG Pam Bondi of First Amendment Violation on X

Via Whitehouse.gov (emphasis added):

“Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order to restore respect, pride, and sanctity to the American flag and prosecute those who desecrate this symbol of our freedom, identity, and strength to the fullest extent permissible.

The Order directs the Attorney General to vigorously prosecute those who violate our laws in ways that involve desecrating the flag, and to pursue litigation to clarify the scope of First Amendment in this area.

It also instructs the Attorney General to refer flag desecration cases that violate state or local laws to appropriate state or local authorities.

Finally, the order directs the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security and the Attorney General to deny, prohibit, terminate, or revoke visas, residence permits, or naturalization proceedings, and other immigration benefits, or seek removal from the United States, wherever there has been an appropriate determination that flag desecration by foreign nationals permits the exercise of those remedies under applicable law.”

The dispute over flag-burning as either protected speech or criminal act was settled way back in the Daddy Bush I days — in 1989 with Texas vs. Johnson and again in 1990 with United States v. Eichman.

Via uscourts.gov (emphasis added):

“Gregory Lee Johnson burned an American flag outside of the convention center where the 1984 Republican National Convention was being held in Dallas, Texas. Johnson burned the flag to protest the policies of President Ronald Reagan. He was arrested and charged with violating a Texas statute that prevented the desecration of a venerated object, including the American flag, if such action were likely to incite anger in others. A Texas court tried and convicted Johnson. He appealed, arguing that his actions were “symbolic speech” protected by the First Amendment. The Supreme Court agreed to hear his case…

The majority of the Court, according to Justice William Brennan, agreed with Johnson and held that flag burning constitutes a form of “symbolic speech” that is protected by the First Amendment. The majority noted that freedom of speech protects actions that society may find very offensive, but society’s outrage alone is not justification for suppressing free speech. In particular, the majority noted that the Texas law discriminated upon viewpoint, i.e., although the law punished actions, such as flag burning, that might arouse anger in others, it specifically exempted from prosecution actions that were respectful of venerated objects, e.g., burning and burying a worn-out flag. The majority said that the government could not discriminate in this manner based solely upon viewpoint.”

Related: MSNBC News Actor, Race Scholar ‘Confront the First Amendment’s Dark History’

Bill Hicks from the grave explains the apparently difficult-to-grasp concept that the flag represents the very freedom to burn the flag, which lends the flag its intrinsic value in the first place.

A dichotomy:

· I am but a dissident journalist laboring in relative obscurity — banned from multiple social media platforms for saying true things about COVID and insisting on using the term “tranny” because it’s perhaps my favorite word in the English language.
Not being in a position of enormous power, often writing about culture war red meat is my prerogative, which I am occasionally (rightfully, to be fair) criticized for doing, as it can distract from other, more pressing issues of import.

· The president of the United States is in charge of, among other critical things: the largest economy and largest military in the world, not to mention thousands of nuclear warheads and an egregious biological warfare program — the one that produced COVID-19 and the “vaccines” (problem-reaction-solution) — that, as far as I can tell, is still intact eight months into the current term.

What I’m attempting to illustrate with that distinction is that the latter, the president, presumably has better things to do than challenge civil liberties enshrined in legal canon and in keeping with both the letter and the spirit of the Constitution of these United States.

This is Reagan-era Boomer culture war stuff that I can’t imagine impresses anyone under the age of 60.

My X post on the topic, which I stand behind.

Benjamin Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile (now available in paperback), is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.

Follow AP on X.

Subscribe (for free) to Armageddon Prose and its dystopian sister, Armageddon Safari.

Support AP’s independent journalism with a one-off, hassle-free “digital coffee” tip.

Bitcoin public address: bc1qvq4hgnx3eu09e0m2kk5uanxnm8ljfmpefwhawv