Most everyone who professes to being a red-blooded American finds it abhorrent when a protester burns a U.S. flag.
President-elect Donald Trump took advantage of the patriotic disdain this week to pledge he would make flag-burning an offense liable for arrest, maybe even cancel the offender’s citizenship.
Once again, it was a case of Trump overlooking the U.S. Constitution and a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1989. Then, in Texas v. Johnson, the Supreme Court invalidated prohibitions of desecrating the American flag, enforced in 48 of 50 states. The court’s opinion, on a five-justice majority, was that the defendant’s act of flag burning was protected speech (albeit an overt expression) under the First Amendment.
As difficult as it is to observe such an act, the Register agrees with the court’s decision, and several times in the 27 years since the decision has said so on this page.
However, there is an adjunct to discussion about flag burning, deftly pointed out by Tom Williams, retired sheriff and Kansas Bureau of Investigation agent, that leaves the door open for law enforcement agents to stop and apprehend a protester bent on making such a controversial statement.
If the flag being burned is owned by the perpetrator, that is one thing. If it is owned by someone else, including a governmental agency, that is another case altogether. Then, theft and destruction of public or private property comes into play.
Even so, it is better for law enforcement officers to avoid a confrontation and what it might generate.
THE FLAG is tangible, but it is only a symbol.
As such, the justices simply were interpreting the Constitution. And, they have the final say in legal matters brought before the court.
If one constitutional right is abridged, there is always the possibility of it occurring with others — including, for those who might protest the loudest, the Second Amendment.
It behooves citizens to accept laws and their interpretations, all of which are part of our three-legged governmental process, the vaunted checks and balances the Founding Fathers wisely included in the enabling document.
To do otherwise, as we hope Trump learns quickly, is to damage our democracy, and risk consequences that no one who truly is a red-blooded American wants to consider.
— Bob Johnson
