Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag – if they do, there must be consequences – perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
Flags. Those symbols of what we think we are and what we’d like everyone around us to be. There are lots of problems with president elect Trump telling us that burning the flag should be a crime. First, the Supreme Court has already decided that burning the U.S. flag is not a crime. It is a form of legally protected free speech. Google United States v. Eichman. It is also illegal to use loss of citizenship as a form of criminal punishment.
Flags are not people. They represent ideas. Ideas cannot be burned, so burning a symbol is merely expressing dissatisfaction with the idea or ideas that symbol currently represents. In this case, the U.S. flag currently represents Donald J. Trump. Therefore what Trump is saying is that it should be illegal to protest the upcoming rule of Donald J. Trump.
Human rights matter. Flags do not. But don’t for one second think that Trump as President of these United States will let that pesky Constitution get in the way of promoting his brand or exercising the power less than half the people of this country have voted to give him. Trump is dangerous precisely because
I’m not going to burn any flags, but I do want to say something to Trump. No thank you. I’m not interested in being led by those who grab pussy nonconsensually. From my perspective, that’s much more offensive than burning a flag that was probably not even manufactured in the USA.
I’m actively against everything you stand for. You don’t have any legal authority to change the law. That’s the job of Congress. I suggest that instead of wasting your time on Twitter, you start planning all the ways you will keep this country from devolving into civil war.
People burning flags is the very least of your problems. Get off Twitter, shut your mouth, and start listening to the people burning the flags. By doing that, there’s a slim chance you can make America great for the first time in history.