“Nobody should be
allowed to burn the American flag - if they do, there must be
consequences - perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!”
President-elect Donald
Trump, tweeting on November 29, 2016
The flag was not outright banned from campus as some popular media sites claim. And, the campus did not announce that the flag was a symbol of oppression; The flag was not removed in protest of Donald Trump.
Before the flag was raised again, however, someone took the flag down and burned it. Hampshire explained:
“We intended to raise the flag again this morning, on Veteran's Day, also out of respect. Hampshire is home to a multiplicity of perspectives and life experiences, and among us are both students and employees who have served (and currently serve) in the military. However, this morning we discovered that the flag was burned overnight and, as a result, veterans and others in out community will come to campus to find the flagpole empty. We are deeply saddened that the flag is absent and the reason for its absence.”
(Dan Evon. “Flag Learning.” snopes.com. November 23, 2016.)
I hate to see anyone burn the American flag in protest. The flag is perhaps the strongest symbol of American identity and national pride. It deserves respect. To see someone desecrate it and all for which it stands is particularly repulsive.
However …
Mr. Trump needs to understand that his tweet counters a cornerstone of freedom for citizens of this country. Even while we view those who burn the flag as despicable, misguided protesters, we cannot assume they are criminals who deserve a harsh punishment. Although the issue provokes a controversial debate over the national symbol, free speech is protected as is protection from cruel and unusual punishment.
The Supreme Court
has twice affirmed the right to desecrate the American flag as a form
of free speech in cases before the high court in 1989 and 1990.
In “Texas v. Johnson” (1989), the
Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that flag burning was a form of "symbolic
speech" protected by the First Amendment. The ruling came after
an appeal from Gregory Johnson, who had been convicted by a Texas
court of violating a state law that prohibited the "desecration
of a venerated object" such as the US flag.
“If it were up to me, I would put in jail every sandal-wearing, scruffy-bearded weirdo who burns the American flag,” Scalia said in 2015 in Philadelphia. “But I am not king.”
(Louis Nelson. “Trump calls for jailing,
revoking citizenship of flag-burners.” Politico. November
29, 2016.)
Then, in “United States v. Eichman”
(1990), the top court again affirmed the right to burn the flag when
it ruled 5-4 that the Flag Protection Act of 1989 -- passed by
Congress in response to the Johnson decision -- was unconstitutional.
Reverence for the flag is ingrained in every schoolchild. The flag is so revered because it represents the land of the free, and that freedom includes the ability to use or abuse that flag in protest. As the supreme symbol of the land, the flag also represents the utmost vehicle for protest.
Trump's next unguided point -- Can
the United States strip legally a person's citizenship? No. A 1958
Supreme Court decision rejected the practice of stripping U.S.
citizenship as a form of criminal punishment.
Also there is Afroyim
v. Rusk (5–4 decision) in 1967. The court's majority held that
"Congress has no power under the Constitution to divest a person
of his United States citizenship absent his voluntary renunciation
thereof." Justice Black wrote ...
"'All persons born or naturalized
in the United States ... are citizens of the United States....' There
is no indication in these words of a fleeting citizenship, good at
the moment it is acquired but subject to destruction by the
Government at any time. Rather the Amendment can most reasonably be
read as defining a citizenship which a citizen keeps unless he
voluntarily relinquishes it. Once acquired, this Fourteenth Amendment
citizenship was not to be shifted, canceled, or diluted at the will
of the Federal Government, the States, or any other governmental
unit.”
(“U.S.
May Not Revoke Citizenship, Court Says.”
Los Angeles Times. May
30, 1967.)
(John Wagner. “Trump
suggests loss of citizenship or jail for those who burn U.S. flags.”
The Washington Post. November 29, 2016.)
If Donald Trump wants to serve as
president, not as king, he must respect the law, and he should
refrain from tweeting like some half-baked, uniformed dissident.
These kinds of outbursts simply deepen the divide he has already
created. Naturally, now Trump will defend his comments without
regard for concession. That is his modus operandi – to speak
without thinking, rebuke all who oppose his statements, and refuse to
correct his own misspeaks.
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