A Modest Proposal Re Flag-Burning

Why can't we "go Buford Pusser" on flag-burners?

[Note to Readers: I submitted this essay to American Thinker, but it was declined on the grounds that it encourages businesses to violate the law by engaging in viewpoint discrimination (“even though the Left gets away with it”), and that it condones physical violence. Well, Duh! People like to say that violence never solves anything. But sometimes it absolutely does! Addendum: Astute readers will spot the similarities between this essay and a previous one, “A Scenario from a Distant Planet,” also preceded by a note explaining how it was declined by American Thinker for similar reasons.]

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President Trump, speaking at Ft. Bragg, NC on Tuesday about the ongoing anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles, stated that "people who burn the American flag should go to jail for one year."

I certainly understand the emotion behind the president's statement. However, while I share the president's (and every patriotic American's) contempt and opprobrium for those who burn Old Glory, I cannot support the president's proposal. To prosecute and sentence flag-burners to jail would be a violation of our First Amendment.

That was the ruling of the Supreme Court in the 1989 case of Texas vs. Johnson. In a 5-4 decision the court ruled that burning the flag is symbolic and political speech, and is therefore protected.

But I have another idea for how flag-burners should be dealt with, and how the act of flag-burning can be deterred.

First of all, let me say that, despite the SCOTUS ruling, I don't see burning the American flag as a protest against the government or its policies. When young men protesting the Vietnam War burned their draft cards, that was a protest against the government, against the military, and against the policies of our involvement in Vietnam.

But the flag is not a symbol of the government; it is a symbol of the nation. And the nation is the people, our fellow American citizens.

So burning the American flag is an insult, a slap-in-the-face, to every American. It is an act that is tantamount to wearing a "Death to America" T-shirt, or to shouting "Death to America!" And it should elicit precisely the same reaction as wearing a "Death to America" T-shirt or shouting "Death to America!"

It is a supremely unconscionable, overtly anti-social act. And while they may enjoy Constitutional protection against prosecution, those who perpetrate such an act should be treated like anyone who commits such a deeply anti-social act.

At the very least, such persons should be shunned. Patriotic Americans should not only refuse to speak to them, but they should refuse to have anything to do with them. That means refusing to do business with them, refusing to sell them food and drink, or gasoline, or anything else, and refusing to rent to them; not an apartment, nor lodging, nor even a parking space. It means refusing to acknowledge that they even exist.

But, for some Americans, such shunning will not adequately express their emotional reaction to seeing Old Glory put to flames. For some, setting the flag ablaze is like uttering fighting words. And that's where the second part of my idea comes in.

Burning the flag may be Constitutionally protected, but that doesn't mean it can be done with impunity.

If someone sees the American flag being burned and is so overcome with emotion as to be driven to physically express his or her disapproval, such action should be exempt from penalty. In other words, if someone witnesses you burning the American flag and proceeds to beat the living crap out of you, he or she should be able to do so as a similarly-protected act of symbolic and political speech, with no threat of arrest, prosecution or incarceration.

How can this be accomplished? Well, there is precedence for it. Just as certain prosecutors have chosen to not prosecute certain acts that would otherwise be unlawful, the same selective prosecution can apply to those who go Buford Pusser on flag-burners. If a San Francisco, California prosecutor can decide that theft of retail goods worth less than $950, a misdemeanor under state law, is not worth prosecuting (essentially telling shoplifters to "come and get it!"), prosecutors in other cities and states can declare that violence against flag-burners, while officially neither condoned nor encouraged, will not be prosecuted. And police, knowing that anyone they might arrest for assault-and-battery on a flag-burner will not be prosecuted, will not bother to make the arrest; they will simply look the other way.

Just as there are sanctuary cities for illegal immigrants, where the local authorities have declared that they will harbor and protect those who have illegally breached our border (even if they are engaged in additional criminality), we can have sanctuary cities where the local authorities declare they will look the other way if a person burning the American flag happens to get a tuneup from a disapproving patriot or group of patriots.

Will that deter flag-burning? Let's just see. Let the word go out, from this time and place, that if you wish to burn the American flag, you may inspire some cranial, facial and thoracic trauma solutions providers to come out of the woodwork. You can set fire to Old Glory, but you just may wind up with a mouthful of bloody Chiclets, a bloody nose, a fat lip, a couple of black eyes and even a couple of cracked ribs and assorted contusions. And those who provide that trauma won't spend a single minute in bracelets or in the graybar hotel.

ST