If President-Elect Donald Trump wants to lead a campaign to amend the Constitution to ban flag burning (much like President George H.W. Bush tried to do more than 25 years ago) I have no objection.
Should such a constitutional amendment pass, I would be in agreement with President-Elect Donald Trump's assessment that a year's imprisonment is a reasonable punishment.
But if President-Elect Trump wants to strip people of their citizenship for burning the Stars and Stripes then he is stark raving mad.
To state that flag burning is punishable by a year in prison or being stripped of one's citizenship would be like saying littering is punishable by a $100 fine or being stoned to death.
A choice between a year's imprisonment and a loss of citizenship is simply arbitrary and capricious. It is the sort of thing only a dictator or someone who aspires to be one would say.
They are not the words of a man who has the patience or the stomach for a constitutional amendment.
A year's imprisonment is unreasonable punishment for what the Supreme Court called "protected speech."
ReplyDeleteWhat I am saying here is that if a constitutional amendment were passed banning flag burning I would say a year in jail would be reasonable while the stripping of one's citizenship would not. There's a huge gulf between the two. As it stands, Trump has made no indication he will pursue a constitutional amendment and I don't think he is likely to do so. The remedies he offers have an arbitrary, capricious quality to them.
ReplyDeleteTrump's remedies remind me of Trump's tweets.
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