Post by benson on Nov 29, 2016 14:11:02 GMT
Burning an American flag should be a crime, President-elect Donald Trump wrote on Twitter Tuesday morning, punishable by a forfeiture of U.S. citizenship or a year in jail.
“Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag - if they do, there must be consequences - perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!” Trump wrote in a post to his social media account.
Laws prohibiting the burning or desecration of the American flag have been struck down by the Supreme Court, most recently in 1990, because they were found to have violated the First Amendment of the Constitution, which protects freedom of speech. A 1958 Supreme Court decision rejected the practice of stripping U.S. citizenship as a form of criminal punishment.
In a 1989 ruling, the Supreme Court upheld the right of protests to burn the flag in a 5-4 decision, with Justice Antonin Scalia siding with the protesters. He later said he based his ruling on a “textual” reading of the Constitution, according to the Constitution Center blog.
“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.”
www.politico.com/story/2016/11/trump-flag-burning-231920
Under Trump, this could become our version of Pakistan's blasphemy law, rivals over land territory disputes or fighting over a job could start point at each other saying they burned a flag.
“Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag - if they do, there must be consequences - perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!” Trump wrote in a post to his social media account.
Laws prohibiting the burning or desecration of the American flag have been struck down by the Supreme Court, most recently in 1990, because they were found to have violated the First Amendment of the Constitution, which protects freedom of speech. A 1958 Supreme Court decision rejected the practice of stripping U.S. citizenship as a form of criminal punishment.
In a 1989 ruling, the Supreme Court upheld the right of protests to burn the flag in a 5-4 decision, with Justice Antonin Scalia siding with the protesters. He later said he based his ruling on a “textual” reading of the Constitution, according to the Constitution Center blog.
“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.”
www.politico.com/story/2016/11/trump-flag-burning-231920
Under Trump, this could become our version of Pakistan's blasphemy law, rivals over land territory disputes or fighting over a job could start point at each other saying they burned a flag.