Trump agreeing with four Supreme Court justices is evidence of how unhinged he is?

by philg

Donald Trump tweeted about prohibiting burning the American flag. This lit up my Facebook friends:

There is something really really wrong with trump. Why aren’t moderate republicans speaking out in this type of thing?????

It is truly unbelievable !! This guy is really sick

(former MIT professor) Flag tweet, like so many others, is pure misdirection. But it’s also true: Trump is clueless on the Constitution.

Yet in relatively recent memory four Supreme Court justices took a fairly similar position, albeit not tweeted nor expressed as succinctly. See Texas v. Johnson and United States v. Eichman. Was Sandra Day O’Connor, for example, sick and “clueless on the Constitution”?

13 thoughts on “Trump agreeing with four Supreme Court justices is evidence of how unhinged he is?”

  1. Also, by weird coincidence, one Senator Hillary Clinton sponsored an actual bill to do exactly this. She didn’t just give lip service like lame president-elect Trump, she actually drafted the legislation.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_Protection_Act_of_2005

    The Flag Protection Act of 2005 was a proposed United States federal law introduced in the United States Senate at the 109th United States Congress on October 24, 2005, by Senator Bob Bennett (R-Utah) and co-sponsored by Senator Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.). Later co-sponsors included Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and Thomas Carper (D-Del.).[1]
    The law would have prohibited burning or otherwise destroying and damaging the US flag with the primary purpose of intimidation or inciting immediate violence or for the act of terrorism. It called for a punishment of no more than one year in prison and a fine of no more than $100,000; unless that flag was property of the United States Government, in which case the penalty would be a fine of not more than $250,000, not more than two years in prison, or both.[1][2][3]

  3. Phil,
    I will go on record believing Trump will accomplish more (good) in a relatively short period than any president we’ve had since Bill Clinton. These naysayers still can’t believe he’s going to be their next president. Memo to naysayers: Believe it!
    PS
    The venerable NYT probably owes Trump a huge commission on the boost he has given their revenue. Heck, he’s on the front page nearly every day. Could the name possibly be changed to the New York Trump Times?

  5. Constitutional law has very little to do with either the Constitution or law. The Justices primarily make political decisions that they then dress up with a lot of legal mumbo jumbo.

  7. Trump agreeing with four Supreme Court justices is evidence of how unhinged he is?

    Wait, didn’t Trump propose revoking citizenship as a punishment for flag desecration? This was the unconstitutional proposal he made, and is being criticized for, but you’ve ignored it. This has led you to the incorrect conclusion that four justices would have agreed with him, because you aren’t actually evaluating the proposal that everyone else was evaluating.

  8. The venerable NYT probably owes Trump a huge commission on the boost he has given their revenue. Heck, he’s on the front page nearly every day.

    You could the say the same thing about Osama bin Laden. Those September 11 attacks must have sold a lot of newspapers.

  9. It’s a flag, a symbol, a piece of cloth. What’s important are the principles it stands for. Not the ‘thing’ itself. Burning a tyrant in effigy is not the same as burning a tyrant.

    Courts have ruled that anonymous giving of $1 million for a political message is protected speech. Surely burning a flag in protest of the courts’ ruling is also protected speech.

    (fyi.. Veteran, 6 years US Navy, nuclear submarines. I pushed 16 sea launched ICBMs through the oceans of the world to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. One of the most important reasons I did it is so I can burn a flag when someone like Trump comes along. That’s why it’s called the 1st Amendment. When a learning disabled loud mouth says “people died for that flag,” I hope they don’t mean the piece of cloth.)

  10. Paul: Nobody is saying that you’re crazy or clueless about the Constitution if you think flag-burning should be permitted. You agree with at least five Supreme Court justices and you disagree with Senator Hillary Clinton. A person could also support legalized flag-burning for pragmatic reasons. In a country where total compensation (salary, pension, benefits) for a police officer can exceed $400,000 per year perhaps it is not worth sending police officers to chase down flag-burners. We don’t send those police officers to chase down homeowners who fly the flag incorrectly, do we?

    [As it happens, I disagree with Donald Trump on this one. But that doesn’t mean he is “sick” or “clueless about the Constitution.” One thing that I have learned from my Hillary-supporting Facebook friends is that anyone who disagrees with me is instead stupid, racist, and sexist!]

  11. philg: I will grant you that calling a political opponent “sick” is impolite name calling which is best avoided and not worthy of serious consideration. I will further grant you that saying flag burning should not be permitted does not make one “clueless about the Constitution”. However, I remain unconvinced that the argument implied by this posting is sound because these points do not address the totality of what President Elect Trump said. To convince me, please explain exactly how deciding that the first amendment does not bar the state from prohibiting flag burning (which is what the four justices did) is “fairly similar” to proposing that flag burners lose their US Citizenship (which is what President Elect Trump did). Then, please explain the constitutional basis and historical precedent for stripping US citizenship (other than fraud in obtaining said citizenship) for political speech (or any crime for that matter).

  12. The other glaring hole in Philly G’s “fairly similar” trolling is that the president-elect was seemingly oblivious that there was already long-standing Supreme Court precedent ruling that flag-burning is protected speech (unlike when those 4 misguided justices dissented). And under Marbury v. Madison the Supreme Court is the final authority on constitutional law.

    Generalissimo Trump consistently treats the constitution like a real-estate contract he’s barely read and is eager to tear up.

  13. How conservatives may succeed in politics:
    -Keep winning the elections (this is most critical)
    -Continue to support our military and and law enforcement
    -Keep emigration (not immigration) options open and clear
    -Keep the second amendment intact (and don’t forget to practice!)
    -Make California an agricultural state again!
    -Leave the rest to liberals.

    I used to be an Obama supporter, but this is how I feel now.

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