The Right to Burn Executive Orders
Jailing someone for burning the flag is unpatriotic like the initial act. Common ground isn’t always welcome. Principal Donald Trump has announced that flame-broiling the Stars and Stripes will go on your permanent record Violent Femmes-style. A true leader would be telling delinquents to kiss off.
It is designed to provoke. I forget which side I mean. Both torching a flag and banning it are meant to infuriate. Trump is daring his enemies to light up with the rightful expectation that they’ll look like the most despicable haters of our great and good nation. Meanwhile, pinko ingrates who destroy everything would be thrilled to get arrested for the ultimate way to disrespect our country’s standard. Trump is lucky every court is lining up to strike down his order, as he’d create a wave of profile pictures featuring arrested pyromaniacs.
Don’t America’s haters care about their carbon footprints? Incinerating the representation of the oppressive racist hellhole where they live and never leave is environmentally unfriendly. Harming Mother Gaia and one particular country on it is just the start of problems. Destroying what this place embodies makes them look bad. But so does handcuffing them for it.
Did you know people have been arrested for turning pride flags to ashes? And that it would also be a violation as long as they lit up their personal property? The side that allegedly can control themselves could aspire to rise above the scuzzy benchmark set by foes. Instead, they fight over flames in the mud pit. Unfurling the latest kabuki production reflects the performative nature of both factions.
You don’t have to feel, well, inflamed. Self-control is treated as punishment. Setting a flag afire doesn’t necessarily have to incite civil unrest. I hate flag-burners like I do communists and still manage to not riot upon encountering them. Those cheering for Trump’s latest lunkheaded overindulgence tacitly admit they can’t control themselves. The thought to misbehave never occurs to those who oppose the diktat on principle. You don’t have to feel agitated just because the president does.
Juvenile anti-American performance artists should be punished with low attendance. Treat the brats with indifference to really get them upset. Real-world trolls who want you fuming count on the backlash. They knew just who’d fall for kayfabe. WWE Hall of Famer Trump took the bait. A person familiar with wrestling should know better. But he thinks the bout is real.
One participant enjoys getting lured in. He only has fun while angry. The technical adult is LARPing with his fellow rageaholics. The rest of us shouldn’t have our rights confiscated with a signature.
The option doesn’t mean you must exercise the right in question. The First Amendment protects flag-burning like it does presidents saying doltish things. No dopey executive order from a future president could change that, either.
Verdicts are personal. Ghastly morons are free to claim jet fuel can’t melt steel just like decent humans with any capacity for intelligence can shun. Those destroying our awesome nation’s excellent symbol shouldn’t be arrested and are still scumbags.
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The give and take is another form of freedom. Feel free to hate those committing lawful awfulness. Sticking woke dopes in the clink because they use matches to express their appalling contempt is yet one more occasion where Trump wants to nationalize what had been a choice.
Using our ensign as kindling is an act in a broader sense. Criminalizing it is a fitting response in an asinine way. Abusing power is condemnable even if ostensibly done to further American goals. In fact, the irony exacerbates the idiocy. Prohibiting flag deflagration is phonily patriotic like taxing commerce to force companies to have factories in America. It’s also reminiscent of owning some of a declining chip company. And that brings to mind a clumsy slogan with a cheap-looking layout on an obnoxious hat. While we’re at it, note the very executive overreach in question.
They’ll have to waste energy responding to something daft. Get wackier to really make the left expend resources. The effort to spur a reaction is discarded as childish by
Implementing successful policies successfully is the best way to enrage foes. That’s not presently an option for an executive who shows how much he hates his counterparts by shrieking louder than them.
Overreaching because his emotions tell him to rage is just one way Trump outpaces that other party. The cunning strategist’s commitment to not thinking things out means never thinking out consequences or precedent. But fretting about what follows is for those losers in the future.
A former Democrat pre-empts his previous gang by adding debt and infiltrating the free market at a faster rate than them. Trump also outpaces his former side by losing impulse control at a record rate.
Outflank your enemy by ripping off their encroachments. You can tell he’s a Republican based on exceeding authority in jingoism’s name. Even the incumbent’s most rabid flunkies know that the decree crosses the line. The Obama-style scheme to see what they can get away with is as childish as it is unpresidential.
Trump is his true self. That’s the problem. The quality his devotees treat like a virtue is actually a drawback in petulant toddlers disguised as 79-year-old heads of state. The ersatz patriotism of imprisoning flaming jerks embodies his crude distortion of conservatism. Now, that’s a symbol.
Ignoring attention whores with flags and Zippos is for grownups. The truest response is to roll one’s eyes at the adult children who crave attention with an ignition. Disregarding a tantrum conforms with grasping how this country is so free that you can burn its banner without legal consequences.
Charring the Bill of Rights infringes on our business. The First Amendment’s whole point is that free speech is a free market. We get to decide who sucks for what they think, not the person sitting on one branch. Those with atrocious viewpoints get judged without hauling them in front of a judge. Raging Trump burns away the natural advantage.
