Clayton Cramer also writes (in a post aimed at supposedly “pointing out the absurdity of the liberal position”), that “Liberals do believe that” “burning an American flag is a form of free speech.” True, many liberals do (probably more than conservatives do).
So did Justice Scalia and Justice Kennedy, who provided two of the five votes needed to strike down the flagburning ban. On the other hand, one of the four votes to uphold the ban was Justice Stevens, who is now one of the most liberal Justices on the Court (and at the time was mostly a member of the liberal wing, alongside Justices Brennan, Marshall, and Blackmun, who were in the majority on the flagburning case).
Now maybe liberal Justice Stevens was right, and conservative Justices Scalia and Thomas were wrong on this. But it seems helpful to recognize that the flagburning-as-speech position and even the flagburning-as-protected-speech position is not just a province of those darned liberals.
For my explanation of why this position is actually correct, and why Cramer’s parade of horribles is unsound, see the post below. But my point in this post is that flagburning, at least as a constitutional matter, is hardly a crisp liberal-conservative question.
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