Selective Outrage: The Politics of Flag Burning and Free Expression
But for all the outrage that Trump is a despot determined to take away our constitutional rights, I don’t recall much outrage when an Iowa man burned church’s Pride flag in 2019 — and was sentenced to 16 years in prison.
Many of President Donald Trump’s supporters were taken aback when he signed an executive order Monday to prosecute those who burn the American flag. However deplorable or unpatriotic the act may be, imprisoning someone for it runs counter to the First Amendment’s guarantee of free expression.
In Texas v. Johnson (1989), the Supreme Court made that principle explicit, ruling that the First Amendment “protects actions that society may find very offensive, but society’s outrage alone is not justification for suppressing free speech.”
Trump’s order attempts to sidestep that precedent, calling for prosecutions where flag burnings threaten or actually incite lawless action. It acknowledges constitutional protections, but insists: “The [Supreme] Court has never held that American flag desecration conducted in a manner likely to incite imminent lawless action or amounting to ‘fighting words’ is constitutionally protected.”
The order leans on Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), in which the Supreme Court ruled, “The government may restrict speech only when it is both intended to incite lawless action and likely to produce it.
Despite that ruling, Trump’s executive order is on a slippery slope. Courts are unlikely to uphold it — and in the end, it will almost certainly be struck down as unconstitutional.
STATEMENT: President Trump may believe he has the power to revise the First Amendment with the stroke of a pen, but he doesn’t.
Flag burning as a form of political protest is protected by the First Amendment. That’s nothing new.
While people can be prosecuted for burning… pic.twitter.com/ONu1IwL0q3
— FIRE (@TheFIREorg) August 25, 2025
But for all the outrage that Trump is a despot determined to take away our constitutional rights, I don’t recall much outrage when an Iowa man burned a church’s Pride flag in 2019 — and was sentenced to 16 years in prison.
Journalist Sean Davis reminded readers of this “hate crime” originally reported in the Des Moines Register and republished by USA Today.
An Ames man was sentenced Wednesday to about 16 years in prison after he set fire to a church’s LGBTQ flag in June.
Adolfo Martinez, 30, of Ames, was found guilty last month of third-degree arson in violation of individual rights — hate crime, third-degree harassment, and reckless use of fire as a habitual offender.
He was arrested after stealing a pride banner hanging at Ames United Church of Christ, 217 6th St., and burning it early June 11 outside Dangerous Curves Gentleman’s Club, 111 5th St., police said.
Davis added a second post to further make his point:
If it’s illegal to burn pride flags or do burnouts on rainbow crosswalks, then it should be illegal to burn the American flag.
And if it’s illegal to burn a dollar in protest of fiat money (18 U.S.C. 333), there should be no issue with making it illegal to burn the American flag. Either arson is speech, or arson is a crime.
No more of this “it’s okay when we burn your symbols but a crime when you burn our symbols” nonsense.
Wasn’t Martinez simply exercising his rights under the First Amendment?
“Trump can’t do this! Setting things on fire is free speech!” https://t.co/Yz3bEBev9L pic.twitter.com/zqESfsusVt
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) August 25, 2025
The issue in Martinez’s case may boil down to his theft of the flag from the church and his reasons for stealing it and then destroying it. According to Story County Attorney Jessica Reynolds, “the hate crime charges were added because Martinez is suspected of criminal mischief against someone’s property because of ‘what it represents as far as sexual orientation.'”
As for why he received such a long sentence, the Des Moines Register reported:
He faced a maximum of five years in prison for the hate crime and arson charge and a maximum of a year and month for the other two charges, according to Iowa sentencing guidelines. Court records list him as a habitual offender, allowing him to be sentenced to a longer prison term.
Despite Reynold’s distinction in this case, the political double standard is obvious.
You may recall the July 2024 incident that occurred outside Washington, D.C.’s Union Station during a visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Following his speech to a joint session of Congress, protesters who had warned of a “day of rage,” lowered an American flag, burned it, and replaced it with a Palestinian flag.
It seems to me that these “protesters” stole property and committed arson, all while carrying out a hate crime — the very same charges that Martinez was convicted of.
The Washington Post reported that police arrested 25 protesters that day, but prosecutors dropped charges against 11 just two days later. The fate of the remaining 14 is unclear — though I highly doubt any of them were sentenced to 16 years.
But one X user who replied to Davis’s post may be onto something. He speculated that Trump might be setting up a scenario to force the Supreme Court to take a stand: either “you can burn whatever flag you want, or you can’t burn any flag.” Most likely, the Court would decide the former.
President Trump is not a dummy he is setting it up that you can burn whatever flag you want or you can’t burn any flag.
— Rikkd4 (@RikkD4) August 25, 2025
— Alex (@AToggs) August 25, 2025
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
The American flag is tied to everybody’s personal relations with the government. You may have noticed that it’s mostly associated with lying and corrupt politicians, who are always found with at least a half dozen flags in the background. It’s plainly political speech to burn one.
The pride flag just has to do with queers.
“It’s mostly associated with lying and corrupt politicians, who are always found with at least a half dozen flags in the background.”
Maybe in your world, but in the real world it is associated with the greatest country on the planet and the values that make it so.
What the lying and corrupt politicians are doing is using the flag to pretend to be patriots. That’s not actually different from its general use. An insight.
There is patriotism but it doesn’t involve the flag..
It’s the idolatry thing again. There’s a reason that it wound up in the ten commandments. The graven images thing. Take religion as an ethical allegory of human social relations and you get immediate application: the image of patriotism is not patriotism. People have in fact noticed this.
Idiocy.
A few years ago during the Auto-pen administration, burning a Cultural Marxist flag ( yes that multi colored flag) would get you in jail. Burn a American flag? Nothing.
That is just not true.
Clearly your WRONG millhouse
No, I am right. There has never been a time in the USA when burning a Pride flag would land you in legal trouble. Provided, of course, that it was your flag, and you weren’t violating the fire code or any other value-neutral law, that would get you in trouble no matter what it was.
The freedom of expression doesn’t allow you to commit crimes while you’re exercising it. You can’t get away with holding up a bank by wearing a “F*** Capitalism” T-shirt at the same time.
But it does mean that a court can’t impose a harsher sentence for burning one piece of cloth than it would for burning another. The ideas you are expressing can’t themselves affect the outcome.
Wanna go out and test your theory that no one will be punished for burning a pride flag?
Men have been prosecuted for doing burnouts over pride colors on a street. Another was prosecuted for using a pride flag to wipe his ass – the latter being a homeless dude who just needed something to wipe his ass.
So go for it. Burn the LGBT separatists’ symbol and see if it doesn’t get you prosecuted.
Chrisboldssr, no one has ever been prosecuted for doing anything to their own Pride flag.
Obviously people who vandalized the city’s property were prosecuted, as they should have been. Likewise someone who stole a flag and defecated on it. As I said, you have no right to rob a bank just because you’re expressing an opinion. In both cases the exact same thing would have happened had it been a US flag, or any other property. There was no additional penalty for the fact that it was a Pride flag.
Millhouse, stop with your stupid verbose legal analysis. Go buy your own pride flag, go out publicly, and burn that fucker. Usually when people burn a flag, they’re burning their own flag, right? They’re not burning their own property.
So go do it. And report back to us what happened to you.
Chris, why would I want to burn a Pride flag, whether mine or anyone else’s?
But the fact is that I could do so with absolute confidence, 100%, that I would not be arrested, and not be charged with anything. And so could you. People who claim to be afraid to do so are LYING.
Now you’re just babbling. Yes, most people who burn flags burn their own flags, which means they are burning their own property. And no one has ever been arrested for doing so to any flag but that of the USA; some people were arrested for burning their own USA flag, and that’s when the Supreme Court said you can’t do that. So now all flags, and indeed all items, are treated the same, as it should be.
I can not find a case of someone burning a pride flag and being arrested without them stealing the flag or burning one hanging in a public place. I don’t think you are correct in this one, gonzotx
I can’t think of a case where anyone was prosecuted in the USA solely for desecrating a ‘pride’ flag and it didn’t have additional crimes associated with it; theft, trespass, assault.
The entire premise of this post is ridiculous and dishonest. No one in the USA has ever been arrested, let alone convicted or sentenced, for burning their own Pride flag, or indeed for the fact that what they burned was a Pride flag rather than some other piece of cloth. No one. It simply has not happened and anyone who claims it has is not telling the truth.
This Martinez person was sentenced because it wasn’t his flag. The exact same thing would have happened to him had he burned a church’s USA flag. He would have been arrested, convicted, and sentenced.
Nor was his sentence longer because it was a Pride flag. It was longer for two reasons: The first was, not what it was that he burned, but his motive for the crime. He did it out of hatred for people on the grounds of their sexual orientation. And that qualified him for a sentence enhancement, as it should.
For as long as we’ve had a legal system motive has always been a legitimate factor in sentencing; but it was up to the judge’s discretion, both to decide how it should affect the sentence and to determine that this was his motive in the first place. All hate crime laws do is formalize the enhancement, and, more importantly, require a jury finding for the motive, so the judge can’t just make it up.
It didn’t matter what it was that Martinez burned; had he stolen a USA flag or anything else from a gay church and burned it, and the jury found based on objective evidence that his motive was that it was a gay church, then the hate crime enhancement would have been the same.
Some states’ hate crime laws include hatred on the basis of national origin as one of the grounds qualifying for an enhancement. In such a state, stealing and burning a USA flag out of hatred for Americans, if the jury found that to be the motive, would also qualify for the enhancement. However if the motive was hatred for the USA itself, as opposed to its people, then it would not qualify in any state.
The other reason Martinez’s sentence was so long was that he was a repeat offender, which makes it no different from “three strikes” laws that can get someone a life sentence for a relatively trivial offense; if you’re not outraged that someone is sentenced to life for stealing $20 worth of merchandise, then you have no right to be outraged at the addition of a mere ten years to this repeat offender, which would have happened no matter what his crime was. He’d have got the same, not just for stealing and burning a US flag, but for any offense whatsoever.
How do you know there was convincing evidence that these specific people burned the flag? And what evidence was there that their motive was hatred of Jews, as opposed to political protest against the USA, which is not a hate crime?
In other words you don’t know what the 14 got. But their crime was rioting, and for better or worse rioting, especially political rioting, is treated differently than individual crimes. People are arrested in the moment and then released when it turns out their participation in crimes, if any, was minimal. That doesn’t happen in that manner when it’s just one person committing a discrete crime; it’s an entirely different dynamic.
Also, it was Washington DC, not Ames, IA. Different prosecutors and completely different policies. You can’t demand an answer on why a criminal in Iowa was not coddled as he might have been in DC.
Burning the US flag at a protest is both intended to incite lawless action and likely to produce it. Almost every protest when a Republican is president that the US flag is burnt devolves into violence.
No, it is not, and you know it.
First of all, this is not true. Second, even when the flag is burned at violent protests, the burning is a result of the violence, or is simply correlated with the violence, but is not its cause, and is certainly not intended to be its cause.
People burn the US flag to express their contempt for the USA, a sentiment they are entitled to express. People who hold the USA in contempt are likely to disobey its laws. The two things both derive from the same cause; one doesn’t cause the other.
And it surely often happens that people do gather to peacefully express such contempt, or anger, and burn the flag without accompanying violence. What are the stats? You tell me. You’re the one making a positive assertion, so the onus of proof is on you. Especially if you want to make your assertion the basis for criminal punishment.
It’s a green NASCAR start flag. It’s the proverbial for those about to violently protest we salute you. Not to mention starting fires in public without a permit is illegal in all states and on federal land.
First of all, that is not true.
But even if it were true, if it’s just a salute to those who are already going to do violence with or without it then it’s not incitement.
And fire code violations can certainly be prosecuted, whether it’s a flag being burned or anything else. But the penalty can’t be increased based on what’s being burned; someone burning a US flag can’t be treated more harshly than someone burning an Iranian flag, or some old clothes. But it is not true that all fires in public require permits.
More dishonest ranting by Sean Davis.
It is not illegal to burn Pride flags, so long as they’re your own, and you abide by the fire code. It is every bit as illegal to burn someone else’s Pride flag as it is to burn any other property of someone else, and it’s every bit as illegal to vandalize a rainbow crosswalk as it is to do so to any other street decoration that the city decides to install.
And it is not illegal to burn a dollar in protest of fiat money. It could be, because the constitution gives Congress power over currency, but in fact 18 USC 333 specifically says that defacing currency is only illegal if it’s done with intent to render it unfit to be reissued. Doing it as an expression of political protest is therefore not a violation of this section.
Had that clause not been there, burning the dollar would indeed be illegal, but only the actual defacement could be punished, not the protest that the burning facilitated. So the sentence would have to be exactly the same as it would have been had you defaced the dollar secretly and privately. The political expression itself could not be punished.
Burning a dollar is a gift of a dollar to the US Treasury, less the cost of printing of course. They notice that the money supply is a dollar low and replace the dollar by spending a newly printed one, hence your gift.
True, but irrelevant.
Quite relevant. It means it is impossible to deface currency in any way that would prevent it from being reissued.
The bill that was burned can’t be reissued. New bills are issued all the time.
That is already the case.
Burn there flag its 15 years in jail(see Iowa) but old glory and its free speech.
That is dishonest bullshit. There is no difference between burning a Pride flag, a US flag, or a Nazi flag. The law treats them all exactly the same, and it has to. This entire argument is just outright dishonest. Martinez would have got the exact same penalty no matter what he burned, including a US flag.
Far too many folks embrace or denigrate all sorts of symbols both tangible and intangible for performative reasons, very often in bad faith. To some symbols are important and cherished while to others those same symbols are meaningless. Good faith respect for the symbols others hold as important is, IMO, a necessary precondition to seek respect/protection for the symbols we embrace. Whether those symbols are tangible or intangible is immaterial to the requirement for good faith reciprocity.
What about cartoons of the prophet?
What about them? If you wish to claim that the Prophet is a symbol and want it respected by others then you must also be willing to grant respect to the symbols of others in order to meet the requirements for reciprocity and good faith I outlined.
The first amendment forbids any legal requirement to respect any symbols. Including cartoons of Mohammed. It is impossible for any jurisdiction in the US to impose any penalty whatsoever on anyone for publishing the Hebdo cartoons.
Who said the gov’t was ordering or requiring anything? Not me. I am putting forward my own opinion re my own minimum requirements grounded in a demonstration of good faith reciprocity. IOW mutual respect (toleration if you prefer) for the symbols of others before demanding respect/toleration for your own symbols. Fail to provide that reciprocal respect/toleration and you should cease any expectation for others to respect/tolerate your symbols both tangible and intangible.
No one in the USA can demand that others respect their own symbols. They can request it, but no one has to grant their request. That’s why anyone has the absolute right to burn any symbol they like, so long as it’s their own property and they’re not violating the fire code. No matter whether it’s a US flag, a Koran, or an effigy of Martin Luther King Jr or of Donald Trump.
I am listing my own personal requirement for reciprocal respect/toleration of symbols both tangible and intangible in order to make a good faith demand of me to respect your symbols both tangible and intangible. Failure to provide that to my symbols removes any obligation from me to provide it to your symbols. IOW a variation of mutually assured destruction.
Deface/destroy/denigrate or dismiss whatever symbols (tangible or intangible) you believe you can get away with just to make a point about your freedom to do so if that’s your thing. Go reenact the Family Guy episode of Peter ‘going to the inner city to yell the N word’ for all I care. Other people may object. Some may object rather vigorously. Just keep in mind that a judicial proceeding (if any occurs) stemming from that episode will take place well after the fact.
I won’t respect symbols for things I don’t approve of. but I generally would not burn them, spit on them etc.
Toleration then if you prefer.
This seems like another attempt to get the left to eat their words after trying to suggest that Trump “incited” J6 with his speech.
Not at all. Trump and everyone supporting him on this is deliberately misusing the verb “incite”. Incitement can only be of the speaker’s supporters, not of his opponents. It is not incitement to say something in the knowledge that it will upset people and they will likely resort to violence to shut you up. The word you’re reaching for here is “provocation”, not “incitement”. And punishing provocation would be to institute a hecklers’ veto, and is repugnant to our constitution.
(The “fighting words” doctrine did impose a hecklers’ veto on some speech, but even if it still exists, which is doubtful, it can’t apply here, because “fighting words” can only be directed at a specific individual. It has to be a personal insult, of such an outrageous nature that any reasonable person could be expected to react with violence. There has never been a corresponding doctrine for provoking people in general. And in all likelihood the doctrine is no longer valid at all, and will be formally overturned if it ever comes back before the courts.)
Every time you say “heckler’s veto” you describe a situation where a heckler gets censored. That’s the opposite of what that phrase means. A heckler’s veto is when the rights of a speaker and those who have come to hear him are drowned out by the activity of hecklers.
No, I am not. You are the heckler. Trump is demanding that the flag-burner be punished, because you and people like you will react angrily. That is giving you, the heckler, a veto over the flag-burner’s speech. It’s exactly like banning Mohammed cartoons.
Ah, Milhouse… all these years and you know nothing about me.
The First Amendment has been infringed, using the concepts of “fighting words,” “the n-word,” “hate speech,” and “antisemitism.” Yet foul language, explicit sexuality and perversion have been normalized.
“The issue in Martinez’s case may boil down to his theft of the flag from the church and his reasons for stealing it and then destroying it.” In other words, it’s a thought crime.
Someone on the radio said today that Trump has been intentionally picking fights that will lead to the issues being settled in court, e.g. Birthright Citizenship.
Bullshit. There are no laws, and never have been any laws, and can’t be any laws, against the N-word, hate speech, or antisemitism. The “fighting words” doctrine is very unlikely to still exist. But that’s what Trump is demanding.
No, it is not at all a thought crime The crime is burning someone else’s property. The penalty depends on the motive, just as it has been for many centuries.
The First Amendment protects your right to speech, not 100% either for the law makes false words actionable slander. SCOTUS in a 5-4 decision equated action, namely burning the US flag, an action, as though it was speech. You can say what you want but nothing in the first amendment authorizes you to attack other people or destroy their property or to commit crimes. The new Executive order may get SCOTUS to reconsider if that decision should be overruled. As for burning other flags, you burn them if they are your property, not someone else’s property. Freedom of speech is not a not a license to riot or induce others to riot. I defend your right to speak but not your right to act unless you do so peacefully, legally, and not to incite others to riot or act illegally. Finally, I think it is not unconstitutional for Congress to pass laws regarding the US flag.
Defamation has never been part of the freedom of speech. That’s why laws against it don’t abridge that freedom. But false speech on matters of public interest, that is not defamatory of anyone, is protected. For instance, falsely claiming to have served in the armed forces, or to have earned honors, is protected speech. That’s why the first “stolen honor” law was invalid, and the second one had to limit its scope to false claims made for financial gain, which is a species of fraud.
And the list of known exceptions to the freedom of speech, restrictions on speech that don’t abridge the freedom, is small and fully explored. No new exceptions are going to be discovered.
Speech has always included actions; it’s impossible to believe that only spoken words are protected and not other forms of expression. If only spoken words were protected then you could prosecute someone for saying the wrong thing in sign language, or for flying a flag or carrying a banner with the wrong thing on it. You could prosecute someone for hanging a politician in effigy, which is an old and venerated form of protest in the USA. You could prosecute people for protesting silently, since they’re not speaking! It’s obviously ridiculous. And that’s why there is no dispute that all expressive conduct is protected just like literal speech.
Exactly. That’s exactly what I’ve been saying since the beginning. You can burn your own flag, not someone else’s. And that is exactly what people who burn the US flag do. They invariably supply their own flag. They are not in the habit of stealing flags to burn. And you can do the same to the Pride flag, or to a Koran, or anything else.
Again, of course. Who disputes this?
Indeed it isn’t. But burning a US flag doesn’t do that. You can’t cite any case in which it’s done that. What Trump and others are talking about is the exact opposite; they wish to give the hecklers, those who are offended by flag-burning, a veto over it by claiming that they are somehow being “incited” to riot.
How can it not be? How can any such law not violate the freedom of expression?
“You can burn your own flag, not someone else’s. And that is exactly what people who burn the US flag do. They invariably supply their own flag. They are not in the habit of stealing flags to burn.”
You keep insisting on this. It’s a lie.
“The most clearly documented instance occurred in July 2024 near Union Station in Washington, D.C. During large protests tied to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress, demonstrators climbed flagpoles, replaced the U.S. flags with Palestinian flags, burned at least one American flag underneath an effigy of Netanyahu, and were later confronted by law enforcement… The flag that was burned at Union Station during the July 2024 protest was an actual American flag taken down from the flagpole at the site, not a privately supplied flag.”
That was a very atypical case. And they were arrested for it. Some people arrested that day were later released without charge. Some were not. I have no information on what happened with those others. Since it was DC, I suspect the prosecutor quietly let them off, as DC has done to other rioters. That’s a general problem, not one relevant specifically to flag-burning. But you can’t compare DC to Ames, IA, and demand that prosecutors in both places must have the same policies and act in the same way.
I think this is a good move by Trump. Either no flags can be burnt or all flags can be burnt as an act of free speech.
You cannot have protections for the pride flag, resulting in hate crime charges, and no protections for old glory because that’s just an expression of free speech.
Pick one, either you can burn em all to the ground or you can’t.
There are no protections for the pride flag. There are protections for all private property. When we talk about bans on burning the US flag we are always talking about burning your own flag. Burning other people’s flags is not a thing, and no one has ever objected to prosecuting people for it.
The problem here isn’t that it’s illegal to burn a gay flag or any flag other than the US Flag making the two acts somehow different. The problem is that all of the consequences for burning gay or other flags seem to hinge on their being someone else’s property and instead of being charged with theft a ton of other nonsense charges like “hate speech” are piled on top much like getting in a fight with a minority and hitting him with a hammer then being charged with assault and a hate crime. It’s already pretty hateful to beat someone with a hammer no matter who they are. The fact a gay flag represents an ideology doesn’t make burning it anymore hateful. Theoretically, if you want to buy a pride flag and set it on fire you can much like if you want to film yourself burning your money in a bonfire as a protest then go ahead.
Trump seems to be issuing Executive Orders and his Administration implementing policies designed to get SCOTUS attention to settle a bunch of long standing issues like disparate penalties depending on if your a favored group, the separation of powers or rescinding policies the left has been forcing on the country like transsexuals in the military.
There is no such concept in US law as “hate speech”. No one has ever been punished in a US court for “hate speech”.
Hate crimes are crimes that are motivated by hatred of a wider group to which the victim either belongs or is perceived to belong. Motive has always been a sentencing factor, and hatred as a motive quite properly earns a sentence enhancement. Hate crime laws require a jury to make that finding, based on objective evidence, rather than judges deciding it for themselves. And they make the enhancement mandatory, which is as it should be.
That is not true. You can’t be charged with assault and a hate crime, because there is no such crime as “hate”. What you will be charged with is assault as a hate crime. But that does not depend on the victim’s identity. It depends only and exclusively on your motive for the crime. It makes no difference whether your victim is white, black, gay, straight, or whatever. What matters is why you hit him. If you did it to express your hatred for all whites, blacks, gays, straights, etc., then it is a hate crime and deserves a stricter sentence. But it never hinges on the victim’s identity.
No, it doesn’t, but almost no one ever burns a Pride flag for any reason but hatred of all gay people. So doing so is a pretty good indicator that that was your motive. But it’s up to a jury to determine that, based on objective evidence. Before hate crime laws it would be a judge making that call, and his decision was not reviewable.
Honestly, I am thinking (hoping) that Trump’s intention was bringing to light all the Unconstitutional laws being deployed by liberals with regards to destruction of things like LGBTQ+ propaganda which is also unlawfully state government supported.
There are no such laws. And there is nothing unconstitutional about governments supporting such “propaganda”. Governments, like everyone else, are entitled to express their opinions.
gov opinions best be neutral unless they are pressing charges
and when they add to the charges with catchalls like disturbing the peace ( which we have discussed before) it adds to the biases in the law
The government is entitled to have and to express its own opinions, on everything except religion. There is no reason it should be neutral. It has to allow those with other opinions to express them, but it has no duty to express those other opinions itself.
I see the usual suspects are here again conflating what charges are filed with decisions to prosecute.
great point about the man getting the political treatment and 16 years
thats what happens when the gop allows the lefty to control the narrative
they make the laws and get public “outrage” faux or not and maga losing
fight back and lefty loses
The simplest answer is to bring back both dueling and a legally recognized ability to shame/shun those who refuse to participate when challenged. Go say and do things that offends others and they can challenge you to duel. Now you can accept or renounce your offensive action/speech and apologize. Either is fine. Refusal would become a bar to Federal employment directly or as grant recipient. A private employer or NGO could hire you if they wish but doing so voids that entities eligibility for Federal funds or in the case of media their use of broadcast spectrum. Call it lack of moral fiber.
Reintroduced lawful duels would go a very long way to bringing down the overheated rhetoric, performative displays for ‘clout’ and definitely would address the overconfidence of those who now act with relative impunity re slander, libel and deliberate provocation.
Dueling is not as simple as imagined. There’s the guest list, the physician, refreshments, choice of weapon, etc.
I wonder if Jennifer and Matthew are available for a sequel, to be called “The Duel Planner”?
Duelling has never been legal. Not since long before the USA was established. And the idea that refusing to voluntarily put oneself in danger to protect ones “honor” is somehow shameful is a stupid and destructive idea that comes from the Scots-Irish honor culture that they brought here from the English borderlands and bequeathed to black Americans, leading to so much harm. It is a primitive and shameful culture that should be discouraged.
PS: Dueling owed its popularity to the fact that the chance of actually being killed in a duel was sufficiently low. Most likely you’d come out alive, and the fact that you were willing to risk your life meant that in that primitive culture you were regarded as “honorable” and “manly”. Once pistols became reliable and accurate, dueling quickly disappeared, to be replaced by fisticuffs.
If burning a flag is free speech, then assisting them by spraying gasoline in their direction is also free speech.