Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by engineeringwoke 290 days ago
Yeah, it's politics. He assumes it will get appealed to the supreme court who will take his side.

I personally don't like the Texas v Johnson decision. Burning flags is un-American and should be illegal. How is that dictatorial?
1 comments
shazbotter 290 days ago
It's an executive order that contravenes existing legislative and judicial precedent, sets penalties, and is expected to be unchallenged. It limits free speech by fiat because a single man wants it to be so.

It's clearly dictatorial, you'll have to demonstrate why it's not an act of a single person dictating policy.

link
engineeringwoke 290 days ago
Burning American flags is free speech? It's definitely an interpretation... and one that many legal scholars disagree with, similar to Roe v Wade. Not that repealing Roe v Wade was a good thing, but it didn't have a solid legal foundation.

It's not all about getting your way... well maybe the better way to say it is that the left got their way, for sixty years. And some of those wins from that period for the left were built on shaky ground. There has to be give and take in any healthy political system.

link
shazbotter 290 days ago
Yes. The Supreme Court affirmed this in Texas v Johnson. It is an act that expresses a political view through a symbolic act. It might be offensive to you, but "I find it offensive" is not sufficient defense to stop political speech.

And the left did not get their way for sixty years. The left is predominantly socialist, communist, anarchist. Democrats are not a leftist party. The left hasn't held many political positions in the US. But we on the left hate the democrats as much (or more) than folks on the right. We also tend to be broadly supportive of individual freedoms (most of my leftist colleagues are anti gun control, for instance.)

link