7d ago

Flag burning incident near White House leads to arrest hours after Trump's executive order

www.nbcnews.com Flag burning incident near White House leads to arrest hours after Trump's executive order

The arrested man identified himself as a combat veteran and said he was burning the American flag in protest of an executive order Trump signed Monday targeting flag burning.

126 comments

That was fast, good on that guy. Will this be a watershed moment when his infernal majesty's decrees are challenged?
- No.
  
  Most of his shit IS getting overturned. The doom and gloom isn't helpful.
  
  NO?
- SCOTUS: Let's see, we have to consider the "Trump can do no wrong" precedent, and the "I like money🎤🦀💰" exception doesn't apply, so...

How can you make an executive order like that? That’s not exactly an order.
That would need to be a law, passed by Congress.
This dude has gone so fucking nuts with executive orders left and right out the ass, that no one is even asking wtf? It’s not supposed to be the magical “I can do anything” card. But everyone is ok with this I guess…
- It doesn't matter, Trump can legally do whatever he wants, he's a king. 1/3rd of the population of America believes that Trump can rule unilaterally. The other 2/3rds are scared of the first and they should be. Trump and MAGA have the executive branch, the judicial branch, the legislative branch, the armed forces, law enforcement, immigration enforcement, and wall street in their side. They only group not on Trump's side is the general public and it should be pretty obvious now that he doesn't have any use for the general public. Trump won. He's king of The United States of America, I suggest you start to think about what you're going to do about it.
  
  He can't legally do it, its still against the law.
  He's personally immune from punishment, but if he does something illegally it can be undone.
  E.g if he illegally arrests someone, they'll still get released... one day... and probably get punitive damages. But Trump won't be held accountable.
  
  My advice to Americans is to leave if they can
  
  Yeah, you know, except the general public does all the things that keep the country working.
  Not saying a nationwide strike is easy, or even doable, but a week of that would have Wall Street power brokers contacting mercenary outfits for pricing on a presidential assassination.
  
  Team Loser coming in hot today.
  Everybody on that side is terrified their "friends" will kill them, and lots of them are looking for any excuses to get away. People are actively and successfully getting in his way constantly. He's backed down a whole bunch of times, in significant ways, and every victory goes unreported because the corporate news are all pussies, so, by definition, team good guy is doing much, much better than any news networks anywhere will report.
  Way to help them.
  Also, that fat dork will fall down the stairs and choke on mcdonalds, and then couch fucker is gonna have all the backstabbers targeting him, and it will be significantly easier to get them to all fight each other.
  The US doesn't have a king now, and it's not going to.
- Both congress and the Supreme Court handed ceded all their power to the executive branch. We have a dictator now, full stop. This country is run by the whims of a pedophile protecting (at best), rapist, criminal (convicted, not punished - REWARDED).
- It would need to be a Constitutional amendment unless the Supreme Court "reconsiders" precedent on this exact issue.
  The executive order, like most others, is completely illegal, but when authoritarians control all the levers of power and have military on the streets of DC and the DC police answers to them, then who's going to stop them?
- Congratulations on waking up from your coma! A few things have happened since 2015. Let me help you get up to speed...
- They're not orders to him, they are decrees
- Congress can't do that without a 3/4 majority of states also agreeing. It would require a constitutional amendment altering the first amendment. Which is an extra big deal as nobody serious would think to propose altering the bill of rights, it used to be sacred. Mind you the government didn't follow it ever really, but thats what happens to sacred things
  
  The other option is that the supreme court undoes a prior decision, like they did to roe v. wade. Texas v. Johnson was only a 5-4 decision (To be clear, I think this would be awful as well, but it is likely how the admin plans to enforce this, assuming they have a plan).
- No, just the only people who can actually do something about it.
  Most people don't know that it is the legislative branch that's supposed to create laws. Oh who am I kidding? Most Americans don't even know there are three branches of government.
  
  Are there? The system of checks and balances has mostly been thrown aside to pander to an authoritarian with severe historical myopia
- you misunderstand how america works.
- Executive orders have been a big problem for over 20 years. Bush started it, Obama did nothing to stop it and exploited them himself. Someone like trump was inevitable, just a matter of time.

That's such a stupid executive order because the only difference between so called desecration and retiring a flag is the your intentions in how you are setting the flag on fire
people should start holding solemn ceremonies to retire flags via fire in public and see how that goes as well
- I mean, intent is very often a major defining factor whether something is illegal or not.
  The difference between murder and manslaughter often hinges on whether there was intent.
  And for something as stupid as loitering intent is the sole deciding factor for guilt.
  
  TIL "loitering" is a thing...
- That.....
  Is actually fucking brilliantly appropriate as well. It would symbolicly illustrate Trumps facsict regime us burning our country in peices, thereby destroying the states.....

This ends with blood in the streets. We just need to decide whose blood.
- I have some thoughts on that:
  
  Is this a picture of the last guillotine execution in France during the 70s?
- I’ve been saying this as well. There is going to be American blood spilt on the streets before this is over. We haven’t reached the bottom yet.
  
  We've had that, innocent blood on the streets. The sadistic bastards want more.
- It will be the poors blood
  
  Always is. No way but class war!

If he was burning a book, the fascist cops would have joined-in
- Unless that book was a Bible. Or a conservative grifter's book.

Many U.S. veterans I know support the right of freedom of expression, to include flag burning. They say they feel its disrespectful but its the right they bleed for, for people to express themselves
I remember a case where this singer burnt an american flag in protest (I think korean war) and the president was grilled on his take on the matter and he daid that whats beautiful about our country, that we can do these things, and that im the countries we are fighting agianst thier citizens dont have the same freedoms as americans.
- If you aren't for freedom of speech when its an expression you don't agree with, you aren't for freedom of speech.
  
  People forget that freedom of speech also includes the discourse of hate
- This idea that the military "fights for our freedom" needs to die. It's complete horseshit. The last conflict the US military was involved in that could remotely be considered as a defense of Americans (the populace, not the oligarchs) was WW2. Everything since has been neocolonialism and gangster activity. Even prior to WW2, their primary function over their life has been genocide and colonialism. It was the US military that brought the world concentration camps. If there is any hope for Americans, we need to kill the civic religion.
  
  WWII is not a good example even. The oligarchy helped fund the Nazi and then made sure the Jews had no where to go. Then we went in and helped slaughter countless civilians for a problem we created. That clearly makes us the good guys riiiight?
- I don't even understand what is so offensive about flag burning. It's something teenagers and sheltered young adults do as a feeble form of symbolic rebellion. Genuinely, who cares? It's not like the flag has some kind of mystical power. It's not the original version. 9/10, it's just a cheap copy that was purchased specifically for that demonstration.
  I'm a grown man. Why the fuck do I care about teenagers skateboarding in the church parking lot? I got my own problems.
  
  100% this. I remember when some dopey kid tried to burn the flag at a campus I was at, and one of my roommates was simply beside himself with fury over it.
  I thought the whole thing was a great big bowl of wrong. The dumbass that was "protesting" was butthurt about something that had nothing to do with America or the flag, IIRC. He just wanted to be edgy or whatever. But the fury from the reactionaries, including my roommate - hilarious.
  My roommate even wrote a letter of outrage to the administration. I mean, he was literally beet red with rage over it. His letter tried to work in the "fire safety" angle too, because deep down, even the dumbass reactionary knew the law when it comes to freedom.
  
  Plus that flag was statistically likely to be made not in the USA
- Hey, it's cool that some of them understand the law, but.... also, I don't think veterans have any special privilege or insight into how our freedoms work.
  I don't think any of us need their permission to exercise our rights. I don't think that's what you were going for, but I'm just saying this because so much of the discussion often seems to go to what "the troops" think about it. It just doesn't matter.
  
  I was bringing it up half out of people tending to use veterans and soldiers as justification for "cracking down" on things like flag burning, saying how it disrespects our troops or something. When 1) as you say, thier opinion doesn't matter and 2) They also aren't as offended as republicans say they are.

- The files ARE the distraction
  
  Trump rapes children.
  
  I don't understand how these commenters don't realize that. We already know he's in them, we already know he raped children, we already know they won't release any evidence of that willingly... What are they hoping to accomplish?
  It's time to go out in the streets and demand his head in a basket, but they're insisting on simply asking him to release the evidence of his guilt instead of being angry at every new power consolidation move.
  
  Trump liked this reply.

It's not illegal to burn the flag. Any flag.
- And executive orders are not laws.

Where can I contribute to the legal fund?
- Guy was already released actually
  
  The wrongful arrest lawsuit is just as important. It needs to be highlighted that Executive Orders do not create arrestable lawsuit.

Trunp and Magats are such effing snowflakes they need a safe space.
- Like prison?

More confederates should have had their heads blown off instead of lukewarm acceptance back into the union
- Some say that the war would have lasted longer and guerrilla campaigns continues and more martyrs... but I say fuck em' hard. That type of shit deserves nothing. All the plantations should have been split snd given to armed black farmers that are under federal protection with extremely stringent gun control on the south for a few decades to prevent an uprising.
  
  The Radical Republicans wanted to put General Sherman in charge of Reconstruction. That would have been cool.

Y’all know this is just so they can replay clips of their “opposition” burning flags on Fox News. To vilify more people is the only goal here.
- Funny. I can’t wait to fight a civil war against Fox News viewers. So we can be done with their genes. Not like the Jazzy militia will have any capabilities.

The Simpsons
- Jeez. It's..... Too perfect.

I smell a lawsuit.
- That might actually be the point.
  
  Oh good, it'll get up to the supreme court soon so we can hear about how the president can unilaterally say "fuck the constitution," actually.

Good on him. I was thinking about doing that myself but I don’t live near DC.

Good for these people, make them charge you, make them have a grand jury charge you.
A grand jury won't bring charges on sandwich guy and they won't on this either.
The fucking boy scouts burn flags, American flags.

Jesus Christ, what is wrong with humans
- Jesus Christ, what is wrong with ~~humans~~ Americans?
  Ftfy
- quite a bit, but right now the issue is more with american republicans

Burn the Confederate flag.

Y'all want to burn some flags in DC this Monday? I'm game

So I get that the act of burning the flag is protected speech, but surely the act of setting a fire on public property is a crime regardless?
I would think burning flags is only ok on a place where burning other things is ok.
- No more birthday candles allowed in glorious free USA.
  
  That's a pretty bad faith comment. The video of the incident showed the person pouring accelerant on a flag on the ground and starting a decent sized fire.
  I support the flag burning, but I think that there is a better way to do it than pouring gas on the sidewalk and lighting it up. Doing in a metal container would be much more responsible.
- Yes, the way to push him on this would be to very publicly burn a flag in a manner that is perfectly legal otherwise. Find an official fire pit or BBQ in a public park. Scorching the sidewalk with gasoline is only going to give them an easy win when they charge you for "defacing public property," creating a danger to the public, or even arson.
  
  I'm glad at least one person understands the point that I made. If you're going to have a showdown with an unjust law, don't give your enemy easy ways to twist your actions into something that they are not. It should be legal to burn anything you don't like - as long as you respect the normal rules about burning things in general. Fire isn't something to fuck around with, and the laws about not burning things on the street are good laws.

126 comments