Okay, everybody, welcome. It is thought crime Thursday. I'm really excited for this thought crime because I'm going to watch our panel debate. I'm going to chime in a little bit because it's going to be about topics where one topic in particular I'm not really sure where I fall. We have Jack, we have Blake, we have Tyler. A lot to cover. Of course, the biggest event in the history of Western civilization, the biggest event since the resurrection, Taylor Swift is now engaged to Travis Kelce. We will get to that. Obviously, bigger than the American founding, the Emancipation Proclamation, uh, storming Normandy Beach, and honestly, the biggest thing ever. So, but instead, what we're going to do is we're going to debate flag burning. The what, from what I understand, President Trump signed a executive order saying that flag burning shall be illegal based on the laws. What, Jack, why don't you go through just the facts of it and then state your position because Jack, you've been really going all in on this. Yeah. No, thanks, Charlie. And um so the flag burning EO the way that it's been reported on has been you know sort of I I would say sort of facitious and deceptive because what's really interesting about the flag burning EO is it's actually an executive order about the protection of the American flag but it cites for example the Supreme Court um ruling essentially of protecting the uh flag burning act itself which goes all the way back to the storied American founding years of 1989. So really a longstanding American tradition of the protection of flag burning. Uh yeah, it's it's not at all. And it and what the EO actually does is it pro it um it allows for the prosecution of people who burn the flag with intent to incite or if there is imminent criminal action associated with the burning of the American flag and then also prioritizes that if you're say burning a flag outside the White House in a public park which happened I think the day of or the day after this EO was signed in Lafayette Square Park right there in on the north side of the White House where there was a guy who set it on fire and in fact he was charged but he was charged with setting a fire in a public park. So the the interesting thing about this EO is it doesn't actually ban the burning of flags. It does so when they claim there is an intent to incite imminent violence. So it's really covering this, you know, public areas, these riots. They talk about the LA riots in the EO and the fact that there were, you know, foreign nationals burning our flag in our own cities and no one was even arresting them or doing anything about this. And the fact of the matter that uh we should protect the flag based on the fact on the basis that national origin is in fact a protected class in this country under existing law and American national origin is an example of that. Therefore, you know, using the language of the left basically when they say it's a hate crime to burn, say, a a trans flag or a pride flag, well, they're saying that burning the American flag is an act of hate against people who are from America, which is exactly true. And so, the EO itself, just to summarize, doesn't actually ban flag burning. Uh, I would go a step further though, personally, and say that yes, we should ban flag burning and it's completely constitutional. Blake, your reply. Dive into it. The messier the better. Yeah. Yeah. So, he is correct. Uh the constitutional precedent that you can't ban flag burning is relatively recent. It's uh Texas v. Johnson. I think it was in 1989. I will note uh Justice Anson and Scalia was in the majority on that case. It it actually is a little unusual because Scalia was in the majority and then like the main disscent was from Justice John Paul Stevens who was a left-wing member of the court but had a very strong opinion that actually banning flag burning was completely fine for basically powerful symbolic reasons. Uh I think he was the oldest guy on the court and he just uh had very strong feelings about the flag and so I can understand how that does inspire strong feelings from people. My take I'm basically I'm a free speech absolutist. I think uh the vast majority of things that can be interpreted as speech should be allowed to be interpreted as speech and we should not go around saying that means of expressing yourself are uh criminal acts not the least because I think we already know the direction that's headed which is I mean right obviously across the US we have decided that if you burn the real national flag the the the gay flag you go to jail or in the UK right now there's Uh there's a guy who uh burned a Quran outside an embassy. He got prosecuted and fined. I think there was even someone somewhere burned a Quran and got stabbed and then they were basically uh indicted for inciting a stabbing of themselves. I can't remember where that was though. And like that's the direction we're ha we're headed is like if we're going to have it be okay to ban like symbolic gestures, we're headed in the direction where the symbols what we're going to ban is blasphemy. And what can you blasphem against in the 21st century? You can blaspheme against gay stuff. You can blaspheme against Islam. You can blasphem against a lot of like modern dogmas that are themselves quite new. And I would say in modern America, our best defense against that is very very strong, robust free speech laws across the board. And frankly, I think it was a triumph. I think it America was at a great peak when our attitude of free speech was basically anything goes. And yeah, that wasn't always the case. But I think that is a case where the wider and wider our free speech protections got, the better America was actually getting as a country cuz yeah, we weren't always super robust on it. I mean, before the Civil War, you had a lot of restrictions on speech related to uh to slavery and such on you know, I don't think that was a good thing. So yeah and and also we've had we've had you know we've had laws against obscenity. We've had we've had actual blasphemy laws in the states um in the past and we've had um you know and and you know prior to this many states had uh had restrictions against burning the flag. Oh okay. So sorry. Sorry Tyler. Go ahead. So real quick one thing that Jack brought up that I thought was really interesting. Someone made the point that uh you know burning a flag with this new EO in front of federal employee is part of that whole incitement act. Um, I just heard someone talking about that I think yesterday, which I think is really, you know, really moving because I I I generally agree with Blake that, you know, let people do whatever they want to do, but that whole concept of people that are mentally ill, using the flag to try to invoke some kind of violence or incite some kind of violence is generally kind of the uh mo that we've seen from these people. So like going in front of the White House and lighting stuff on fire is probably not, you know, all mentally there and probably not good for society. And I think that that's part of the conversation. And so, you know, I've been kind of more pulled towards, hey, you know, most of the people who are doing these acts are actually going and like putting people in harm's way. Like again, federal employees, people who are, you know, just trying to do their jobs on a day-to-day basis. they're showing up, you know, actually violently and loudly saying how much they hate America, going in front of America. So, I've been kind of more pulled towards that side of things where it's like, yeah, we shouldn't this is probably isn't healthy for society to allow this to go on, especially when it puts people in harm's way. Well, but I think that we're showing add Go ahead. I do have a question. No, I was just going to add that and before I before I you know respond to Blake's uh fasile libertarian uh argument that um it's it that area where we're showing those images um that's a tourist area. It's one of the most hightraic tourist areas in Washington DC. Um I've I've had my kids in that area for like like multiple times just in the last couple of weeks. So I mean people are coming there to set things on fire. Plus, not only that, I mean, we've we've also seen in Washington DC and New York, people setting themselves on fire as forms of protest. So, it definitely leads to that type of Aaron Bushnell, I think, was in New York. And there was another guy who set himself on fire in DC. It didn't get as much coverage because I don't think it was on video, but you know, you you you there's obvious harm to others or or, you know, potential for harm. You can't just go around setting fires in cities to begin with. If you're a homeowner, you need to listen to this. 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I trust home title lock and so many of my friends do today. So go to hometitleock.com, use promo code kirk. That is hometitlelock.com promo code Kirk. In addition, uh, no, I think what the objection that Tyler brought up actually gets exactly at how rapidly and immediately this starts escalating where, okay, it burning a flag is inciting violence against federal employees. How how that that's not saying we should kill federal employees is inciting violence against federal employees. Saying let's go over to that federal employee and shoot him in the head. That's inciting violence against federal employees. saying like you burned a flag so that's a threat against the But Blake you just said you're free speech absolutist people the three million you just said you're a free speech absolutist so yeah I am a free speech absolutely well yeah so would you say that's protected or not well no because we have a long established thing that like you can't literally just go and do a criminal action and call that free speech like conspiracy is not covered by freedom of speech like so like conspiracy is not covered by freedom of speech actually like going and committing crimes is not covered by freedom of speech but people are generally surprised by how far you can go in terms of advocating bad things uh and still not run a follow of freedom of speech laws. You pretty much can say like I think we should overthrow the federal government and it doesn't violate freedom of speech under the conspiracy statute of course is is you have to take some kind of action in furtherance of the conspiracy. So if you and I are texting and we make a joke about that, it's it's just a joke. But with take an act to this, this is came up in like the Whitmer plot for example. They they were talking about things and then they went and start got into this van and you know, of course there were like federal agents all over it, but then it was the act of driving around Whitmer's, you know, residence and her area. They claimed that was a surveillance route. So that was the act in furtherance of it. So the speech itself wouldn't have been enough to trigger the conspiracy statute. It was the actual you know act towards the conspiracy. Yeah. And similarly with incitement. So so yeah finish the thought Blake. Then I have a question. Go ahead. Well as I was saying similar with incitement like to actually reach incitement traditionally you need uh multiple elements that like would point towards directly and immediately doing a criminal act. So you can't even say like you could pretty much say we should kill federal employees. And that's actually fine actually. uh legally it's not good to do of course but if you're saying we should go and kill you like have a specific person or a specific time or a specific place you need usually two of those things. So once you have those, you're advocating a specific criminal act and then you're directly inciting a criminal act. But just burning a flag, who who are you specifically calling to target? There's there's nothing there. And that's again how it immediately can becomes abusable where oh you don't like Islam, so you burn a Quran. Oh, well, you have to go to jail cuz actually you're inciting violence against Muslims or against the And you've said this a couple times now and you're acting as if people wouldn't go to jail or face repercussions for those things when we've seen multiple instances of that and they should we can't set the precedent. But we already live in the country where we have these precedents already stronger. J6 they they threw people away in jail for waving flags. Yes. Yeah. I think that's bad. I don't want to I don't want to loosen our constitutional norms so that we can like make it easier to send people to jail for that. But it's not a norm. Like here you go again saying it's a constitutional norm when we've already established this has only been around since 1989. Like this is so here here's a great example. Um Roie Wade was what 1976 or 1973 something like that. Um, so that law, that ruling was more of a quote unquote constitutional norm, the Roie Wayade ruling, which created this right to abortion that's nowhere in the constitution. And then year and conservatives fought against that for 50 years because it's obviously not in the constitution and it's obviously an immoral act and it's obviously wrong. Then you have this flag burning protection which was just read into the constitution by a bunch of libs and yeah, okay, he's got Scalia to go along. Who cares? He can still be wrong even if he's Anthony Scalia. Like that argument that's totally fascinating the idea of speech. If you want to take it literally then like things that you you can't imagine anything that would fall under the banner of freedom of speech that isn't literally I don't think that burning a flag is speech. I don't think that pornography is speech. I don't think that any of these things are speech. Okay, let's get really literal then. Anything you publish on the internet that's not speech. You didn't speak it. Writing is speech. No. Oh, but this it doesn't say writing. Writing and spoken word is the press. That's the right to publish things on like from a press. If you want to get really literal something on the internet, that's not the press. But we don't have a right to publish in this country. Actually, you do. We repeatedly have rulings to that effect. That's what Citizens United was about. That they couldn't restrict the right to publish a book criticizing Hillary Clinton. You don't have a right to force No, I'm talking about like online. You don't have a right to force a company to keep something online. No, of course you don't. Just like you don't have the right to force anyone to say something, but you absolutely have the right to yourself publish something online. We I thought we did. You're arguing we don't because you're being super literal about these things. Yes. No, I'm not really being super literal. I'm saying that it is it is completely complete nonsense to claim that burning a flag is speech. It's just on its face nonsense. It's ridiculous. Well, so so let let me ask so this invites other questions. So Jack, do you have the right to pray, let's just say, silently express the a Catholic ceremony. Is that speech or is that expression? And do you have a right to that? Well, you have a right to the free exercise of religion, which is separate from the right for speech. Right. Well, okay. So, they're both in the first amendment, but you are correct. One is the establishment clause and one is the free expression clause. Right? So it it technically but it doesn't say expression. It says speech. The word expression is not in the constitution. Right. Correct. But the essence So Blake is right. You're being a little bit woodenly here. Right. So ju just I'm being very careful about this because this is how Marxists get in and this is how they sneak abortion and all these other things into the constitution that just aren't there. I think we need to be really careful if we're adding words. Right. So, okay, you're right. So, expression is not in there, but exercise is, just so we're clear, right? So, and abridging freedom of speech or of the press or the right of people to peaceibly to assemble. And so, there are things beyond just the spoken word. So, I'm assemble. This is I'm trying to make up my mind here. I want to note something very important. It specifically says peaceable. The founding fathers would not have political expression existed in in the time of the founding fathers. People were and feathered. There was the burning of effiges of King George III. Uh this they had just gone through all of this time and time at the Boston Tea Party. Um you know apparently we shouldn't be able to burn effing a flag. So but but the founding fathers in their in their wisdom sought not to give those the same level of political protection as they did for speech. How do you know that? I think they would have probably been pretty pro burning that because I've read the Constitution. It's right there. I can get you copy. Oh, did they say that we wrote it that way to make sure you can't burn things in effigy anymore? Because I know that during that era they still burned people in effigy. They burned John J. I'm not saying it brought back. So you're you're you're belleaguering the point. What I'm saying is they didn't give it this they didn't afford it the same protection as speech. this just because it's not in there doesn't mean so for example like like putting on a play is obviously an example of expression plus speech plus action right so I'm not saying that it's illegal just because it's not there I'm just saying it doesn't have the same constitutional protection which would mean that it's up to the states and and I I would say which is exactly what was found in dos and I would say this Blake the burning of a effigy has far less societal impact than the entire concept of hold on. You know, you know that doesn't make any sense. You said it was okay to ban burning flag because it could incite violence against federal employees. Burning an effigy of a specific person vastly more incites violence against a specific target than burning a flag. You know that's true. And that and that individual if that has like an if there's conspira like Jack brought this up conspiracy to hurt. But Tyler, I think you're making a different point, right? you're like that's that's true obviously that's obviously true but but Tyler you're making a different point about the national implications right the the total national implications of of allowing a country to to that down the slippery slope of of being anti-American anti- team America I mean look I'm wearing my USA swear just for this debate which is just right now which is that an individual is far more protected than if you allow a country to go down the the the slippery slope of having the entire brand for what you're doing just completely burned on the sidewalk right in front of the White House. That's that's shouldn't be allowed. Most people feel I mean, you watch that happen. Most normal people look at that and they go, "This is not something that stands up for our American values, all of those things." You have people who attack individuals. Uh again, effiges I think are a totally different. So let me ask a question. Yeah. So So Jack, should it be legal to burn Mother Mary publicly? No. Why? That's free exercise. Should it be legal to Hold on. Hold on. No, no, hold on. Because you're Because you're violating Hold on. Hold on, please, guys. I I literally Should it be legal to burn the Quran? Should it be legal to burn the Quran? No. Okay. Again, because of because of the freedom of religion clause, right? But how does that work? So, we're not allowed to burn other people's texts because of freedom of religion. Well, I I I guess I'm I'm I'm you know, if if you have a personal copy, I think that's different than what we're talking about here. Um, and I wouldn't I certainly wouldn't necessarily say that it's the same. This is Well, no, hold on. It's important because what you're getting at is you're getting back towards the desecration of symbols that have reverence towards a people, right? That's the whole idea of the flag, right? Is that the flag is holy. It should be separate. That's why we have flag rules. that's why it shouldn't hit the ground. That's why you retire it a certain way. That's why you fold it a certain way. Right? That's that's the essence of all this. That the flag is more than just cloth that it represents. It's a civic symbol that unites all. But so the the I guess the question is that would you would you limit it that or would you extrapolate that kind of limitation towards any other places of you know re reverential significance or is it is it just the flag example what I am saying I'm I'm just saying that you know given the reading of the constitution versus you know sort of my own personal beliefs is that is that that power is left up to the states. Okay. So, let let me let me ask a different question then to Blake which would be a tougher question would be a question I'm curious Blake. Do you think freedom of expression or whatever freedom of speech or exercise thereof is it a means or is an is it an end? Is is the is the end free speech or is free speech to lead us towards something? I think it's both. uh I think it is I think it is a valid means in the sense that I think freedom of speech emerged from uh a cyclical period that we went through for hundreds of years not so much in America but especially in Europe uh in England the country that gave birth to us where you had cyclical patterns of ideologically driven violence uh against people based on their religious beliefs based on their political beliefs uh in which huge numbers of people died like a higher percentage of uh Britain died in the English civil war and died in our own civil war and that was a very ideological war and the norms of freedom of speech developed after that as essentially this is our proxy to make sure we don't kill each other and the way you do that is you have a much stronger right to express yourself and the desire to crack down on what people are saying is always a prelude to the desire to do other things to marked ideological enemies uh but I also think it's a valid end in and of itself because I think what freedom of speech is recognizing like what it's driving from is it's very uh tyrannical to basically assert control over another person's conscience. What you're effectively doing when you're saying you are not allowed to make this form to to basically state this view or to make this form of expression. And yeah, I'll acknowledge that burning the flag is probably at like the edgemost case because it is uh you know, it's a physical act as opposed to stating some sort of religious idea or political idea directly. But I think it's an important edge case and I think it's actually valid to defend that edge case and I think we're already seeing the issues with that which is once you're saying it's uh you know it's okay to ban this form of symbolic expression let's ban other forms of symbolic expression uh I think it's good to be in a country where we can burn the Quran which they can't do in European countries. Let let me take Charlie's question one step further. Do you agree with the burning of the US Constitution? Do you think the US Constitution should be it should be legal to burn the US Constitution in front of the White House or on the steps of the capital subject to I I think people are kind of mixing it up when they say, "Oh, well, there arson laws." Yeah, we already have arson laws. You can't do something manifestly unsafe in the same way that you can't like blockade traffic and call it speech. But if you have the right to in any place where you have the right to burn anything, it should include by extension the right to yeah burn the flag, burn the constitution, burn any book. The reason why this topic is so good. It I I'll throw it to Tyler in a sec is that it is the it is the meeting point, the convergence of a rightsbased legal regime and society and a duty and obligationbased society. And that's why this issue is so good because it hits together of wait do we have any sort of sacrosan objects or duty to something bigger than ourselves and you kind of combine all these things together. It makes it a very interesting issue. Tyler, you were saying something. No, and that's actually right in line with where my thought process was was you have to have some of these symbolic elements within the society to be able to establish culture and for people to largely respect the culture. I mean, we talk about Russian culture all the time during this Russian Ukrainian conflict. Uh we talk about other places oftent times. There are things that are just not allowed to be touched in other places that allow for the establishment of a culture. You you the the sanctity of of the US Constitution of the American flag should be something that as a culture you can't touch. Otherwise, there's no way to protect all of the other things. And I, you know, I'll kind of, and again, I don't know if this is the point Charlie was making with was provoking with some of this was if you allow for those things to happen, it makes it so much easier for especially if you're letting in millions of immigrants into this country, it makes it so much easier just to tread all over what makes this country culturally relevant. And that's a real problem, I think, for a lot of people. Well, well, Tyler, just to follow up on that, like you're talking about things that just don't work in a country that has mass migration like we have, right? So, when when we were at the it's 1989 anymore, right? So, the the things that like the tail end of sort of like the boomer counterculture movement uh right before they all started, you know, moving into office themselves was was this ruling. And it's the country is vastly different than it was 40 years ago. But you know, we we're in this situation where the reason that we are seeing the rise of populist nationalism is because we are having this very directly rally around the nation moment. And in a rally around the nation moment, you must protect your most sacred object to your nation. That's why when I when I talk about this like y you know would I support this ban or this protection or that ban you know the reason that I come down for a federal ban on flag burning is specifically that because we need to have sort of the one symbol to rule us all and and it's that and then you know you know Blake just comes out here sing for commies hardcore like please please let the commies burn our flag. It's like, why are conservatives so obsessed with helping our enemies to be able to conduct their means? Only radical communists want to do that, but it's like people who support this just just want to lose. They just want to lose. Guess what? You know, this is this is a legitimate question. Blake, I have a question for you. Actually, it's a legitimate question and I don't know if this is true or not, but in the Vatican, would you get thrown in jail for burning, you know, an FSU, the mother of Mary? No idea. I I don't know. Does the Vatican even have a jail? It's It's like not very big. I imagine I'm sure they do. I mean, I hope so. The Vatican would not put up with it. Probably not. But like the Vatican is also the Catholic Church monarchy. Yeah, but they have some theocracy. Yeah, but the Vatican is like a The Vatican is like with all due respect, the Vatican is a fake country. It's like a nominal country to like preserve like the Catholic Church as an institution in you know and it acknowledges because they used to have a larger state we don't need to get into the more provocative country the more provocative thing that what Jack is arguing for is the same sort of speech codes of blasphemy protections that Saudi Arabia has for the prophet Muhammad and that I mean that that like am I wrong by saying that? Uh and that's not even a criticism. I think that's what people I think if you look at the map of like yeah it's true most countries ban desecrations of their flags. America isn't most countries historically America has been way better than most other countries especially on speech. I think I was always very proud of the fact I would have this thought, you know, when I was in high school and college that like I think it's good that in America we kind of consider it almost unthinkable that we would have 30 arrests per day to have like the police show up because like oh you said a thing on Facebook that wasn't very nice and it was incitement. We're gonna we're gonna issue a citation to you. And I think frankly the flag part folds directly into this this general norm that in America like you just have this blanket ability to say what you want and express yourself the way you want. And the more ways you the more excuses you give the government that they can use to justify suppressing it, the more ways they have to put their thumb on the scale. Which is why I brought up the part about incitement. If you're Yeah. No, finish your thought on incitement. Well, so it's like the again it's like when you get when you allow the government to have more ways that they can justify uh cutting down on speech such as that it's incitement of violence, you're giving more ways that you can curtail what Americans are allowed to think. And that's kind of I think what they already do with like for example, you know, you can't burn the gay flag. They're like, well, it's really it's an it's inciting hate against this community. So it's not really speech. It's it's inciting hate. That's totally different. And I think we have to reject that point of view. We have to say pornography. Violence counts as violence. So is pornography speech. Well, I think we have a much more robust tradition of being able to separate like just obscene behavior from expression. Like burning a flag is pretty clearly a tradition. Yet the Supreme Court has held that the Supreme that porn is speech. Well, so for example, freedom of speech doesn't protect you from fraud. Like you can't defraud somebody and say that it's freedom of speech. Our freedom of speech protections have always been the most maximalist, the most intense on things that are direct political expression because that's clearly what this is derived from. Like that's clearly what the first amendment is going for with also the freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of petition. These are all political rights. And so yeah, burning a flag is a political act. And whereas like pornography, that's like a commercial act for the most part. And we have a pretty robust ability of separating those two things. And I think you have other ways of prosecuting it, too. Like paying somebody to have sex with you is probably a prostitution violation. And I don't know why we don't prosecute it that way if you happen to put it on camera. Uh but to like relate that to a very directly political act like burning the flag, I don't think the equivalence holds. Yeah. But isn't it political to be a turncoat against your country? Uh yeah, but treason like a turn coat against your country. That's why we actually define treason in the constitution the way we do. Isn't it a treasonous act though to burn the American flag? I don't I don't think so. That's actually why we define the constitution so strictly in the constitution cuz in England before you know in this in the English revolution which preceded our own we saw this where they would they were charging people with treason for things like that where they're like oh well we think you're undermining the states so that's treason and so that's why the constitution says it shall only consist of uh levying war against the United States or adhering to its enemies giving them aid and comfort which adhering to the enemies obviously that's more loose but I think designed to capture like literally defecting to another country, providing them with intelligence, providing them material support in a conflict, and you need to I guess that's why I brought up the burning of the US Constitution. So there's this there's a clear difference between uh you know, burning the effigy of a tyrant versus burning the US Constitution or something that represents the US Constitution and wanting to move towards more towards tyranny. I mean, most of the people I mean, wouldn't you agree that are are engaging in the anti-American rhetoric are more along the communist Marxist line of thinking that are actually moving us away from what the constitution represents. I guess that's where I have the pro the biggest problem. This is this is to we are so far beyond the founders and we're so far let me let me try to synthesize. So, so both sides are making great points. This is why it's hard. If Blake is completely right, then that can easily be extrapolated to seen stuff because the court will say, "Hey, you know, you can burn a flag, you can have, hey, public like publicly nude beaches cuz it's freedom of expression." Like one is obsession. And Blake, I know that's not what you mean, but that is what the courts will do. Simultaneously though, Jack has to reckon with and reconcile that such restrictions on burning a flag of American flag will 100% be used to say that we cannot also burn an LGBT flag or even worse like it's going to restrict freedom expression in general. Unfortunately, the courts have already no nuance on this. Hold on. So what we want is we but I guess the question is Jack if you had to choose if you had to choose this is why Jack's argument is at his weakest and I want him to respond. If you had to choose one where we had a UK style form of speech code where people are going to knock on your door and get restricted or if you had to choose kind of the libertarian thing where like hey burn what you want do what you want. Which one would be better for our side? I mean it's it's a total false binary that you're setting up there. We don't live in the UK. It's it's not though, Jack. It's not. The problem is it's you're you're choosing which direction. This is a 199. You are putting forward you're putting forward a Jack. Let me finish my thought. You're putting forward a legal theory that nobody agrees with in the entire federal bench. There's only really two ways. free speech absolutism or speech restrictionism on like European style. So, you have to choose kind of which navigational path to go on. And honestly, I don't like it when people burn the flag. It'd be good politics to, you know, to ban it, but I just kind of cringe because the last couple years we've been yelling about free speech under Biden and under during COVID. I don't want to go towards any sort of restrictions of it. Even though I could agree that burning the flag is not pornography, but the court will say that it is speech. No, of course I think Blake's point is right. You think being protected by the First Amendment? Again, that you think that's what our founders wanted, Charlie? Again, no, I'm not saying that at all. Again, that is a misrepresentation. I'm saying that's 100%. That's speech absolutism. Like you just said, if you had to ch if you again, you keep interrupting me and so I'll just kind of let you guys chat because that's not a discussion. So if you had to choose, I would much rather lean on the side of disgusting things being allowed to say be said rather than having a government be able to restrict what we as conservatives want to say. I don't like either option, but I'd rather be able to speak. I actually agree with you, but we have to deal in reality, not just a theoretical esoteric project. There's the two choices in front of us, which is libertarian free speech approach, which is the ACLU agenda, or we can go the way of just pure European totalitarianism. I mean, that's really the choice. Nobody's talking. It's it's just ridiculous. Like, that's a ridiculous choice. Nobody's saying that. We're we're talking about making a protection, going back to the original protection. The Would you have said that to the proifers, Charlie, when they fought for 50 years to get rid of Roie Wade? Again, this is in the Constitution now and nobody agrees with you, so just shut up and take it. I never Jack, you're completely misrepresenting my point. I never said any of that. I'm saying the reality of the federal bench. Would you have said that in 1973? No, I didn't say that in 2003. I said the opposite. I said we must keep marching towards. By the way, I think I think eliminating abortion is infinitely more important than eliminating flag burning. Okay? Like infinitely more important. By the way, one is made an image of God. One is not. Right. But my my point is that it's not in the constitution. And obviously it's important to get rid of. I have I have one more point on that. Hold on. No, the right to life is 100% in the Constitution. That's not correct. So, and by the way, I'm saying abortion is not in the Constitution. No, I I agree. No, I I totally understand that. I'm not even ar I'm not even arguing on the merits. I'm arguing on the the current legal regime leans either the European direction or the Blake Nef libertarian free speech direction. And you have to choose which side you kind of want your valitional energy to go towards. And we can hope and wish and pray that a credential bench of classical, you know, western canonized, you know, nationalists rise up in the legal community. But I it's not Marxist to say that you would Go ahead. I mean Blake can chime in. Well, I was just going to say I I think I think in in those terms I think I think all of us would agree the the Blake Nef free speech method totalitarian and that is the choice in front of us unfortunately to that that's the that's the obvious answer but I think the idea is is that if there's one thing that we can carve out and if there's something that we can be you know politically ambitious on it's look protect the culture and the concept of America, especially in in this time period that we're in this very unique time period right now with Trump where it's like, well, hey, we may be able to uh, you know, maximize, you know, especially with the young males that are out there that are feeling really weird about all of the side conversations and side quests that the left has gone down on attacking America. this might be the time to kind of take our own Roe v Wade and I and again I I I don't want to put it in those terms because I know that that probably Jack doesn't won't really appreciate that but this might be an opportunity for us to take some ground and let the let the left fight over that for the next 30 years uh at this time. Like I don't know. I I just I just think that that might be a smart move. But yeah, you can't be afraid of a fight because a fight is hard. But but that being said, public opinion, this is an 8020 issue. It's an obvious 8020 issue. Uh supporting the American flag again and fighting for the American flag will increase support fighting for the American flag as our freedom. Uh this is a symbol from which all of our freedoms flow. It is the symbol of our nation. It is a symbol that people carry into battle. That is why American soldiers when they go into that's why the flag on the uniform is printed backwards. If you look at a at a uniform because it is meant to represent the flag being carried into battle and that's why as a symbol of our nation. Yes, it should be sacrianked and there's no question about this and I don't think that it's going to create this situation where all of a sudden we're the UK. This is one thing. It is a specific thing and we're carving it out and saying no, you you can't burn the American flag. It's as simple as that. It is the smart move politically and it is the smart move nationally. Well, there's a lot of constitutional rights that don't pull with majority support or even close to it. Uh, I would say I want to I want to close on kind of an important thought because we've had this back and forth on whether expression counts as part of the First Amendment. And all I would say is if freedom of expression is not a right that you have, then the government can compel expression. So what if the government wants to make you salute the gay flag? That's not speech. Uh the government wait I'm sorry if freedom of expression isn't protected the government can force me to salute something. Yeah. You don't have freedom of expression. Part of freedom of speech is the right to not say something. It is the right to not be made to express a point of view you do not hold. That is also part of freedom of expression. It is the right to not be compelled in speech to be compelled in expression. So if you don't have that right the government can compel it. Okay. Okay Blake. Well, I'll I'll when when we're in a situation now when we don't have Marxists shooting up Catholic stu uh Catholic schools and Marxists marching on Washington burning flags and we've just spent, you know, a couple of years dealing with all this in the streets, then then maybe maybe I'll be worried about someone trying to pass a law that says I have to support the pride flag. But here in reality, that's the ab that is the culture war that we're in. That is the culture war that we have a actual fighting chance of winning right now if we actually stand up. like you are. And like the truth is the government if it can ban burning the flag because freedom of expression is not real. Well, they could ban you posting a meme that they don't like because the meme meme's not speech. Meme is an image. It's different. They could ban the Gadston flag. They could ban doing that distress flag that they were mad that Alito's wife was waving outside her house. They can do a lot of things. It wouldn't work at all. Of course, it would work. They've done these things. Just going back on Charlie's practicality argument. government's already done these things. What right now it is our freedom of expression that has mentioning or even the ability to prosecute those things. There are a lot of cases where the government has attempted to criminalize behavior as disruptive and we've been bailed out where someone went to jail for posting a meme. Blake, please try to live in reality. Please. Yeah. They tried to put a guy in jail for posting a meme and guess what? He didn't go to jail for it. That's because our freedom of speech discourse is good. Liberal judges ruled in our favor on that. That's a good thing. Literally, if the Biden should throw that away, they would still be pushing to lock up Doug Mackey. This happened. This put Doug Mackey in jail right now. Our constitutional norms, including a freedom that you have that over sunshine, we're totally able to preserving freedom is how you preserve freedom. You can't have nice things. You can't have nice things like that in this when the situation is what it is regarding the American flag. So this is the political jiujitsu though, Blake, is if you actually make flag burning illegal, then the left starts fighting on behalf of free speech, which is what you want. Well, no. I would say the best part about this is just that it'll probably provoke the left to burn flags, and that's good because burning the flag is unpopular. Except so I'm not going to burn a flag. Burning a flag is gross. So then the left will fight for I think there's some great I think there's some really good takeaways though, which is that we should fight for this politically, very carefully and prudently though. I don't I don't agree with Jack. I think you should be able to burn the Quran. I think you should be able to desecrate other people's religious symbols. However, if you want to pick a fight for national unity on a singular flag object, great. But I think we got to also take a page off of Blake's book that hey, like it's good that we're able to just speak openly on the show right now, guys, called Thought Crime and we don't have to worry about, you know, being arrested for hate speech by some sort of government agency. I think that's good. And Jack says it's a false choice, but it is a you you start going on that road of speech protections. And so I I think both can simultaneously be true. And yes, it is the greatest kind of left-wing bait ever because now they're going to start burning flags being like, "We can totally do this." And so, Jack, do you want to you want to finish your thought because we keep uh talking over you? Yeah. No, I mean, like what I'm what I'm saying is though that that I do actually think that So, yes, there's a practicality part of it and yes, I think politically obviously it makes a lot of sense to fight for this. That's why the president did this this week. Uh there's no question. So certainly, you know, stand with the president on that. But this has always been something that I'm for even, you know, far before President Trump became uh you know, involved politically. And it's it's something where I believe the way the constitution is written as current, right, as it currently stands is uh is that it makes sense for this to be a states rights issue. So when it which is what I was saying when I was talking about uh the religious symbols as well. So we do have that as the you know you know as freedom of religion but it when it comes to things like desecration of the flag whether that counts this is what why we have federalism. This is why we have states. This is why we have the 10th amendment. This is why we have the states as the laboratories of democracy. Right? The small det word that we used to be able to say this is why the system was set up the way that it was. And in that system we had 48 states with uh which banned flag desecration. This is the ideology of the founders. This is the ideology of the people who built the United States and got us to the point that we're in. It is not some false uh you know right that was just created in 1989. So I'm I'm really just arguing for the traditional view of the American system. Yeah. I mean I the states thing kind of feels like a copout. I mean, I I'd honestly like prefer just own it. Make it a federal thing. It's it's just No, I know. But if it's bad, just ban it. I mean, that's kind of that's my view, which is especially we're not talking about like not burning the North Carolina flag or not burning the Arizona flag. It is the American flag. So, I think again, I just the states thing. I'm just kind of getting tired of this whole states thing because it just kind of feels like a little bit of a a little bit of a copout uh more broadly in the movement. But this has been great, Blake. No. Fi fine. Uh Blake, do you have other thoughts on this? We really don't have much time to cover much else, but this is great. Yeah, I I mean I think I think I've basically said my piece on this. I just think a great thing in America that has not you know we sometimes talk about like okay wasn't always the case, but we've had that on other things like we had it with Jim Crow. Like we've been able to acknowledge that America's constitutional rights have been imperfectly applied at times that they were not extended to everyone that they actually belong to. And I think we can easily say that's the case with freedom of speech that before the civil war in the south you didn't have real freedom of speech. You didn't actually have the full freedom to uh criticize slavery. They would literally go and they would smash your press up. And it has taken time for it took time for us to reach the full flowering of American freedom of speech. I think it basically took until about World War II for it to happen. But I think that was a great example of America at its absolute peak. We were at the absolute peak of freedom of expression and just at that time we start seeing censorship tendrils start to spread in the rest of the world. Uh we start seeing you know you can say we'll never be like England but England didn't think it would ever be like England. That's where we got freedom of speech from. They were the freest country in the world in terms of speech for a very long time and they allowed themselves to move in a different direction where now they have blasphemy laws. Now they have these very loose incitement laws where you can't say certain things. Now you can get in trouble in England for like waving the flag of England because they will consider it incitement. And again, if expression is not included within what the First Amendment protects, then you can criminalize forms of expression, not just burning a flag, but also waving a certain flag. And if that's going to happen, if that's going to be an option on the table, the left will do it. I don't want the left to be able to do it. Well, not to open a whole new can of worms, but you know, this kind of guy opened up. I totally support states throwing people in jail for burning the state flag and protecting state sovereignty against the federal against the federal government. And I think it's a uh I think this actually is connected because the the federal government coming in and saying that oh it's protected speech to burn a state flag when a state itself should be protecting its people against the federal government is a whole other conversation that is really important for America to have because I think states should be able to protect their their brand, their culture, everything else against the federal government. So maybe that'll be special, but we have social technology matters. It's like monogamy is a social technology and you know all these things and we're basically when we say let's throw this let's throw this away and bring back flag burning laws. We're saying let us get rid let us diminuate let us curtail the piece of social technology we have in America that makes it so that we are not like China not like the UK not like continental Europe not like uh Saudi Arabia. I don't want to do that. So unfortunately the technology the bigger the bigger picture the problem is is that in reality when we don't hold up one symbol that we can all rally behind this nation is going to be torn apart. And so if you hold up one thing and say this is the thing that we should all rally behind the red, white and blue. And it doesn't matter what what race, what creed, what color you are. This is the one thing that is protected that we will rally behind that if we don't that we will continue to fight each other and this country will just be torn apart. It will just be absolutely torn apart. And and I think that's the main reason that President Trump is doing this now that to give us a symbol that we can all rally behind. I got we have to go guys. Uh T Tyler, really quick, your thought on Taylor Swift uh submitting to Travis Kelce and changing her name. I hope Travis Kely has Kelsey has the worst season ever and everybody blames Taylor Swift and everybody gets the great picture, the the grand picture. I hope he's the worst I hope he's the worst drafted fantasy football player in the history of fantasy football players and he has the worst year ever. They blame her. That's what I hope. I hope they have a wonderful marriage. I hope Travis Kelce is the MVP of the league. They win a Super Bowl and that they have a Super Bowl baby. I hope that that they have lots of children. It'll make them happier. I have learned that anything I say about Taylor Swift is the easiest way for me to get publicity. It's amazing. I don't even try, by the way. It's like international news. People are texting me from high school and they're I haven't heard from these people in years. I It is really something. All I said is that Taylor Swift should submit to her husband, which is abundantly biblical. She never will. I hope she Taylor Swift is so revealing. Yeah. Go ahead. Taylor Taylor Swift is the Hillary Clinton of our generation. Okay, listen. She is. She is. It There's so many parallels between Travis Kel and Bill Clinton. But I have Listen, all I know is this is that Hillary Clinton was smart enough to take advantage of a man for her own, you know, uh, betterment. And this is exactly what Taylor Swift has done in this relationship with Travis Kelce. It's not. Even if it lasts, like Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton's marriage has lasted, it hasn't been good for America. And neither will Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, I will stand by that. I don't care how many nasty tweets I'm going to get after this. Yeah. No, the reason that the reason that you see the memes of Travis Kelce being pregnant and Taylor Swift like, you know, wearing the Actually, that I I haven't seen this meme yet. you should make one of Taylor Swift wearing the tuxedo and Travis Kelce wearing the uh the the dress. Um even though I'm not sharing them myself because you know this this like just scop continues. So when when you see this this video they're showing right here. When you see Taylor Swift put the claw on uh Travis Kelce's face the way she has, it's it's a domination move. Uh, Newsweek wrote me up for saying this last year and she she produces these domination moves and domination gestures over and over and over. Uh, this is also similar to the green line test that Alfa Rivolino uses. And she's constantly doing this to him whereas he's leaning into her, she's leaning away from him. And this shows and it's something that we can all subliminally or just subconsciously uh understand that she has the dominant power in that relationship and he is the submissive. So this is the anti-biblical status where basically Taylor Swift acts like a man and Travis Kelce acts like a woman. And that's why those memes get traction because we can tell that he is a submissive man to the dominant girl boss uh feminist icon that he is now getting married to. Poor guy. I hope they end up very happy. Email us freedom charharliekirk.com and subscribe to our podcast. Thank you guys for listening to Thought Crime. Also check out Human Events Daily every single day. God bless you guys. Have a wonderful Labor Day weekend and talk to you soon. Thought crime is death.
