The desecration of the American flag has been an ongoing issue in the United states for quite some time. Protesters burn, trample, stomp, or purposefully hang the flag in a manner to show protest against something that they don’t agree with. Although penalties were set in place for doing these acts, they are not enforced but rather covered by saying it is their first amendment rights as a symbol of free speech. But what would happen if these acts took place in another country where the penalties are a little more severe and heavily enforce?
As it stands right now the current punishment for American flag desecration is a fine and up to one year imprisonment(law), but these penalties are not harsh enough to stop people from carrying out these unlawful acts toward our founding fathers and all those people who stood up against British rule because they don’t stand in court. However, a proposal act written by members of congress called “Flag Protection Act of 2012” might have the answer to that
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In 1984 in the case if Texas vs. Johnson, Gregory Lee Johnson burned a flag outside the Republican National Convention in protest to President Ronald Reagan’s policies in Dallas Texas, declaring it was his right a form of “symbolic speech” under the first Amendment. He was arrested tried and convicted in the Texas court system for violating Texas statue, which states that it was illegal to desecrate the flag. (time.com) Although it seems that justice was served, Mr. Johnson appealed to the Supreme court and won. Shortly after the case was heard and ruled on, Congress passed the Flag Protection Act of 1989, making it a criminal offence to desecrate the American flag. In turn this caused a large public outburst causing a mass of flag burnings to get the issue back to the Supreme court and this worked, in the case of United States vs. Eichman the supreme court ruling in the same outcome as