most sacred and cherished symbol (12. 673)

Though just another feckless executive order and virtue signalling (plus a distraction) to his base—as President Bartlett said there’s no epidemic of flag-burning in protest after entertainer Penn Jillette stirred controversy with sleight of hand trick and asks deputy chief of staff, “What if we burned a flag, not in protest, but in celebration of the very freedoms that allow us to burn a flag—the freedoms that everyone who has ever worked in this magnificent building has pledged to preserve and protect?”—and against the 1989 landmark supreme court decision that affirmed such actions as protected speech under the first amendment, the Trump administration has directed officials in the justice department to prosecute flag burning in a way that does not violate the constitution, directing the attorney general to prioritise laws against desecration in connection with other crimes to allow for revocation of visas and deportation of foreign nationals, promising jail time for the offence and suggesting loss of citizenship. Describing the act as “uniquely offensive and provocative,” Trump has always had a particular preoccupation with such acts (see above case protecting “fighting words”)—whilst rubbish the principles behind it—and when a regime tells one what flags cannot be burned, it will next tell one which flags cannot be waved. Creeping—nay galloping—despotism aside, those who insist a symbol is sacrosanct and inviolable also keep it off their crappy merchandise. “Did you go to law school?” “No, clown school.”