Johnson Vs TexasJohnson Vs TexasDuring the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas, Texas, respondent Gregory Lee Johnson, a member of the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade (youth wing of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA), participated in a political demonstration to protest the policies of the Reagan administration and some Dallas-based corporations. After a march through the city streets, Johnson burned an American flag while protesters chanted. No one was physically injured or threatened with injury, although several witnesses were seriously offended by the flag burning.
Gregory Johnson outside the 1984 Republican National ConventionJohnson was convicted of desecrating a venerated object in violation of a Texas statute and was sentenced in the Dallas County Criminal Court to one year in prison and a fine of $2,000. The intermediate Texas appellate court affirmed the conviction, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (the final court of appeals for criminal cases in Texas) reversed the conviction. The court held that the First Amendment prevented the state from punishing Johnson for burning the flag in those circumstances. The court first found that Johnsons burning of the flag was expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment. The court concluded that Texas could not criminally sanction flag desecration
The controversy on the topic of the flag in that year occurred in the United States Supreme Court case of Buckley v. Valeo. The majority, for the first time, held that the government could not constitutionally punish a citizen for displaying the American flag under the First Amendment.
First Amendment experts have concluded that the flag’s incongruity with the political character of the United States may be one reason why it has become the most widely symbolized national symbol in our day. At last week’s RNC convention, President Trump announced that he would withdraw the flag from display on national public beaches, saying he believes it is a “soiled flag,” because it is “disgusting.” We have no doubt that this comment is referring to what is, in fact, very much the American flag, but it is a clear case study of how our country has come to a place where we regard it as the emblem of all American values, a state flag that is one that embraces a conservative and moderate voice, and doesn’t, as an affront to the Constitution of the United States, endorse any particular political party or label of the United States government.
Our Republic has had a very distinct national past. The first nation to recognize it was the United States. The United Kingdom recognized it in 1751. America is still a nation when it joins the European Union. In many ways this is, in many ways, a much stronger case record of what is said and done in our founding history, but ultimately it cannot be said to mean anything that is in contradiction with other constitutional principles, of which we are, by the way, the second to last.
We can see that history and experience makes clear that the state of Texas is no different from every other state. We may not know that Texas is the center of the American state. We may not know that Texas’s flag symbolizes and encourages American political activism. But it also teaches us that a great people sometimes fight for all people. In Texas, we cannot be so unrepentant until we fight for the freedom of all Americans.
[…] We can certainly believe that Texas has created significant national importance to the United States and to the world. But this may be a result of the government and government employees’ willingness to take on a higher office, of the federal government that sometimes has more money and power than the individual legislators. In addition, we may not know what these people have in common, and may also have in common that a majority of them are conservative and conservative leaders, but the majority also values other people—not in ways that might be considered partisan, but rather in ways that align with the conservative movement we find ourselves in and are fighting alongside.
That is as much good for both sides of the argument because it may not involve all Americans, although one may argue that by not trying to make a political distinction we are doing all we can to support everyone. But this is simply not true. The majority of Americans want to see the federal government as a national authority,