Adrian Cronauer Quotes

There is no indication - either in the text of the Constitution or in our cases interpreting it - that a separate judicial category exists for the American flag alone. ... We decline ... therefore to create for the flag an exception to the … principles protected by the First Amendment.

Laws protecting the United States flag do not cut away at the freedom of speech guaranteed in the First Amendment... Congress made this position clear upon passage of the Flag Protection Act of 1989, which prohibited desecration of the flag.

The Supreme Court decision [Texas v. Johnson, 1989] does not in any way indicate the government is backing off from forcing the flag on people. They just don't want to look too dictatorial in the way they do it.

Burn the flag; that's a freedom. Then I have the freedom to take it away from them and tell them how dumb they are.

I support the ability of people to be able to burn the American flag if they want to. But people have the right in this country to debate it.

We all find flag burning repugnant. We find burning crosses repugnant. But they have been burning crosses longer than they have been burning flags and there has been no rush for a constitutional amendment to stop the burning of crosses.

A flag burning Constitutional amendment would rip the fabric of the Constitution at its very center.

We have a First Amendment right to burn the flag as symbolic speech. The Constitution protects that right. To spend time and effort on this is ridiculous.

I prefer someone who burns the flag and then wraps themselves up in the Constitution over someone who burns the Constitution and then wraps themselves up in the flag.

If you buy the flag it's yours to burn.

Since we don't have a tyrant or a dictator, we can't put people who are burning flag in jail. But Donald Trump is telling you what he thinks of 'em. He's not gonna do anything of the sort. This is where people go off the rails with Trump, with this literal business and so fort

The First Amendment defends all forms of speech including hate speech, which is why groups like Ku Klux Klan are allowed to utter their poisonous remarks.

The Supreme Court has held that code is speech. And it doesn't matter that it's done on a computer or done face to face or done in a newspaper, reporting the facts of the world is protected speech.

Those people who want to express their religious beliefs on public property should enjoy the same rights that we provide to those protesting the war in Iraq.

One who comes to the Court must come to adore, not to protest. That's the new gloss on the 1st Amendment.

Free speech is meant to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech, by definition, needs no protection.

I prefer a man who will burn the flag and then wrap himself in the Constitution to a man who will burn the Constitution and then wrap himself in the flag.

Who personally has ever witnessed a flag burning?

We will take a meaningless vote so that some campaign operatives can try to bludgeon senators who are willing to stand up for the Bill of Rights and vote against this amendment.

The Constitution does not allow the unnecessary trammeling of free expression, even for the noblest of purposes.

We do not debar Congress from all action upon the freedom of speech. Legislation that abridges that freedom is forbidden, but not legislation to enlarge and enrich it

We are the only country that allows and protects hate speech.

If there is a bedrock principle of the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.

If the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech and press is to mean anything, it must allow protests even against the moral code that the standard of the day sets for the community.

Political speech is indispensable to decision-making in a democracy, and this is no less true because the speech comes from a corporation. By taking the right to speak from some and giving it to others, the Government deprives the disadvantaged person or class of the right to use speech to strive to establish worth, standing, and respect for the speaker’s voice. The Government may not by these means deprive the public of the right and privilege to determine for itself what speech and speakers are worthy of consideration. The First Amendment protects speech and speaker, and the ideas that flow from each.