Flag Burning Is Free Speech (1989) w/ Michael Liroff
This Day in Esoteric Political History
Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia
4.6 • 982 Ratings
🗓️ 25 June 2023
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s June 21st. This day in 1989, the Supreme Court ruled that the burning of the American flag was allowed as free expression under the first amendment.
Jody, Niki, and Kellie are joined by Michael Liroff of the 5-4 Podcast to discuss the free speech precedent, the history of laws regarding “desecrating” the flag, and why the defendant, Gregory Lee Johnson, burned the flag in the first place.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from radiotopia. |
| 0:07.0 | My name is Jody Abergen. |
| 0:09.0 | This day, June 21st, 1989, we're a couple days late folks, I know, it happens. |
| 0:17.0 | June 21st, 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court decided 5-4 that under the First Amendment of the United States the |
| 0:24.2 | burning of the American flag was a legal exercise of political speech. This was |
| 0:28.9 | of course a big moment when it comes to free speech but also a big moment in the very long and |
| 0:34.2 | very fraught history regarding the American flag. For most of the 20th |
| 0:37.4 | century there were legal battles and laws and public debates about quote-unquote |
| 0:41.3 | disrespecting the American flag by using it in commercial settings or hanging it the wrong way or in this case |
| 0:47.4 | burning it. So let's talk about this ruling Texas v Johnson |
| 0:52.3 | here as always are Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt |
| 0:55.0 | and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. |
| 0:57.0 | Hello there. |
| 0:58.0 | Hello Jody. |
| 0:59.0 | Hey there. |
| 1:00.0 | And our special guest for this episode, |
| 1:01.0 | I mentioned that that ruling went five four well from |
| 1:03.8 | the brilliant five four podcast which calls itself a podcast about how the Supreme |
| 1:08.3 | Court sucks here is our special guest Michael Liroff lawyer and co-host of that podcast. |
| 1:13.9 | Michael, thank you so much for doing this and I'm a big fan of 5.4 so thanks. |
| 1:18.0 | Same. Thank you. It's just I feel very lucky to get a chance to come and talk about a time when the Supreme Court didn't suck. That's nice. |
| 1:29.0 | I was going to ask you that. |
... |
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