Word: courtly
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...opinion in favor of Johnson was written, not surprisingly, by one of the court's last liberal lions, Brennan. Equally unsurprising, the most consistent conservative on the bench, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, crafted the main dissent. What was noteworthy, however, was the unusual lineup behind them. John Paul Stevens, who by virtue of the court's rightward swing is now considered a liberal, joined with Sandra Day O'Connor and Byron White in dissent. On the other side, Ronald Reagan's two conservative appointees, Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy, showed that when basic First Amendment rights were involved, they could...
After the court announced its decision last week, Joey Johnson proudly posed with charred flags. "I think it was great to see a symbol of international plunder and murder go up in flames," he said. His lawyer, David Cole, was slightly less inflammatory: "If free expression is to exist in this country, people must be as free to burn the flag as they are to wave it." Civil liberties advocates approved, though some were worried that the case had been decided by so narrow a margin. "James Madison, who wrote the First Amendment, would have his heart warmed...
...Foreign Wars chapter in Seattle: "The flag is a symbol of the U.S., and when you destroy that flag, you destroy the principles of our country." Conservative activists such as Patrick McGuigan of the Free Congress Foundation saw the ruling as yet another attack on traditional values. "The Supreme Court has told us schoolchildren may wear printed obscenities on their shirts but may not pray at the start of the school day," he said. "Now it $ tells us the majority may not protect our most precious symbol of national unity, Old Glory...
...success George Bush had last fall visiting a flag factory in New Jersey and attacking Michael Dukakis for once vetoing a bill that would have required teachers to lead their students in the Pledge of Allegiance each day. "Flag burning is wrong -- dead wrong," Bush pronounced after the court's ruling...
Most Americans would agree. But as the court pointed out, jailing people for burning the flag -- or forcing them to recite the Pledge of Allegiance -- is not what patriotism in America is really all about. That is the type of coerced patriotism that can be found elsewhere, in the darker corners of the globe. True patriotism comes from the heart and not from the barrel...