Some thoughts on Alt-right Trolling.

[reACTIONary]

52. If you have never done so before....

If you have never done so before, it might be an interesting experiment in praxis to publicly burn an American flag. It's best done as part of a face-off with a howling mob of angry counter demonstrators.

I had this experience in Chicago, in 1979 during the Iran hostage crisis. Coincidentally, just a few years after the Skokie / Marquette Park events.

The Chicago police were there, standing between us and the counter protesters. I'm pretty sure they, personally, would have liked to use their billy clubs on us, but they did their job and kept the situation below the threshold of chaos and violence. I think the fact that the TV news was there helped.

Of course, burning the American flag is widely considered an incitement to violence - and it has been argued on that basis that it should not be considered protected speech. I'm pretty sure that American flag burners, rather than Nazi flag wavers, would bear the brunt of any "loosening of the libel laws" (to quote Dotard).

I was living in Chicago in 1977 and was a "card carrying member" of the ACLU My significant other lived in Skokie at that time. Recently, when one of my friends at work told me he was from Skokie, we got into a discussion about the Skokie affair. His grandmother is a Holocaust survivor and he shared his perspective with me. So I am well aware of the Skokie affair and have some understanding of the differing views.