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The Supreme Court held, in 1943 in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette by a 6-to-3 decision delivered by Justice Jackson, that it was unconstitutional for public schools to compel students to salute the flag.
It thus overruled its decision in Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940), finding that the flag salute was "a form of utterance" and "a primitive but effective means of communicating ideas." The Court wrote that any "compulsory unification of opinion" was doomed to failure and was antithetical to the values set forth in the First Amendment,.
The Court stated: "The case is made difficult not because the principles of its decision are obscure but because the flag involved is our own. Nevertheless, we apply the limitations of the Constitution with no fear that freedom to be intellectually and spiritually diverse or even contrary will disintegrate the social organization.
"To believe that patriotism will not flourish if patriotic ceremonies are voluntary and spontaneous instead of a compulsory routine is to make an unflattering estimate of the appeal of our institutions to free minds. We can have intellectual individualism and the rich cultural diversities that we owe to exceptional minds only at the price of occasional eccentricity and abnormal attitudes.
"When they are so harmless to others or to the State as those we deal with here, the price is not too great. But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.
"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein."
The Supreme Court announced its decision on June 14, Flag Day.
Now we have a president who wants to compel everyone to salute the flag and stand during the pledge of allegiance. This is a guy who got five deferments to avoid military service, one of them for a bone spur. And he has turned a blind eye to his immediate staff breaking the law, getting indicted and pleading guilty of lying to federal investigators. Patriotism, it is said, even Trump's fake patriotism, is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Let's remember. He has already appointed a Supreme Court justice and may yet appoint others. Since when does pampered millionaire prescribe "what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein."?
