B (12:20)
Okay? That's the argument that Scalia made. That's the one that the squish conservatives and the libertarians are going to cite. And Antonin Scalia, though a great man who got most things right, got this one wrong. We will see how in a second. First, I want to tell you about fast growing trees. Go to fastgrowingtrees.com, use promo code Knowles. Fall is planting season. Did you know that many plants and trees actually do better when planted this time of year? But you have to know where to start. That is why I love fastgrowingtrees.com doesn't matter if you live in the sunny south or if the air is getting chilly where you are. Their plant experts can help you find the perfect fit for your space. Fast Growing Trees has everything you need to create your dream yard with 6,000 locally grown varieties, fruit trees, privacy trees, flowering trees, shrubs and more. Order online. Get them delivered to your door in just days. Thanks to their Alive and thrive guarantee and 14 point quality checklist, each plant gets individual care based on its specific needs so they arrive happy, healthy and ready to thrive in your yard. I was never the most green thumb guy out there. Then when I got my first real yard, you know, I bought my house and my family and everything. You start to know I want that kind of tree, I want that kind of shrub. Oh, I want maybe let's start to get ideas this fall. Have your ideas. They have the best deals for your yard, up to half off on select plants and other deals. Listeners to our show get 15% off when they use Code Knowles at checkout for their first purchase. That is 15% off at fastgreentrees.com using code KNOWLES@ checkout. Now is the time to plant. Use Knowles to save today. Offer is valid for limited time. Terms and conditions may apply. Check out the link below or in the show notes and support the show. I love Antonin Scalia. He's one of my favorite political figures of my whole lifetime. He's a conservative Catholic of Italian descent. I feel a great deal of kinship with Justice Scalia, the late great man. But no man, no mere mortal, is perfect. And Scalia, he got 99.7% of things right. He got this one wrong. This is one of the few examples he got wrong. Texas v. Johnson. The first question you have to ask yourself is if it's so clear cut that the Constitution protects burning the American flag, how come nobody figured it out before 1989? You know, countries founded 200 years before that. The country has roots dating back some 300. What is it, 360 years before that? 369? 70 years before that? How come they only figured it out that the American tradition, and specifically the Constitution from the late 18th century bans, or rather permits the burning of the American flag. How come they only figured it out in 1989? Is it possible that our perception had simply changed by 1989, that this isn't the view of Adams or Madison or Jefferson or Washington, but this is the view of modern people, even modern people Putatively on the left. Next question, you gotta ask yourself, why is it that 48 out of 50 states had laws banning the burning of the American flag? If it was so obvious, if it's so clear that this is what. And how come that was only challenged by 1989 successfully? Really strange. Then the last thing you gotta ask yourself, Texas v. Johnson, was a 54 decision. It was a very, very close Supreme Court decision. How come the majority, which said you can burn the flag, was made up of all the Court's liberals, plus Scalia and the minority? The dissent was made up of all the Court's conservatives, minus Scalia. In other words, everyone's going to be citing Scalia on this. But Scalia was the weird one. If you take Scalia out of it, it was all the liberals say, the Constitution demands we must allow flag burning. All the conservatives say, led by Rehnquist, who is an amazing jurist, say the Constitution does in fact allow states to pass laws against burning the American flag. What did Rehnquist say, since he's a conservative icon who led the conservative wing and dissented here? He said, the American flag, then, throughout more than 200 years of our history, has come to be the visible symbol embodying the nation. It does not represent the views of any particular political party, and it does not represent any particular political philosophy. The flag is not simply another idea or point of view competing for recognition in the marketplace of ideas. Millions and millions of Americans regard it with an almost mystical reverence. So people are going to say, trump, he's constitutionally illiterate. Trump, he's betraying conservatism or whatever. Trump's executive order is almost identical to the great Chief Justice Rehnquist's dissent in the case that is at the heart of this whole controversy. Are you gonna call Rehnquist a dummy? Are you gonna say Rehnquist is constitutionally illiterate? You gonna say Rehnquist wasn't conservative? Give me a break. This man is a pillar of American conservatism and jurisprudence, was the Chief justice of the Supreme Court. But he says, pace Scalia. I know. I understand your view. You're saying that this is obviously political speech and expresses a political point of view, opposition to the government. Say, yes, I understand that, but that's actually not what it's doing, because the flag doesn't just represent the government or a certain kind of regime or a certain political party. He says, that's not what the symbol means. It is the visible symbol that embodies our nation. It's not the symbol of the Republican Party. It sometimes seems that way because Democrats hate the American flag. Cause they hate our country. But the Republicans love the American flag. Democrats, would you rather wave the gay thing or whatever. But it is in principle and explicitly the symbol unifying our whole nation. In other words, it's not merely partisan political speech. It is a symbol of the whole political order. And in a way, it's above the political order. The self perception of America can change. But this is a symbol of America as herself. America per se. Okay? Millions of Americans regard it with an almost mystical reverence. This is in a society that is largely secular and economic and materialist and has a low but solid grounding. This is one of those things that is sacred. And all societies need things to be sacred. Because you need something that you revere in common. You need something to make you cohere. That is especially true in a nation that does not have a unified ethnicity, does not have a unified true religion. We're talking about the civic religion that does not have much unity at all. You need to have a symbol to hold you together. Okay? Rehnquist goes on. I cannot agree that the First Amendment invalidates the act of Congress. There's an act of Congress, right, that says that you can be prosecuted for burning the American flag. I cannot agree that the First Amendment invalidates the act of Congress. The laws of 48 of the 50 states which make criminal the public burning of the flag. Beyond Rehnquist. John Paul Stevens had a great point on this. He compared the burning of the American flag, permitting the burning of the American flag to permitting bulletin boards on the Washington Monument. You know, the Washington Monument sticks up like a needle obelisk. In Washington, D.C. we have free speech, don't we? We support free speech. We support political speech, especially political expression. Well, that's talk about a political symbol. You're not gonna put a bulletin board on there. Why not? Stevens writes a bulletin board. Permitting a bulletin board on the Washington Monument might enlarge the market for free expression, but at a cost I would not pay. Yes, we support the expression of ideas, but not anywhere, under any circumstances, in any mode. There are limits on that. These things are circumscribed, of course. And if we do not in some way have a taboo on destroying the very symbol of the country. Not a symbol of one political partisan view or some other partisan view or one policy or another. But we're talking about the whole country. Then how do we have a country? What is holding us together? This is the notion that Chesterton explains what Chesterton famously writes. There is a thought that stops thought, and that is the only thought that ought to be stopped. It is an incoherent act to burn the American flag because you are relying on the supposed freedoms promised by the United States to destroy the United States. That is incoherent. And we are supposed to be logical. We are not merely grunting baboons advancing pure will. Last point on this. You look at the majority opinion I mentioned to you. It was all the liberals plus Scalia saying you can burn the flag. It was all the conservatives minus Scalia who said that you can't burn the flag. Who are those liberals? You have Justice William Brennan. Brennan was the leader of the court's liberal wing. He authored the opinion. You have Thurgood Marshall. Thurgood Marshall was so thoroughly liberal that he tried to make taxpayers pay for abortions. Luckily, he was shot down on that. Harry Blackmun. Who's Harry Blackmun? He wrote the opinion in Roe v. Wade. You want to talk about liberals? Anthony Kennedy. Anthony Kennedy wrote the opinion. Obergefell, which was just romantic poetry to redefine marriage. And Scalia, again, please don't think I'm beating up on Scalia. I adore the man. Talk about people we hold in reverence, veneration. I adore the man. But he was not a demigod. He was a mere mortal. He sometimes. He rarely got things wrong. He got this one wrong. And nature is healing. And Trump is on the right side of this. And conservatives should get on the right side of this. We are not. And if you're confused about how conservatives ought to view free speech, you should check out my number one national best selling book, Speechless, Controlling Words, Controlling Minds. It's still available. Where's my bell? Wow. Because I haven't done a plug in a while. Still available for sale and still correct all these years later. Okay, more great news. The immigrant population in the United States has declined for the first time in almost half a century. We will get to that momentarily. Why that's happening, why that's a great thing. First, though, I want to tell you about Shopify. 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Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com knowles shopify.com knowles shopifY.com kn O W L E S head there right now makes it so so easy. When I was starting my early businesses I wish Shopify had been around. You can get it now. Shopify.com knowles New York Times lamenting. You can hear the teardrops falling in this article Immigrant population in US Drops for first time in decades and analysis of census data by the Pew Research center found that between January and June the foreign born population declined by nearly one and a half million. Huge, huge number. So I remember I read to you back in March. I think it was a study from the center for Immigration Studies that showed that there seems to have been a drop of about a million foreign born in the United States just in the first three to five months of the year since Trump Trump took office again. Then I read you another one a few weeks ago. So this is jumping even higher. A little over 2 million 1.6 million illegal aliens dropped out of the workforce. Well now they're not identical numbers, but they're in the ballpark. Pew Research and the New York Times finding the same thing. In June, the country had 51.9 million immigrants. That was down from 53.3 million six months earlier. Now that includes legal immigrants and illegal aliens. This is good news for political reasons, for certain economic reasons. But this also shows you a shift in the politics. So I think this shift from traditional conservatism, which said things like you should not be able to burn the American flag, 48 out of 50 states agreed. The federal government agreed that that had been the case for much of American history. There was a shift away from that toward this libertarian proceduralism. Well, you know, I might not like the Amer burning the American flag. I'm a but by golly, I can't find a strict liberal reason to oppose it. So I don't want to be an authoritarian. So I don't want to tell people what do so who decides? We'll just let it all be this licentious kind of government. There was a shift away from traditional conservatism toward kind of libertarian infused license. Libertinism in the 80s 90s into the 2000s probably reached its peak around the Tea Party era. There's much to recommend the Tea Party era, but they got that thing wrong too. Then we've moved away from that back toward a more substantive conservatism. Same thing here. There used to be a healthy skepticism of mass migration for most of the 20th century, for actually really most of American history. I suppose you would say immigration was severely restricted. This notion that America's always had totally open borders and has been begging for the poor huddled masses yearning to be free because of that stupid socialist poem on the Statue of Liberty which was a gift from post revolutionary France. Why are we paying attention to what they tell us to do anyway? That's a myth that does not accurately represent most of American history. The deepest strains in American history. For most of history we've said, look, we don't have all that much against immigrants. It's not like we hate people just randomly. But we're a country and so you gotta control who comes in and we gotta make sure that people are well assimilated and we don't lose the American identity. Then we shifted into this proceduralism where there were two views you were allowed to have on immigration. Flood the country. Legal, illegal, we don't care. That was the liberal view and the supposedly conservative view was flood the country, but make sure it's done legally to listen. We are absolutely fine with the same substantive outcome that the Democrats want, but we want you to fill out a different form first. Okay? It's what's very important. Flood the country with people who don't speak a lick of English, who compete for wages with blue collar Americans, who move into their own ethnic segregated enclaves and disrupt American unity and social solidarity, who also have ties to gangs and all sorts of crime and are a drain on resources. But just make sure you fill out that paperwork first. Okay? But now there's a third option which is actually the more traditional option and it's to say we don't want any illegal immigration and we want to drastically reduce legal immigration too. Not because we hate Nicaraguans or something, not because we hate Tibetans, but because we have a huge record high foreign born percentage of the population and we're having a breakdown of social solidarity and we just need to chill for a little bit. It's not you, it's us protecting our own country that's what's come back. That's a shift once again away from procedural norms into substantive goods that's happening. This is very good news. Some people, some radical left wing organizations are very upset about this. They hate the deportations, including the self deportations and the reduction in the people who are trying to flood into our country. Notably the most famous or infamous deportee, Kilmar Abrego Garcia. I won't belabor the point, Kilmore Abrego Garcia is this guy who apparently he like, beat his wife. And there was a protection order taken out against him and he was found by multiple judges to likely have associations with MS.13, a violent gang, a satanic gang, actually. He was in this country illegally in the first place and he was deported. And the libs lost their minds over it. And Democrat Senator Chris Van Hollen from Maryland ditched all of his constituents, all of his actual taxpayers voting citizens, ditched them to go check out his boyfriend in El Salvador. And they had a romantic lunch date together. Chris Van Holler would wake up in the middle of the night, cold sweat. Kilmar? Kilmar, Honey? Honey, you're talking in your sleeping. Huh?