It’s one thing to burn the flag with a cigarette lighter. That’s a sad thing to see, but it illuminates the fact that someone feels very desperate about the choices our country seems to be making.

But to burn the flag with hateful rhetoric, personal attacks on anyone with opposing views, and Presidential threats which would shred the Bill of Rights: that’s a real act of destruction. That’s the kind of burning that actually hurts people, scars them, chars our society.

If there’s any kind of flag-burning that needs to be punished, it’s that kind.