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Ron Paul has a way of getting just about every issue half right. That’s the way it is with the issue of flag burning. In principle, Ron Paul gets it right. However, in execution, Ron Paul manages to undermine his own good principles.

Ron Paul correctly identifies flag burning as a free speech issue. The burning of an American flag is a form of criticizing the government, and if flag burning is banned, then a form of government criticism is banned. “The offensive conduct of a few does not justify making an exception to the First Amendment protections of political speech the majority finds offensive,” Ron Paul wrote, arguing against a constitutional amendment that would have weakened the First Amendment by allowing flag burning to be banned. Banning flag burning is an attack against American liberty - that ought to be a libertarian’s position.

Unfortunately, Ron Paul’s libertarian idealism gets tossed into the garbage when it comes to state government. You see, Ron Paul has the cockamamie idea that states within the USA can do things that are declared illegal by the national Constitution. It’s kind of like saying that in a particular town, murder is illegal, but people can murder anyone they want in their own houses.

So, Ron Paul says that he thinks its a great idea to give each of the 50 states the right to ban flag burning, or to ban free speech altogether. At the end of his speech to Congress opposing the constitutional amendment allowing flag burning at the national level, Ron Paul became a cheerleader for laws banning flag burning at the state level, saying, “my colleagues should work to restore the rights of the individual states to ban flag burning”.

Read Ron Paul’s flip flop speech to Congress for yourself, to see how he deftly switches from pro-freedom to anti-freedom in the blink of an eye.