On Trump's comments on banning flag burning

So, Donald Trump said today that people who burn flags should lose their citizenship or be sent to jail. While it looks like he won't be able to revoke citizenship of natural born citizens at least, Trump's desire to suppress freedom of speech disturbs me.We are supposed to be a free country, with freedom of speech and the freedom to dissent from the status quo, and honestly, I think the desecration of national symbols should not be banned. Quite frankly, to me, the only thing I think should be punishable about burning a flag is the potential fire hazard it creates.

I know a lot of people have this really creepy authoritarian vibe about how important the flag is, and I know the American civil religion runs deep in many peoples' thinking, but I think that those who want to ban this behavior kind of miss the point. Veterans, for example, will talk about how they fought for this country and how it offends them that some desire to burn the flag they defended. They claim they fought to defend freedoms and that burning the flag is a slap in the face to them.

To this, I ask, what is more important, the flag itself? Or the freedoms it supposedly represents? How can we call ourselves free when you're trying to punish people for exercising their freedom of speech? I feel like people who get so uppity over flag burning miss the entire point of what America is supposed to be about from their own perspective. To ban freedom of speech and expression, even to criticize and disrespect the country, is a far more grievous harm than the burning of a piece of cloth is. If veterans really fought for freedom, and care about the ideals of that flag, they'll allow people to burn it, even if it upsets them. That's freedom. That's their right. To ban this behavior is to weaken the freedoms of this nation these people supposedly love, and make us wonder...what did veterans really fight for? What did soldiers really die for? They should be getting way more offended at the idea of their government trying to take their freedoms away than the idea of burning a piece of cloth.