What are your thoughts on President Trump's executive order requiring the Justice Department to investigate people for burning the American flag?

For context, this is a question I answered on Quora

If this is allowed to stand we will eventually wake up in a country with hate speech laws just like the UK and EU countries. If you set a precedent for one form of offensive expression to be criminalized, just because you find it “uniquely offensive and provocative”, you set a precedent for ANY FORM OF OFFENSIVE EXPRESSION to be criminalized once your opponents assume power.

Burning a U.S. flag is already a means to properly dispose of it. If he wants to criminalize the act itself, he is criminalizing proper disposal of a flag (the EO does not mention this). If it is the thought behind the flag burning that determines if it is a crime, then he is once again endorsing thought crime laws. Beyond his totalitarian-esque endorsement of another thought crime color of law, his legally dubious executive order falsely conflates offensive expression with “fighting words” and “incitement of violence” neither of which cover everything he finds offensive and provocative. Most importantly, an executive order cannot create a new law. This is not a law. The US Flag code, which guides the ritual for proper burning of an irreparable US Flag, is not law. Only congress can make laws and only those that aren’t blatantly in conflict with the first amendment.

Side Note: Conservative municipalities can already make burning the American flag during a public protest illegal just by enforcing their fire codes and requiring a permit from the local fire marshal to set anything on fire in public. The local fire marshal, who is probably an American Legion member, is highly unlikely to give a group like code pink a permit to burn the American flag. Trump could have directed the DOJ to investigate public flag burning for violations of existing, content-neutral laws like reckless endangerment or arson, which criminalize an action itself instead of insisting that a hateful thought behind burning the American flag should be criminalized.