In a nation where the right to dissent has long been defended even by those who found its expressions repugnant, Australia's Coalition government has proposed making flag burning a criminal offense carrying up to a year in prison. The policy, framed as a protection of national heritage and historical memory, arrives in the charged atmosphere before an election, drawing accusations that it is less about principle than about courting voters who have drifted toward the nationalist right. It reopens an old and unresolved question that democracies have never quite settled: whether a symbol of freed