(FORTUNE Magazine) – Your servant is possibly the only judicial kibitzer around who insists on linking two recent cases: (1) the Supreme Court's latest affirmation of flag- burning rights and (2) the Georgia state court ruling that allows Shade Miller Jr. to wear his Ku Klux Klan hood in public. Yes, there is a link. It seems that back in 1952, the state of Georgia outlawed the wearing of masks in public -- obviously with Klan hoods in mind. Miller challenged the law, arguing that Klansmen appearing without the protection of anonymity (i.e., the hood) face a danger of persecution because of their broad & unpopularity. Miller won his case in state court, and we assume he will prevail at higher judicial levels, even though the persecution argument seems tenuous. What will win for him is the ''free speech'' argument -- which, as again elaborated by the U.S. Supreme Court, means you have a right to express yourself even if you do not have much of anything to say. When the Supremes were hearing oral argument on the latest flag-burning cases, the U.S. Solicitor General tried unavailingly to make the point put forward in Keeping Up a year ago: that political thought should be protected by the First Amendment but not generalized expressions of rage like those manifested in flag burning. Brother Scalia had no patience with this distinction. He said the flag burners were in fact expressing a thought -- that they hated their country -- and that it deserved protection. The media that noticed the case have generally seemed aghast at Shade Miller's judicial triumph, but it is hard to see why he would not get the same protection as the flag burners. The Supreme Court would presumably rule that Klansmen also have thoughts -- that in wearing their hoods, they are making a simple statement: They hate blacks (possibly also Jews and Catholics). Under the Court's reaffirmed logic, this ''thought'' would be constitutionally protected. Weird, eh?