Un-Flagging Patriotism

Rumor has it that the Congress will soon be taking up the perennial cause of “flag desecration” again, because of course there aren’t any more IMPORTANT issues going on in our world. But this gives me the opportunity to expound on a topic about which I feel very strongly.

The American Flag is a powerful symbol of our country, emblematic of the freedoms we hold dear. As regular readers will have recognized, I’m a big proponent of the freedoms guaranteed us by our Constitution and intended for us by our Founding Fathers. Whenever I hear someone say what a great country this is, I know that it is due in no small part to those freedoms.

Freedom of speech is fundamental. Our First Amendment is intended to guarantee it. And free speech means unpopular speech as well as popular. Free speech means a lot to bloggers and reporters, it’s what gives us the security to write down our disappointments and disagreements with our government, safe from politically motivated reprisals.

And this brings us to our flag. The American Flag is a symbol of all that is great in this country, representing our strengths and our weaknesses, our duties and our freedoms. How hypocritical, then, to restrict free expression with regard to the symbol of freedom of expression? How can we again look at the First Amendment with the same reverence when we make exceptions to it, and not for reasons of safety or protection of other rights, but for the emblem which, above all others, symbolizes that very freedom?

I don’t want to burn our flag. It bothers me when I see some tattered, weather-beaten old banner flying, apparently not having been taken down from it’s flagpole for several Presidential administrations. I would love it if all of our citizenry held the flag in the high esteem it deserves. But our Founding Fathers knew that you can’t FORCE that sort of allegiance, and once you try you cheapen it, not just from those whose displays are half-hearted and clearly coerced, but from us all.

I tell you with very little hyperbole that if ever there was an issue that made me at all inclined to burn a flag, it is this one. Passing this Constitutional Amendment would diminish the flag as a symbol of our greatness to the point where, in order to protest it’s stupidity, I would feel sorely tempted to demonstrate and burn.

For those who are shocked, I don’t believe I would actually do it, because I still hold this country in high esteem. But to me the very passing of that Amendment would so diminish the flag that the idea would no longer seem entirely unthinkable to me. And that, by itself, is sad.

Finally, let us remember Section 8.k of the Flag Code (as presented on The American Legion web site), which clearly says: The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning.

If burning the flag is the correct and respectful method of destruction of a flag past it’s useful life, how can it also be unconstitutional?

Copyright © June 3, 2005 by Liam Johnson. http://www.liamjohnson.net