Grand old flag can take the heat
Edward Cone
News & Record
5-6-99
TELLING PEOPLE HOW TO FEEL ABOUT THE FLAG GOES AGAINST WHAT THE FLAG REPRESENTS.
The proposed Constitutional amendment to outlaw the desecration of the American flag, now under consideration by the U.S. Senate, is a bad idea for the same reasons that it has been a bad idea every time it's been brought up over the last decade.
I get tired of listing those reasons in my column every year, and I'm tempted to just say to hell with it and let this impractical and un-American proposal slide through without further comment, but that would make me as lazy and numbed as the Senators pushing it, so here I go again.
Let's start with the practical considerations that make a flag-desecration law arbitrary and worthless. People use the flag and images of the flag for all kinds of things, some of which are bound to offend somebody.
Using the flag as a commercial tool or casual decoration would seem to be more disrespectful than using it in a political protest, but the demagogues in D.C. are only aiming at the protesters. Why isn't using the flag to sell cars a crime? Why isn't an American flag patch sewn onto a pair of blue jeans a desecration?
What if it's on the seat of the pants, or if the pants get dirty or if somebody burns the pants? What if I paint the flag on a canvas and surround it with swastikas? And what if I then burned that canvas?
No, you say, we'll limit this to the actual cloth printed with the red, white and blue. Fine. Illogical, but fine.
Let's talk about ways of desecrating a flag that don't involve its physical destruction. What about the use of the flag in a Klan rally or flying it next to the Confederate flag that was once raised in opposition to it?
Surely the political appropriation of the flag for such un-American activities is a more profound offense to the ideals of this republic than the torching of a particular copy of the flag. The very worst part of the flag amendment, the truly un-American aspect of this issue, is that it tells Americans how they have to think.
It says, This is how you shall be a patriotic American, which is to completely ignore the diversity of political, cultural, and religious attitudes that the flag is supposed to represent. Some people won't even salute or pledge to the flag for religious reasons -- should they be prosecuted, too?
What if somebody doesn't particularly venerate the flag? There are other symbols of this country that people may hold just as dear, or dearer -- our Constitution, for example, or the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Statue of Liberty. Should we ban the desecration of replicas of those objects, too?
For people who do value the flag, burning it is clearly an act of political speech -- just the sort of thing the First Amendment is meant to cover. If they take that right away, what's next?
The beauty and power of the American flag does not come from its design or any other physical factor that can be destroyed by flame. One of the most common and emotionally effective arguments one hears in support of the amendment comes from combat veterans who say that they risked their lives and saw their comrades lose theirs to defend the flag.
With all due respect, what they were defending was the right of others to believe as they will.
When somebody destroys a flag, they aren't destroying the flag. They're burning or defacing a single piece of cloth.
To destroy the flag, you have to undermine the principles for which it stands, which is just what the amendment would do. The flag -- not a flag -- is indeed in danger of being desecrated by the amendment that purports to defend it.
Edward Cone (www.edcone.com, efcone@mindspring.com) writes a column for the News & Record most Sundays.
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Last update: 6/26/2005; 9:14:20 PM .
