Text 13779, 86 rader
Skriven 2005-06-27 14:50:54 av Alan Hess
Ärende: one more on flag burning
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Boston.com     

The Boston Globe
CATHY YOUNG
Abusing the flag

By Cathy Young  |  June 27, 2005

JUST WHEN you thought the political circus in Washington couldn't get any more
grotesque, the politicos throw us a piece of pseudo-patriotic red meat: a
constitutional amendment to prohibit the burning of the American flag, which
was approved by the House last week and is now headed to the Senate.

The anti-flag-desecration amendment has been around for years -- ever since the
Supreme Court ruled, in 1989, that burning the flag was a form of
constitutionally protected free speech. Previous attempts have failed to garner
enough votes in the Senate. This time, with the Senate's more conservative
makeup, the amendment has a better chance. If passed by the Senate, it would
still have to be ratified by two-thirds of the states to become law.

Support for the amendment has always been a cheap ticket to political
grandstanding. This time, though, it has been made worse by shameless
exploitation of the memory of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks. ''Ask the men and women who stood on top of the Trade Center,"
Republican Representative Randy Cunningham of California declared during the
House debate. ''Ask them and they will tell you: Pass this amendment."

''Obscene" is not too strong a word for this. If the men and women who died in
the World Trade Center could talk to us, I suspect they might be a little more
concerned about whether their fellow citizens are any better protected from
terrorism today than four years ago.

If there is an epidemic of politically motivated flag-burning in this country,
it certainly isn't very visible. When I did a news database search, it yielded
a number of articles about demonstrations abroad in which the US flag was
burned, several stories about the lawful disposal of old flags by the American
Legion, and one report on cemetery vandalism. It's not exactly -- pardon the
pun -- a burning issue.

The amendment against flag desecration is not only pointless, it's also
pernicious. Yes, burning the flag is an offensive, outrageous, and stupid way
to express your criticism of the US government. But the First Amendment says
nothing about protecting only reasonable, polite, and intelligent speech. It
protects speech, period -- including nonviolent acts that are intended as
statements. As conservatives like to remind liberals when it comes to hate
speech directed at minorities, living in a free society means that sometimes
you have to put up with your sensibilities being profoundly offended.

In a 2001 article in The Los Angeles Times, UCLA Law School professor Eugene
Volokh draws an interesting analogy between the burning of the US flag and the
flying of the Confederate flag. The Confederate flag, Volokh points out, is
regarded by millions of Americans -- particularly African-Americans -- as an
offensive symbol of racism and oppression. It can also be seen as a symbol of
treason and rebellion against the US government. If we prohibit desecration of
the US flag, why shouldn't the same logic lead us to prohibit displays of the
Confederate flag? Asks Volokh, ''What would we say when flag-burning is banned
but other offensive symbols are allowed? We in the majority get to suppress
symbols we hate, but you in the minority don't?"

Of course, the First Amendment allows the display of other, even more offensive
symbols: the Nazi swastika, for instance, or the communist hammer and sickle.
If we make it illegal to desecrate or maliciously destroy actual US flags, what
about offensive displays of the image of the flag -- for instance, a poster
using visual symbols to equate the US flag with the swastika? Who decides,
ultimately, what offensive expression can and cannot be regulated?

In 1989, after the Supreme Court ruling prompted the first cries for a
constitutional amendment to ban flag-burning, The Washington Post published a
remarkable piece by James H. Warner, a former Marine who spent six years as a
prisoner of the North Vietnamese. He recalled an exchange with a communist
interrogator who showed him a photo of American antiwar protesters burning a
flag and told him that this proved his cause was wrong. Warner infuriated his
interrogated by countering, ''That proves that I am right. In my country we are
not afraid of freedom, even if it means that people disagree with us."

Some say that the flag is different from all other symbols because it stands
for our freedom. But how bitterly ironic it will be if, in protecting the
symbol, we gut the freedom itself.

Cathy Young is a contributing editor at Reason magazine. Her column appears
regularly in the Globe. 
+ Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
 

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