The Flag Amendment- Why it is Wrong
By Harry Trueman Posted in User Blogs — Comments (5) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Once again the Constitutional amendment for protecting the American flag , a red, white and blue collage of material which has represented our country and been carried into battle and worn on many a lapel has arose for a vote.
I have studied the flag. I know the famous picture taken by Rosenthal on Iwo Jima of Marines raising the flag was the second raising. The first flag on Mount Sirabachi was too small to be seen by all the Marines and Sailors on the island so a second, larger flag was brought from a support ship to be raised. The first flag resides in the Marine museum. Fitting. No matter how small, it was the first- the most precious.
Almost the same time of the invasion of Iwo Jima, about a thousand miles to the south, a young man was jumping out of an airplane onto a small island in the Philippines. It was February 16th, 1945. The island was Corregidor, the young man was my father. One of the stories Dad told me of the war was of taking another small island. For lack of an American flag, his outfit raised a Coca-Cola bottle onto a pole. The Americans were there bringing Freedom. Whether it be cloth or an odd shaped glass bottle- Freedom was there.
When a man or woman swears in to join the military, they swear to defend the Constitution. There is but one set of words like this- only one piece of parchment. They swear to defend it with their lives. I have also. Flags, on the other hand, are quite profuse. They are made in America and China. Worn on caps, shirts, and even melded into cheap magnetic ribbons. There is one Constitution.
If one of my fellow Americans feels strongly enough about an issue to feel the need to burn the flag, let it be so. The 1st amendment of the Constitution says he can. He is protected by the freedom of speech. But if a fellow American feels the need to infringe on the Constitutional rights of another American, I will bristle. I will speak out. I will fight. I will lay down my life.
Now, I quibble with a few of your points: if the amendment passes, then flag burning is de jure no longer a 1st Amendment right, and I don't think that burning a flag means you have "strong feelings", just disdain for the flag as a meaningful symbol. But I don't see why the government should take the trouble to ban it. Those who would burn the flag won't loathe this country any less because they cannot; nor will that which the flag represents be any less strong because they do. I really don't know why even self-described conservatives (like myself) would support it: if anything, it's a ridiculous trivialization of the Constitution and general waste of time.
. . .have been pushing for a constitutional amendment to allow Congress to ban flag desecration for years and they carry quite a bit of weight in some political circles, usually the conservative ones.
I agree with everything you've written. Perhaps the proper response to Congress wasting our time on this nonsense ought to be the removal of a few of the prominent offenders in "safe" seats that we can replace with conservatives who have a better sense of where their priorities ought to be.
Seriously I'm about this far (holds fingers about an inch apart) from signing onto the "dump Tom Delay" movement for pushing this kind of garbage when we've got out-of-control Medicare and Medicaid costs and virtually no progress on Social Security reform.
Less pandering, more substantive results.
Why are conservatives suddenly surprised?
this behavior is known as "populism", or "responding to their constituency". I was puzzled because I didn't see an obvious group pushing for this; I was vaguely aware that this had come up in the '80s, but I haven't seen this as being on anyone's agenda. Now at least I understand who's doing it, and while I still strongly disagree, I guess being spat on by flag-burners on the way back from Southeast Asia might make an impression.
And there've been few diaries on DailyKos and one form of questioning was raised. If burning a flag is made illegal, and is described as desecration, what do we do with all those people who fly ripped and tattered flags off their cars and houses? What about people who wear them on shirts and let them get stained and get holes in them?
Or is it just traditional flags? Is there a distinction made between an American made American flag or a foreign made American flag?