Published: July 12, 2006 10:31 am            

Blatant disregard for 1st Amendment, Flag Code

I had the good fortune to be in our nation’s capital over the July 4 weekend, and what better place to celebrate the 230th anniversary of America’s birth while simultaneously choking on my own tongue given the current mindset of a majority of elected officials on Capitol Hill.

I was in Washington, D.C., with another adult and 14 teenage students from the youth group at Second Reformed Church in Fulton, Ill., attending the DCLA summit (I’ll give you one guess where the companion event takes place). The fact I survived the journey is remarkable, given three factors.

1. One of the women who’d volunteered to drive us to O’Hare at 3 a.m. June 30 locked two sets of keys in her new car before we left Fulton. The car was so new that Onstar, while available, had not yet been activated.

2. According to my pedometer, I walked about 40 miles over the six-day journey, including two 10-mile days, totally obliterating my previous record of just less than 16 miles.

3. Six boys thought it’d be a good idea to duct tape me into my bed on the last night. Fortunately for me, they snuck in at the same decibel as a pack of feral wiener dogs so I was wide awake to laugh at them when they ran out of tape.

But this is not a tale about why an otherwise reasonable person such as myself would immerse himself in the high school subculture for a week-long road trip, it’s about how poorly our senators and representatives seem to understand the Bill of Rights and how quick they are to turn a blind eye to that which is not politically profitable.

If you don’t know by now, 52 Republican and 14 Democratic senators voted in favor of a constitutional amendment that would have given Congress “the power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.” That’s one less vote than the two-thirds majority required for passage. The House passed the amendment, just as it did in 2005, which spurned a column on the same topic.

If this bill ever clears the Senate and heads to the states for Constitutional ratification, I may have to completely flip out. The push here is all about eliminating flag burning, which flies in the face of the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech.”

Burning an American flag, however despicable, is (for now) a legal exercise of one’s freedom of speech. Any government that wants to limit that freedom is not a government I want to be a part of, nevermind my absolute lack of desire to burn a flag myself. Discussions like this, which always seem generated by House Republicans, are primary evidence of a government out of touch with its people.

Our founders, looking upon a flag burner, might ask first “How has this country so wronged this citizens to cause them to act in such a manner?” The current powers that be see a strong form of political protest and choose instead to try to silence the protester.

And yet, the flag is desecrated time and again on a daily basis in this country, and especially so on July 4 (and then especially so in Washington, D.C.). As I said in the column published June 29, 2005:

“If you don’t know what I’m talking about, open your eyes this weekend. You’ll see American flag T-shirts, paper plates, napkins, bikini tops, bandannas and a number of other insults. Attend a July 4 parade and count the people who do not stand and remove their hats when the color guard passes by.

“Take a walk around your neighborhood. Not just Clinton, but anywhere. Make a mental note of how many front porch flags are in tatters or faded past the point of recognition.

“The flag should never be worn as apparel, according to the Federal Flag Code, even by American athletes who just won an Olympic gold medal — even in the case of the 1992 basketball Dream Team, which primarily wore the flag to cover up the Reebok logos on their windsuits so as not to offend Nike.

“What would impress me is a politician who refused to give a speech or enter a parade because the flag was not displayed properly in accordance with code. Or a homeowner who knocked on their neighbor’s door to point out the poor condition of their flag.

“In my mind, every flag should be treated with enough respect that it remains in proper condition to be used for a soldier’s funeral. But while our politicians are going on and on about flag burning, they turn a collective blind eye to the everyday desecration that happens in every part of the country.”

One year later and not a lot has changed. People still are putting American flag T-shirts on their dogs, and politicians still are blowing smoke about one specific type of desecration while letting everything else slide. Playing patriotism for political gain continues to be despicable, but it also appears to pay off at the polls.

Perhaps I’m not the average American in this context, but I am irate that the debate is allowed to continue year after year. Why can’t we just let freedom ring instead of trying to rein it in?

Scott T. Holland’s column appears every Wednesday in the Clinton Herald. His e-mail address is scottholland@clintonherald.com.

        

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