Question: I
believe there should be a Constitutional Amendment against flag burning in
protest. What is your view of that?
Answer: You
refer to modern history, which has spawned a class of people who seek to
provoke the public not by passive disregard of the flag, but by outright public
desecration of the flag, as a display of contempt for our nation. Examples, including flag burning, are as
diverse as the human imagination and not worthy of civil elaboration: they are
objectively incendiary. They anger those
who revere our country and who are humbled by the freedoms they cherish. They outrage those like the authors who have
a father/grandfather who was wounded in battle.
They inflame and callously trivialize those whose loved ones never came
home, the honor and memory of who seem cheapened by this outrageous gesture.
Nevertheless, in 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated
prohibitions against flag desecration based on the First Amendment, which
provides: “Congress shall make no
law…abridging the freedom of speech.” It
held that the act of flag burning is a form of expression akin to speech, and
its effectiveness in provoking the sentiment of the public was precisely the
reason it could not be Constitutionally prohibited. Justice Brennan observed that: “[w]e do not
consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for in doing so we dilute the
freedom that this cherished emblem represents.”
Should there be a Constitutional Amendment prohibiting flag
burning? Perhaps, but that is a
political issue for another day. Come
what may, we merely observe that one cannot enact reverence, nor can one
legislate wisdom: stupidity is
innate. If one desecrates the symbol of
that from which their right to do so is derived, it’s clear this is one who
either has not given, or is incapable of giving that gesture much thought. Still, it was Voltaire in his Essay on
Tolerance that said: "Think for
yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too.”
We do not like this result…not at all. However, when we encounter these village
idiots, we pause only to thank God (for surely they have not) that we live in a
country where they are not shot where they stand for their conduct. We then shake our heads, smile, say “God
Bless America ”
to ourselves, and move along.