Search

ARCHIVES
CONTACT US
WORLD NEWS

Beating a dead horse

Once in a while, the United States Senate does something that makes sense.

For the second time in five years, the Senate is expected to reject a Constitutional amendment to ban flag burning. The amendment not only undermines freedom of speech but is also impossible to enforce.

Though groups supporting the amendment have been lobbying senators, the Senate vote will probably come up about three votes short of passing. The House of Representatives passed the bill last year and has been pushing the Senate to do the same ever since.

Also known as the flag desecration amendment, the bill ought to be renamed "severely beaten dead horse." It has been proposed for as many years as Strom Thurmond has been alive and is just as crotchety. Senators supporting it do not realize that the idea will never pass, and they also have no concept of the importance of freedom of speech.

Utah's number one Republican, Orrin Hatch, is one such Senator.

"This debate is about whether Congress can do something great and extraordinary to restore the power to Congress to protect the flag," Hatch told a group of veterans supporting the amendment.

Hatch seems to think "great and extraordinary" powers of Congress include throwing out free speech rights that the Supreme Court has already upheld.

In 1989 and 1990, the Court struck down two federal laws that infringed on free speech. These decisions should have finalized the issue.

But supporters of the flag desecration amendment are relentless. They believe that protecting the flag is of greater value than protecting the right to burn it. They propose the amendment that keeps failing, but keep taking it for another go 'round. They keep believing that this time, the Senate will pass the amendment, state legislatures will follow along, and their dream of throwing away free speech will come true.

Clearly, these "supporters" of the flag desecration amendment - veterans, the American legion, other conservative groups - are driven, admirably, by their love for American and an undying ideology.

But they're missing the big picture. They are obsessed with protecting a piece of cloth that represents, most importantly, the right to burn it.

And beyond limiting free speech, such an amendment is impossible to effectively enforce. First, what is a flag? Children paint the stars and stripes on their faces at fairs. If they wash it off, are they desecrating a flag? People wear shirts designed like the flag. If they toss it out after it gets old, will the feds put them in handcuffs for destroying an American symbol?

When the US women's soccer team won the championship and waved around a flag on which they had written, "Thanks, girls," would they have been arrested?

Of course, supporters of the amendment probably do not envision such harmless acts of desecration. They envision crazed and angry anti-Americans dragging flags through the streets and large crowds of anarchists burning the flag mercilessly.

As disturbing as these images are, they too are protected by the first amendment. They have to be. Passing the flag desecration amendment to try to eliminate disturbing acts of flag desecration would create a slippery slope that would lead to unreasonable limitations on free speech.

Luckily, most senators agree that endorsing such an amendment is futile. They realize that the flag desecration amendment would do nothing but fight binding Supreme Court decisions and get free speech groups riled up. More importantly, it would fuel a movement to limit free speech.

Senator Paul Wellstone, D-Minn, summed it up best: "We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for by doing so, we dilute the freedom that the cherished emblem represents."

Putting so much emphasis on the well-being of a symbol like the flag overshadows the substance behind it. America isn't great because it has a flag. It is great because its citizens can burn it.