Joy of joys, the members of the state Legislature have taken time out of their busy schedules of plotting abortion bans to consider a bill to ban flag burning. Never mind the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of this act, much like the proposed abortion ban, legislators are proposing items that will take effect the minute either Congress or the Supreme Court changes its mind.
Now, I wrote almost a year ago about Congress’ attempts to pass a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning – which will then need to be ratified by three quarters (38 out of 50) of state legislators. It failed then, as it has for the past decade. In fact, in a poll the First Amendment Foundation conducted last year, support for this amendment is at its lowest ebb with 63 percent of respondents opposed.
I can sympathize, as far as my extremely limited amount of sympathy allows, with those who would like to ban flag burning. These folks see the act as an assault on their values and what they hold dear. The flag, for them, is a very real and very potent symbol of America. Either that or they’re opportunists hopping on the bandwagon and hoping to get votes by banning symbolic speech. I assume that crowd would amount to most of those who are in Washington.
No, I oppose any restrictions on burning the American flag, the Canadian flag or the Confederate flag. Quite frankly, free speech doesn’t bother me in the least, and I often have trouble seeing why individuals seek to stop others from speaking their minds, even through their actions. William Rehnquist, late chief justice of the Supreme Court, was one of four justices who dissented from the original decision that legalized flag burning. His reasons for allowing individuals to be prosecuted for flag burning are as eloquent as they are wrong. Just because he wrote, “millions and millions of Americans regard [the flag] with an almost mystical reverence regardless of what sort of social, political or philosophical beliefs they may have,” doesn’t change my mind. After all, why should one man be bound to respect any other’s point of view if he so happens to disagree with it?
Even if this bill is passed, and I have no way of knowing if it will ever get out of the committee, I think the trend ahead in American society is worrying.
Even under a Republican administration, where the party of “small government” controls every branch of government – including a majority on the Supreme Court, government power over the individual grows. I fear that banning flag burning, which is an extreme example of free speech, will be the start of a roll back in the gains that we have had in free speech for the past 40 years. Burning the flag is free speech just the same as the right of someone to speak out against the government verbally or by using other symbols. Simply because people allegedly die for the flag (which I don’t believe for a moment) doesn’t make it any more sacred a symbol as far as our laws ought to go than the cross. People died for that too.
Given that this state’s already existing flag-burning law is on the books – albeit unenforceable – this bill seems little more than momentary posturing.
However, any attempts to further regulate the activities of Americans, so long as they are not harming anyone else, ought to be opposed by all right-thinking, decent citizens. Even if we hate the speaker or his speech, he has, unless he is advocating immediate violence, a right to say it.
As Justice William Brennan wrote in his decision on the first flag-burning case, Texas v. Johnson, “We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for in doing so we dilute the freedom that this cherished emblem represents.”
Well said, old man.
 
Ryan is a history senior. Contact him
at [email protected]