SPIRIT OF ’06: The timing of the flag-desecration amendment reflects deep insecurity about what this nation stands for. |
The United States is on the verge of joining China, Cuba, and Iran as the only nations in the world where “desecrating” the flag is a national crime. Sometime in the next several days, the Senate is expected to vote on a constitutional amendment, already approved by the House, that would put this nation — the world’s oldest constitutional republic — in the same league as Communists and Islamist theocrats. It’s a staggering development. A year ago, a joke like this would be too bizarre for even The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart. But television comedians apparently don’t have a sense of the absurd as finely developed as that of the US Congress.At the moment, the Senate is one vote away from adopting the measure. Senate majority leader Bill Frist, the right-wing Republican from Tennessee who is flogging the amendment, says it is every bit as important to our national well-being as outlawing same-sex marriage. That dubious proposal went down in flames just a few weeks ago. The prospects for the desecration amendment are too close to call. Both measures, however, share a disturbing common denominator: they are a base and sleazy move by fundamentalists of both parties to pander to the know-nothing elements of the electorate. In the name of protecting the physical symbol of the stars and stripes, proponents violate the expansive — and occasionally uncomfortable — principles that animate its spirit. The object is to corner the market in uninformed and misdirected patriotism just months ahead of what is shaping up to be the most closely contested midterm elections in recent memory. The exercise offers pathetic testimony to the wisdom of Samuel Johnson’s observation, “patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels.”
The sad news is that among the scoundrels this time, there are a number of usually sensible and often admirable elected officials, such as Democratic senators Dianne Feinstein of California and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, and Republican senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, both of Maine. The Democratic senators from Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, and Rhode Island all oppose the amendment, as does Republican Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island. Also in opposition is Democratic senator Hilary Clinton of New York, the co-sponsor of another less sweeping but equally wrong-headed piece of legislation that may stop short of the drastic step of amending the constitution but would outlaw flag desecration nonetheless — in vague-yet-still-disturbing ways. All that can be said in favor of her measure is that it at least provides an element of political cover for those without the guts to stand by freedom of expression, even when it takes on deeply troubling forms. If that’s consolation, it is sad indeed. It also reflects the kind of wishy-washy vision she brings to her presidential campaign.
The politics of this fall’s midterm election aside, why now? There has been no rash of flag burnings in response to George W. Bush’s criminal Iraq war, like the ones that rent the national psyche during the Vietnam-era protests. By some accounts, it has been more than 30 years since a flag has been burned in a significant act of political defiance. The only rational explanation that comes to mind is that it is a manifestation of a deep sense of collective insecurity about what this nation stands for. It is another battle in the interminable culture wars that plague the nation. America may pay lip service to the concept of freedom, but it seems to yearn for conformity with a fervor that is religious in its intensity. The very idea of desecration is bound up in a sense of the religious. Desecration is visited upon religious shrines, not civic symbols. Our national lack of resolve about how to keep church and state not only separate but also distinct only adds to the confusion.
Clarity on this issue is nevertheless possible. To achieve it one must embrace the idea that the flag we honor — that we salute in schools and ballparks, and that our armed forces fight under — is the symbol of all that we honor in the name of freedom. Freedom is a sophisticated concept, not easily hammered into one-size-fits-all. Freedom’s strength lies in its elasticity, its ability to accommodate ideas that at a glance may appear to be — or in fact are — in conflict with one another other. It is as robust as it is gentle. Freedom is more than the veneer of our democracy; it is our bedrock.
This move by our elected representatives to constitutionally outlaw flag desecration, if successful, would be the first time in our history that the Bill of Rights has been altered to restrict liberty. For that is what this amendment would do: limit free speech by narrowing the parameters of political protest. It is a form of vicious prior restraint. And if the amendment actually passes, and its intent is applied, the debate over what is desecration and what is not would prove to be as distasteful and divisive as the speech it seeks to ban.
Politics is not about taste; it is about legitimacy, about the primacy of ideas — good, bad, and indifferent. There is nothing neutral about the idea embodied in this proposed constitutional amendment. Its life force corrupts our ideals. In religious terms, it corrupts our political soul.
