Today people are bickering online (because what is there to modern life other than bickering online?) about President Trump’s intention to try to make burning the American flag illegal. Leaving aside the practical reality that implementing this policy would almost certainly require a Constitutional amendment, here’s my opinion, for what it’s worth (which is, effectively, nothing): I’d be fine with it.
I’ll reject up front such arguments as “the flag is only a piece of cloth”, or “this is stupid, because symbols are only for the symbol-minded”. (That latter remark sparked off an argument on Twitter, years ago now, with my erstwhile friend Kevin Kim, that ended up wrecking what I’d always thought was a sturdy friendship.) To make such an argument reveals an intellectually crippling naiveté about the profound importance of symbols to normal human beings. (For example, if I draw a six-foot rectangle on the ground and tell someone “this is your mother’s grave”, and then proceed to urinate on it, I had better be prepared to defend my life.)
The reasonable voices that I see arguing such a law generally seem to say that, although burning (or otherwise defiling) the flag is of course something of which all decent Americans should disapprove, we must nevertheless hold fast to the bedrock principle of absolute freedom of expression, as distasteful as such tolerance may sometimes be.
I don’t find this compelling. (I used to, but as I’ve gotten older and had more time to look at the world and think about things, my ordering of values has shuffled a bit.) Given the unique symbolic status of a nation’s flag, and the inflammatory power of defacing sacred symbols, I could now easily sympathize with a nation choosing to make burning or publicly defiling its national symbol a crime.
But what about free speech? Meh. Given my stipulation that the restriction would apply only to defiling the unique, and uniquely sacred, national symbol, and to no other “speech”, I’ll say that, enacted as a specific Constitutional amendment – an enormously difficult thing to get done – it would not place a disabling burden on the freedom to express even the harshest disapproval in a nearly infinite assortment of other ways — and so I wouldn’t have a problem with it.
Is even this too slippery a slope? We have indeed seen a steady erosion of the national charter by Constitutional amendment over the centuries; we could certainly, for example, have a lively discussion about the effects, the details, and the wisdom, of the 14th, the 16th, the 17th, the 18th, and the 19th. Compared to all of these, I think, the possible effects of a flag-protecting amendment would pale in comparison.
So: if you have a case to make against this idea, feel free to make it below; perhaps you can change my mind. For now, though, I’d have no objection to it.
5 Comments
“The American Legion passed a resolution about flag retirement ceremonies in 1937, and they’ve been an important ritual ever since. According to the resolution, “The approved method of disposing of unserviceable flags has long been that they be destroyed by burning.”
https://www.defense.gov/News/Feature-Stories/Story/Article/2206946/how-to-properly-dispose-of-worn-out-us-flags/
Define “unserviceable”?
I’m pretty close to being a free speech absolutist, but there is a lot of slippage between the Constitutional freedom of the press and “freedom of expression.” The Constitutional freedom its the freedom of a minority to attempt persuasion, and by this means, if all goes well, to become a majority. To howl with rage is certainly expressive, but it is in no sense persuasive.
There were at one time blasphemy laws in the United States, and these were grounded in the argument that an “expression” that profoundly shocks the majority might lead to a riot or breach of the peace. Infidels were perfectly free to publish persuasive newspapers and books, to tour the country on persuasive lecture tours: but if they stood on a street corner shouting “Jesus was a bastard,” the cops could shut it down.
Of course, in those days “democracy” meant the sensibilities of the majority were protected against insults. Now it is the other way around.
The “symbols are only for the symbol-minded” argument is, of course, profoundly retarded. That is when it is not offered in bad faith. Here’s what I would today say to the shallow wisdom of my primary school teachers.
Sticks and stones can break my bones,
But broken bones will heal;
The harm of smeers and jeers, alas,
Endures because it’s real.
houska,
Thanks for pointing that out. Yes, any amendment would have to make an exception for respectful disposal of worn-out flags.
JM,
Agreed. I was surprised and puzzled when my friend (and fellow blogger) Kevin, who certainly knew better, said this. Ah well…
I enjoyed your little poem.
As for democracy, feh. It’s turned out just as the Founders feared, and warned.
This would would be more persuasive if I could believe that it would be presently permissable for me to burn a Pride flag or a Koran.