'On Flag Day'

The Ames (Iowa) Daily Tribune

06.17.98

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Sunday was Flag Day.

You might consider burning a flag to celebrate.

That's absurd, of course.

Sort of.

It's absurd because it's absurd to burn the flag, the symbol of this nation since Betsy Ross sewed the first stars and stripes in 1776. The flag has been planted at Iwo Jima by the Marines, at the North Pole by Admiral Peary, and on the moon by Neil Armstrong as the signature of this country and all the freedoms it stands for. It flies over the White House and over used-car lots, over the Capitol and over fast-food joints, over the Tomb of the Unknowns and over junkyards.

It's painted on the noses of our airplanes, tattooed on the arms of our bikers, sewn on the crotches of our underwear.

Patriots salute it, soap-box orators clutch it, artists deface it.

And, sometimes, people burn it.

And that might be the greatest symbol of all, the ultimate proof of our freedom. For if we are free to burn the emblem of freedom, then we are truly free. "We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration," the Supreme Court said in 1989 when it upheld a citizen's right to burn the flag, "for in doing so we dilute the freedom that this cherished emblem represents."

Yet that undiluted freedom is now in peril.

A year ago, the House of Representatives passed by a vote of 310 to 114 an amendment to the Constitution that would give Congress the power to prohibit the desecration of the flag. Democratic Rep. Leonard Boswell wrongly voted in favor of that resolution, just as his predecessor, Republican Jim Ross Lightfoot, did in an earlier effort in 1995. The Senate defeated that earlier effort, but now the amendment is before the Senate again, and this time the vote is seen as being so close that no one wants to predict whether it will get the 67 votes it needs to pass. As you'd expect, Republican Sen. Charles Grassley is one of the co-sponsors of the amendment; as you'd expect, Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin opposes it -- as do we.

If it passes, it then goes to the states, where it must be ratified by 38 legislatures before it can become the 28th Amendment to the Constitution. That would seem like a formidable obstacle, yet egged on by the American Legion 49 of the 50 states -- all but Vermont -- have already passed resolutions indicating they favor the amendment.

So the Senate vote, which probably will be this month or next, is vital.

It is vital to our right to speak out.

It is vital to our right to protest.

It is vital to our very freedom.

There's no question that it's dumb to burn the flag, and few people ever do it. Since that Supreme Court decision upholding the right to burn it as symbolic political speech, only 30 to 40 people have actually done it -- and, ironically, they've done it mainly in protest of the attempts to bar the burning. But for whatever reason, it's an outrageous and outlandish and outright stupid thing to do. Yet that is why the right to do it must be protected. For it is the outrageous and outlandish and outright stupid things that people do and say that we must fight for. It is for these things and these people that the First Amendment exists. Gentle people saying sweet things need no First Amendment. Kind folks writing soothing words need no First Amendment. Orderly folks marching in tidy protests need no First Amendment.

No, the First Amendment is for the shouters on street corners, the pamphleteers on campuses -- the flag burners at rallies.

So, as you hoist your flag, think about the freedoms it stands for as it goes up that pole.

But think, too, about the even greater freedoms it stands for when it goes up in flames.