Opinions on Flag Desecration
Opinions on Flag Desecration
I am writing to you to express my views on the issue of the Flag Desecration Amendment. Let me begin by discharging from the outset that I am not writing to defend those who would desecrate the flag of the United States. In fact, my contempt for such action is equal to that of any member of the free speech movement. The flag is not simply the symbol of America; more deeply, it is the symbol of the ideals on which this nation rests. Those who would desecrate the flag are thus guilty of desecrating our principles, which is why I find their acts so offensive. Ironically, however, it is those very principles that protect such acts and restrain the society in the process. In a word, I am writing not to defend flag desecration but to defend the right to desecrate the flag. This position may strike some as paradoxical. It is not. In fact, there is a very distinct difference between defending the right to desecrate the flag and defending flag desecration itself. It is the difference between a free and an oppressive society. This amendment, as it tries to shield us from offensive behavior, gives rise to even greater offense. By offending our very principles, it undermines its essential purpose, making us all less free.
Let me address this issue a bit further by pointing out that this amendment would authorize Congress to prohibit political expression and that political expression is precisely what the Founding Fathers wanted to protect the most when they drafted the First Amendment. In a pair of cases decided in 1989 and 1990 (Texas v. Johnson and U.S. v. Eichman), the United States Supreme Court ruled that flag desecration was protected under the parameters of the First Amendment and that an amendment to prohibit it would be the first attempt in over 200 years to amend the First Amendment. However, it is not the First Amendment alone that protects the rights of political expression. Even before the Bill of Rights was ratified citizens were protected against overweening federal power by a simple yet profound method in the doctrine of enumerated powers. In a word, there was simply no power enumerated in the Constitution through which the federal government might abridge political expression. The Flag Desecration Amendment would expand federal power in a way the Founding Fathers...