A Blaze of Old Glory

Well, the Congress is at it again. We're in the middle of a war in Iraq that isn't going quite as well as predicted, and there's no end in sight. We've still got troops dying in Afghanistan. North Korea is manufacturing nuclear weapons in shoe boxes. Iran probably is, too. With the industrialization of China and India, we're facing serious energy problems. Guantanamo Bay continues to do whatever it's doing, without meaningful supervision from Congress. Our ports remain easy targets for terrorists and other ne'er-do-wells. Pension plans are making giant sucking sounds. And the country's health costs are still skyrocketing, leaving many Americans behind.

So, naturally, the Congress has been talking about flag burning.

Can anyone say "political grandstanding?" How about "pandering to your base?" Is flag burning really a major problem? Are they being burned so fast the Chinese laborers Wal-Mart pays to manufacture them are unable to make them fast enough to keep them on the shelves? Come on. There are always more Chinese available to work for a dollar an hour. Admittedly, I do see flags burned now and again on the news. But that's in other countries. Are the Republicans in Congress aware that their legislation won't affect what goes on in those countries? (Or do they know something about the president's plans that we don't know? Mergatroids!)

The last time this came up in a serious way (if the current action on the issue can be called "serious") was about ten or twelve years ago. I feel the same way about it now as I did then. For one, it's a silly thing for Congress to be spending its time on. For another, it brings up the whole 'can there be such a thing as an unconstitutional constitutional amendment?' question, since the Supreme Court has long since ruled that flag burning is protected as political speech. For another, if this actually becomes law, I'm going to burn a flag.

My main beef with these periodic attempts at stamping out flag burning is that they always insist on calling it "flag desecration." Desecration? How can you desecrate something that never was sacred to begin with? And when did it become the federal government's job to decide what is sacred? If they can decide that, then they can with equal justification decide what is not sacred. And if they can legislate the sacredness of flags, they can legislate the sacredness of other things. A flag is a piece of cloth. If Congress can tell us it's sacred, maybe they can also finally settle the sacredness of the Shroud of Turin (won't that be a relief?) or a Jewish prayer shawl. A flag is a symbol. If they can decide it's sacred, maybe they can also decide whether or not the cross is sacred. (And which version? Is the cross of the western churches sacred, but the cross of the eastern Orthodox churches not?) Maybe we can create a whole new administrative department to go around and decide whether this or that appearance of the Virgin Mary in a bowl of pudding is really sacred or just pudding.

The fact is, the 1st amendment makes sacredness absolutely none of the state's business. Sacredness is a concept that belongs wholly to the realm of religion. Adherents of the various belief systems decide whether they find a thing sacred or not. Congress may not tell people a thing is sacred.

Some would say the flag is sacred -- in a purely secular sense, whatever the heck that means -- because of the blood that's been sacrificed on the battlefield for it. I remain unconvinced that anybody ever died for the flag. We speak that way sometimes, but it's just a shorthand. The flag is a symbol. People don't die for symbols themselves; they die for what the symbols stand for. People die on the battlefield not for a piece of fabric, but for what it represents to them -- comrades, home, family, their way of life.

The Amish took beatings and went to jail during WWII for refusing to pledge allegiance to the flag. To me, that's sacred.

And While I'm At It...

Also unacceptable to me on both religious and constitutional grounds are things like:

• "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance


• "In God We Trust" on our money


• "so help me God" in oaths of office (unless a voluntary expression of that person's religious beliefs, and even then I don't know why it needs to be vocalized rather than thought)


• tax deductions for contributions to churches


• declarations of national days of prayer


• the existence of Senate and House chaplains

All of them are attempts by the state to borrow, for their own profane purposes, the authority or credibility of the sacred.