ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, December 12, 1995 TAG: 9512120022
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MITCH MCCONNELL
THE AMERICAN flag is our most treasured national symbol. The Stars and Stripes have been our banner for more than 200 years, representing the ideas, values and traditions that unify us as a people and a nation. Brave men and women have fought valiantly and given their lives to preserve and protect the freedom and the way of life the flag represents.
While the flag proudly symbolizes everything our nation stands for, the First Amendment, setting forth the freedoms of speech, press, religion, assembly and the right to petition the government, is arguably our most precious national right. Since the addition of the Bill of Rights in 1789, the Constitution has been amended on only 17 occasions, demonstrating the unique success and stability of our constitutional system. It is significant that only one of those amendments - Prohibition - proposed a constriction of freedom, and it was soon repealed.
Now, most of my Republican colleagues, along with veterans' groups and other Americans, advocate changing the First Amendment to prohibit flag desecration. They are motivated by the highest principles.
Much to my disappointment, the Supreme Court has found that laws protecting the flag run afoul of the First Amendment. It is hard to believe that burning a flag can be considered ``speech.'' But a majority of the court has found this despicable behavior to be ``political expression,'' protected by the First Amendment. So, advocates of a new constitutional amendment banning flag-burning argue that it's the only way we can protect the flag and punish flag-burners.
Those who burn the flag deserve our contempt, but they should not provoke us to tamper with the First Amendment. After all, among the values the American flag symbolizes is free speech, even those ideas with which we disagree. While we revere the flag for the values and history it represents, we cannot worship the flag as an end unto itself. And we cannot coerce people to respect the flag in the manner in which we know it deserves to be respected. To do so would be tantamount to imposing a ``speech code'' and our own conservative brand of political correctness. We freely criticize liberals for their litmus tests; let us be wary of adopting our own.
And while the act of flag-burning is deeply offensive, it is hard to draw the line when enforcing standards of patriotic correctness. Consider the desecration of our national anthem; such an act shows no less disrespect for our country. Who can forget the offensive and vulgar rendition of ``The Star Spangled Banner'' by Roseanne Barr at a baseball game in 1990? Our national anthem represents the same values and traditions signified by our flag. How can we single out the flag for special protection but not our country's song?
The American people sent us to Washington to get government out of their lives, by shrinking the size and scope of the federal bureaucracy. Our priorities should be to balance the budget, reform welfare and save Medicare - not expend precious legislative time giving flag-burners more attention than they deserve. As conservatives, we should be skeptical of tinkering with the Bill of Rights and restricting freedom even in the cause of patriotism.
Charles Krauthammer recently said about the flag-burning amendment, ``If this is conservatism, then liberalism deserves a comeback.'' He's not the only conservative who has cautioned against the flag-burning amendment. George Will calls it a ``piddling-fiddling amendment.'' Cal Thomas writes that the constitutional amendment is ``silly, stupid and unnecessary.'' But the most persuasive entreaty comes from Jim Warner, an American patriot who fought in Vietnam and survived more than five years of torture and brutality as a prisoner of war: ``We don't need to amend the Constitution in order to punish those who burn our flag. They burn the flag because they hate America and they are afraid of freedom. What better way to hurt them than with the subversive idea of freedom? Spread freedom.When a flag in Dallas was burned to protest the nomination of Ronald Reagan ... he told us how to spread the idea of freedom when he said that we should turn America into a 'city shining on hill, a light to all nations.' Don't be afraid of freedom, it is the best weapon we have.''
``Spread freedom.'' If anything is a conservative creed, that is it. In America's 200-year experiment with freedom, we have seen freedom triumph over foreign tyranny, slavery, fascism, totalitarianism and, ultimately, communism. Faced with only a ragtag band of unwashed malcontents who have nothing better to do than burn our flag, will we flinch from freedom now?
Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., chairs the Senate Ethics Committee.
- The Washington Post
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