The Government Wants You To Desecrate the Flagby
James Leroy Wilson
Unbelievable. Of course, when I say "unbelievable" that should not be taken literally. Anything politicians do and say is believable. Their willful ignorance and pettiness know no bounds. But still. According to USA Today last week:
You wouldn’t know that by Congress. On Wednesday, the House passed a constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration. USA Today's report says the Senate is within one or two votes. If it passes the Senate, it will require ratification of three-quarters of the states to become part of the Constitution. Presumably a cinch, because "[e]very state legislature has passed resolutions urging Congress to send them a constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration." All this for declining incidents – for just one incident this year? I confess, however, that in one sense I am kind of sympathetic. The cause of the controversy, 1989’s Texas v. Johnson Supreme Court decision that struck down a Texas law against flag desecration, was wrongly decided. This is true regardless of whether flag desecration constitutes "speech" or not. It is also true even though the law, creating a "crime" where there is no force or fraud, is wrong on moral grounds. The reason Texas v. Johnson is wrong is that the Supreme Court’s position that the 14th Amendment applies First Amendment guarantees against the states is fallacious. First, the 14th Amendment doesn’t say such a thing. Second, police powers to "keep order" are necessarily local powers. A word or action that might instigate a riot in one part of the country, may not have any effect in another. As a libertarian, I believe in the right to "desecrate" the American flag. But federalism and decentralization is a necessary libertarian tenet: what the Sovereign giveth, the Sovereign taketh away. To protect the individual, then, sovereignty must be as small and close to the people as possible. Broad Supreme Court rulings proclaiming non-existent "rights" violate that tenet. A flag desecration law in Texas, where I don’t live, shouldn’t be any more my business or problem than a similar law in Nova Scotia, Nigeria or Mars. And the record indicates that Supreme Court decisions such as Johnson are not really about expanding individual liberty, but rather about eviscerating states’ rights and local government. Gonzales v. Raich, the recent decision to overrule state laws permitting medical use of marijuana, is an example of the Supreme Court attacking state’s rights even when the state attempts to defend individual liberty from the federal government. The Court strikes down state flag desecration laws, while it upholds in McConnell v. the FEC the power of Congress to prohibit "issue advocacy" ads within 60 days of an election – precisely the kind of power the First Amendment was written to prevent. And the Supreme Court’s assault on federalism has provoked heated and endless backlash. Instead of removing controversial issues from the political process, they have been politicized all the more. That’s why, after all these years, we are still bickering over abortion and public prayers. So I am sympathetic to the Amendment in the sense that I loathe the Supreme Court. Once we have one amendment overturning a Court decision, momentum could build for further reform. Perhaps Congress will propose more blanket amendments better safeguarding the right of states to make their own laws. Perhaps it will begin to exercise its authority in Article 3 section 2 of the Constitution and protect state laws from federal interference. That said, this is unbelievable. I would have no problem at all with an amendment that restores federalism, or an amendment that imposes more limits on the federal government and protects individual liberty. But this Amendment does none of that. The proposed Amendment states:
This doesn’t even overturn Johnson. Rather, it overturns United States v. Eichman, a correctly decided 1990 Supreme Court decision. After Johnson, Congressional nincompoops thought that they could resolve the controversy by imposing a national law against flag desecration. Now this really did violate the intention of the First Amendment, and the Supreme Court predictably thought so. In any case, the law violated the Ninth and Tenth Amendment because Congress assumed a power not given it in the Constitution. The Amendment gives us the worst of all worlds: it fails to protect state sovereignty, it diminishes individual liberty, and it grants more power to the federal government. All to "solve" a non-problem. In an age of imperial war, police-state crackdowns, imported and illegal labor, exported jobs, and universities controlled by far-left radicals, you would think that anti-government demonstrations and acts of flag desecration would be on the rise. But no. Flag desecration is legal and tolerated, yet we almost never see it. Which makes me think that the proposed amendment has sinister implications. A decade ago, in a relatively more peaceful and prosperous time, a Flag Desecration Amendment could be seen as a petty cause from the Stupid Wing of the conservative movement. Even if the Amendment got passed and was ratified by Congress, it would seemingly have little effect on most people’s tranquil lives. But today, as the intellectual and moral basis for the government’s policies crumble and things are getting worse, force is its one remaining weapon to maintain the people’s "support." Conformity and compliance that can not be achieved through persuasion will be imposed through force. Opponents of war and tyranny will question the legitimacy of the federal government itself, if they haven’t done so already. The feds know this, and are seeking new ways to marginalize and silence their opposition. Flag amendment supporters do not want to get rid of flag desecration. If they want a society with no flag desecrations, they are already as close to that ideal as could be imagined. Instead, they want to increase incidents of flag desecration. They want to increase violence and turmoil. They want to do what it takes to provoke previously peaceful, non-violent radicals. This flag amendment’s purpose is to alienate opponents of the federal government and its policies. Up until now, radicals have rarely resorted to flag desecration, largely out of patriotic respect for a country that was at least free enough to allow it. Flag desecration would have hurt their own cause – protesters would have been seen by the people as failing to appreciate living in a free country. The Flag Desecration Amendment, however, would remove such self-restraint. Flag desecration would, in the eye of radicals and other protesters, be an act of civil disobedience to signify that the flag of the United States government no longer stands for freedom. Whether one agrees with flag desecration as a tactic, in substance they would be right. Flag amendment supporters – particularly the ones in Congress – are well aware of this. "Desecrating" the flag does not mean "down with America and Americans" but rather, "down with the government and its politicians." And the government will not tolerate that. Government wants to sow discord among the people. It wants to turn moderate dissenters into radicals, and radicals into anti-government revolutionaries. So that at the first sign of conflict, the government could crack down on "dangerous extremists" and pass laws to increase its power still further. The Flag Desecration Amendment is not about patriotism, or respecting freedom, or honoring those who gave their lives fighting under the flag of the United States. It is about identifying and arresting critics of the government. I can’t imagine a true patriot supporting it. June 23, 2005 James Leroy Wilson [send him mail] is a columnist for the Partial Observer and blogs at "Independent Country." He currently resides in eastern Washington State. Copyright © 2005 LewRockwell.com |