The American Standard Bearer

Here’s a great essay I found on the Citizen’s Flag Alliance website. It was written by Stephen Presser, a professor at Northwestern University. I think he really nails the Flag Amendment controversy.

Why the Flag Amendment is a Really Great Idea

If you believe the recent published editorials and press accounts, the recent passage of the proposed Flag Protection Amendment by the required two-thirds majority in the United States House of Representatives is a silly orgy of emotion by unscrupulous politicians, a dagger struck at the heart of the First Amendment, or a misguided attempt to clutter up the Constitution. It is none of those things, but is, rather, a healthy sign that popular sovereignty is alive and well in this nation. The controversy over the passage of the Flag Amendment is most certainly not the first attempt in two hundred years to amend the Bill of Rights, it is an important struggle over what kind of a nation we want to be as we enter the next millennium.

The text of the amendment is very short and succinct, it provides simply that "Congress shall have the power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States." If the Amendment passes the only thing that will change is that Congress will have the power to protect the flag that was taken away (wrongly I believe) by the Supreme Court in the course of two decisions in 1989 and 1990. It will still take further Congressional legislation before anyone is actually prohibited from doing anything, and so discussions about whether flag bunny slippers, flag boxer shorts, or flags on the back of black leather jackets are endangered are premature.

What we should be debating now is not how such legislation will be crafted, but the broader symbolic issue of the Amendment itself. Should the people have the right to mark off some social conduct as forbidden, in the interests of promoting community solidarity in general and recognizing the sacrifice of the men and women who have died or been wounded to preserve our way of life in particular? Anyone who was privileged enough to listen to the testimony of veterans and widows given before Congress in earlier attempts to pass the Amendment understands that when someone desecrates the flag, such acts are perceived as attacks on patriotic self-sacrifice, and perceived as betraying the very honor that the nation owes those who fight for it.

To be fair to the ACLU and the other opponents of the Flag Amendment, there is a different vision of American liberty which suggests that what this country is all about is the maximum toleration of free expression, and we demonstrate our strength as a nation by allowing a maximum of outrageous acts to be committed. There is some truth to that vision, and the first Amendment obviously reflects a part of it, but the real question is where you draw the line, and which acts are entitled to protection as speech and which acts ought to be regulated as crimes. Political assassination, for example, is obviously crime, even though it is a form of expression. Similarly forbidden is spray painting political slogans on national monuments. The question we ought to be debating is where do you draw the line between on the one side protected speech under the First Amendment and on the other acts harmful to the order that we need to maintain to protect our freedoms.

It should be borne in mind that such great champions of civil liberty and free expression as Hugo Black and Earl Warren, when they served on the Supreme Court, made clear their beliefs that flag desecration was not protected by the First Amendment. Not until eight years ago, had a mere majority of the Supreme Court decided otherwise. It is now time for the American people to be allowed to express their view on the question, as the Constitution permits. A line needs to be drawn, and this is a case where the people should do it.

Just as the popular will was expressed in Constitutional Amendments prohibiting slavery and demanding the equality before the law of all Americans, so the flag Amendment presents a similar opportunity for Americans to correct a Supreme Court which has made a mistake. This is not a task to be undertaken lightly, and the Amendment process is thus made very difficult to accomplish. Still, it ought to tell us something that for the very first time in our history forty-nine state legislatures have actually petitioned Congress to send this Amendment on to them. A clearer expression of the will of the people on an issue would be hard to imagine, and anyone devoted to popular sovereignty ought to understand the force of the argument which suggests the people of the states should have a chance to decide to ratify this Amendment. Opinion polls indicate that approximately eighty percent of the American people favor the Amendment.

That, then, is what this Amendment controversy is all about — everyone agrees that it is necessary to preserve our tradition of free speech — but some of us feel that now is a good time to make a statement in favor of democracy and in favor of the notion that with liberty comes at least some civic responsibility. Now is a fine time to make a statement that self-indulgence is not all there is to the good life, and that a republic needs a foundation in civility and — dare one say it — morality. The Flag Amendment is just such a statement and deserves the support it has from the American people.

(Stephen B. Presser is the Raoul Berger Professor of Legal History at Northwestern University School of Law, a Professor of Business Law at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management of Northwestern University, and a Constitutional Issues Advisor to the Citizens’ Flag Alliance.)

Here’s the problem: when you interpret the First Amendment, as the Supreme Court has done, to include actions, behaviors, etc., in addition to the written or spoken word, you’re bound to run into all kinds of problems as this story illustrates.

Words can have an enourmous amount of power, and if used properly, can change the course of history. But they won’t block your view.

Tennessee Attorney general backs some limits on flag flying

By MATT GOURAS
Associated Press

People in Tennessee don’t have the right to hang an American flag in their yard or from their balcony if doing so runs afoul of neighborhood rules, the state attorney general said in an opinion yesterday.

The ruling came in response to a bill in the legislature that would have made flying the American flag always legal, even in neighborhoods or buildings with restrictive covenants. The bill had been prompted by a flag controversy in Williamson County.

Attorney General Paul Summers says the bill is probably unconstitutional on three fronts.

• First, he said, it tampers with existing contracts between homeowners and neighborhood associations.

• Second, it probably violates the right to free speech by choosing the American flag over other flags or messages people might want to display.

• Also, Summers said, it may be construed as a move by the state to interfere with private property rights without compensation.

Sen. Mae Beavers, the Mt. Juliet Republican who is sponsoring the bill, said she was perplexed by Summers’ decision.

”When you can’t even put a flagpole up in your front yard, I think that’s pretty bad.”

It’s not the first time Beavers has pushed for the law.

In 2001, a Franklin man was told by a homeowners association to take down his flagpole in the Fieldstone Farms subdivision. Neighbors said it created an unsightly view and ran contrary to the community’s lengthy list of covenants.

Ever since, Beavers has been trying to exempt the American flag from such covenants.

Even though she has added language that would allow neighborhoods to restrict the height of flagpoles or say the flags couldn’t be so large they fly over a neighbor’s yard, cautious lawmakers have moved slowly on the issue.

Critics are still leery of interfering with neighborhood rules or passing a law that could inadvertently allow someone to hang a 100-foot flag from a condominium balcony.

”I think they are giving a lot more emphasis to covenants in homeowners associations than they should,” Beavers said. ”And we’re talking about flying the U.S. flag. We’re not talking about putting up buildings that are against the covenants.”

With the attorney general’s opinion in hand, the issue probably will be put to rest at least until next year.

”This is pretty clear-cut that it is unconstitutional,” said Rep. Joe Fowlkes, a Cornersville Democrat who asked for the opinion.

This piece came from a site called Netweed and I think it’s a good glimpse inside the mind of someone who derives pleasure from burning the American flag. Perhaps he should catch the next flight to Iran and burn an Iranian flag in downtown Tehran. That would be a real face-to-face contact with the cold, cruel world.

The Postmodern Anarchist – Clay Richards – February 3, 2002

Why I’ll Still Burn the Flag

It’s Super Bowl Sunday and, though I will not see the event, I imagine the scene will cause commentators and journalists to parade such statements as, "I’ve seen more flags flown in this stadium than thrown on the field!" Perhaps Arthur Anderson will supply endless amounts of miniature American flags to clarify where they stand in the rubble of Enron as Mariah Carey, freshly recovered from her own collapse, ornaments the Star Spangled Banner with endlessly cascading high notes. In the midst of this united America, I realize sadly that my own favorite ceremony, the burning of the American flag, will be absent.

Even in reports from the current demonstrations against the World Economic Forum meetings in New York City, I have yet to hear of any flags torched. But I find that absence understandable in a setting in which the "heroic" response of cops to such a display may be far worse than one might expect at other points in recent history. In fact, I find myself somewhat nervous about this column being published and by the possible repercussions of writing about flag burning without labeling it satire or parody.

One of the big things that has changed since the tragedy of September 11th is that left/liberals can now fly the American flag without the fear of being labeled sell outs or posers. But when asked by a friend about a Doonesbury column that focused on the left/lib reclaiming of the flag I responded, "I’m not buying that bullshit for a minute."

I was certainly horrified at the events of September 11th and yet I never seemed as disturbed as anyone I knew. In trying to understand my feelings I realized that ever since my involvement in the movement against U.S. intervention in Central America in the 1980s, my life has been lived in the context of death squads and the disappearance of activists, of villages, of whole ways of life. During that time I made my first piece of art defaming the American flag with a swastika over the stars and the slogan "No Nationalism" over the bars.

Since September 11th I’ve read many columns explaining why people like Jim Hightower fly their American flag high, the flag that represents so many good things about America. But I have yet to dig into any period of American history without finding real nastiness at every turn. And I am upset that the massacres of Native Americans, the slave trade and other such events have been normalized to the degree that commentators can claim that the flag stands for the good America and not the bad America rather than the whole catastrophic package.

But I do not take a simplistic stance that America is always wrong and whoever we are against is always right. My problem with patriotism is that it draws the wrong boundaries and ties me to people who embody evil while separating me from those who share my interests. And when I think of the good things that Americans do and have done, I feel a connection not to a national entity but to all those people around the world who exemplify the magic and mystery of being human.

For my part, I haven’t burned nearly as many flags as I’d like to. In addition to art that defaced flags, I’ve also burned flags in performance. Around 1990, when various disturbed groups and individuals were promoting an amendment to protect the flag, I performed in an anticensorship piece with The High Risk Group of San Francisco that included my own contribution of burning a tiny American flag. I remember buying a bunch in a department store and the woman at the counter saying, "you can buy those as long as you’re not going to burn them." We laughed together as she apologized and rang me up.

Burning those little flags always gave me a thrill and I’m thrilled when I see flags burned at demonstrations. Perhaps it would be different if I felt some sense of patriotism, of pride, of inclusion in the "we" that came together after September 11th. But that patriotism is not there and I still do not understand being proud of something I did so little to create. My patriotic urges and sense of unity were destroyed way back when I experienced the hypocrisy of my church elders, the emotional, intellectual and physical violence of the educational system, the political realities of the Vietnam War and Watergate.

I will still burn the flag but not because it is my right or because it shocks people. I will still burn the flag because fools take it up to support their foolishness, because murderers take it up to defend their acts of murder, because caring people take it up to justify their complicity in a destructive system. Even more, I will still burn the flag because doing so will shed light in the darkness and bring a bit of warmth to a cold, cruel world.

The following story caught my eye, mainly because it contains the word flag. But I think it is interesting because the battle over copyrighted material has drastically changed over the past decade.

When FM radio was King, WNEW, the big New York station would, from time to time, broadcast something special like a live show or an entire album, and they would promote it well in advance of the actual event. Recording these events on your home stereo was common and nobody cared. As far as the station was concerned, the more listening ears the better. And the artists were getting a ton of free publicity. Everyone was a winner.

Then VCR’s hit the scene and everybody was recording everything they could, yet nary a peep was heard from the folks in Hollywood. Now Hollywood is wallowing in cash because of the growth of the video rental industry but they still want more.  This is not about traditional issues of copyright infringement – making copies of materials to sell on the black market for instance – but rather, it’s about private individuals making a copy of a movie for personal use.   

Appeals court pulls down broadcast flag

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — A federal appeals court ruled Friday that the Federal Communications Commission overstepped its bounds by requiring television sets to contain embedded codes to prevent pirating of digital television programming.

As television moves to high definition, movie studios are concerned that pirates will be able to make perfect copies of their films and TV shows, giving consumers less incentive to legally buy content.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said the FCC had no right to adopt the regulations because the broadcast flag only affects programming after it has been transmitted.

Under the Communications Act of 1934, the commission is only authorized to regulate broadcast content, but "only while those apparatus are engaged in the process of receiving a television broadcast," the court said Friday.

The studios are anxious to avoid what happened to the music industry after file-sharing services like Napster made many consumers reluctant to buy record albums.

Under rules adopted by the FCC in November 2003, all digital television receivers and other devices capable of receiving digital signals had to be equipped with the "broadcast flag," a digital code that prevents recorded shows from being copied to the Internet or another device.

"I think there has to be a balance between the needs of copyright holders and consumers, including organizations that up to now have been able to use content to educate," said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy in Washington.

"The problem was, the broadcast flag was written to protect the goals of industry, and not consumers and educators," Chester added.

The court’s decision will have the studios again pushing for a postponement of the date when all U.S. television stations must be able to broadcast digitally.

The FCC has mandated the target as 2006. The studios had lobbied to have that extended so that there would be sufficient time to implement piracy protections.

Hollywood is likely to ask Congress to step in with legislation that will keep the broadcast flag in place, experts said Friday.

"It takes a long time to get the Supreme Court to consider questions like this; it’s much more likely that they’ll go to the government in an attempt to get a law passed," said Josh Bernoff, analyst at Forrester Research.

The studios will certainly make it clear to lawmakers that they will no longer feel comfortable making some forms of content available for over-the-air viewing without something like the broadcast flag in place. Cable and satellite telecasts are already more secure.

Hold the phone. If you didn’t read the original story yesterday, I’ll fill you in. A mother and friends in Cape Coral, Florida, set out several hundred small wood staffs with yellow ribbons along the route that her daughter would take upon returning from her tour of duty in Iraq. And town officials had them all removed!

If some nut-case set up several hundred wood staffs with American flags, doused them all with lighter fluid and set them on fire, town officials would be stymied. After all, his First Amendment right to express himself would prevent action on the part of the town.

So where did the First Amendment go? Does it serve to protect only the flag burners and those with that particular political point of view?

Removing mom’s signs brings scorn to Cape

By PETE SKIBA
PSKIBA@NEWS-PRESS.COM

People from across the United States and as far away as Nova Scotia spent Wednesday telling Cape Coral officials they’re un-American, communists and Nazis — among other things.

The name calling came in an onslaught of e-mail that blasted a city worker for removing signs and yellow ribbons a mother had posted to greet her U.S. Army daughter as she returned home from Iraq.

After receiving more than 100 e-mails, city officials went into damage control.

"We now have to try to defuse the situation and prevent an effigy of our part-time employee, an 82-year-old WWII veteran, from being burned across the country," public information officer Connie Barron e-mailed.

The outcry arose after self-described Web site newsman Matt Drudge posted an Internet link on his site, the Drudge Report, to a story about the incident in The News-Press.

By 10:15 p.m. Wednesday, about 300,000 viewers had read the story on The News-Press Web site, news-press.com. It’s one of the most-read stories in the Web site’s history.

"It has all gotten too out of hand and big," said Kelly Smith, 44, the single mother of Pfc.

Amanda Smith, 19, and two other children. "It just never should have happened if he used a little common sense.

"All I wanted to do was welcome my daughter home and hug her."

Mayor Eric Feichthaler answered the angry e-mails with an explanation.

"The actions that occurred on Tuesday were not a malicious attempt to dishonor or slight a local soldier, whose service we admire and appreciate beyond what words can express," Feichthaler said.

On Monday evening, the mayor will read a proclamation in Amanda’s honor during the regular city council meeting. He has invited the Smiths to attend.

The following article cames from America Supports You – a US Department of Defense website dedicated to encouraging ordinary citizens (you and me) to get involved in supporting our troops in any way we can. I think the idea of getting whole towns involved is a good one, if only to get more people involved.

S.C. Capital Joins ‘America Supports You’ Team

By Rudi Williams / American Forces Press Service

COLUMBIA, S.C., May 4, 2005  – About 1,000 flag-waving people flocked to Finlay Park here May 3 to help Columbia become the second city in the nation to join the Defense Department’s "America Supports You" program.

Enid, Okla., became the first city to become an America Supports You team member on March 31. "I’m proud to announce that Columbia is the second city in the United States to join America Supports You as a city," Mayor Bob Coble told the patriotic crowd. "America Supports You is a nationwide program launched by the Department of Defense to recognize citizen support for our military men and women and to communicate that support to members of our armed forces at home and abroad."

Coble said he was inspired to make Columbia one of the first cities to join America Supports You during a briefing by Pentagon officials when he was in Washington in March as part of a delegation of mayors – the same meeting that sparked Enid’s involvement.

"America Supports You will spotlight what Americans are doing all across the country," Coble noted. "The America Supports You dog tag is the official emblem of the program. Tonight our goal is simple; we want everyone to go to the Web site www.americasupportsyou.mil and sign up to join the effort to support our troops.

"Everyone can help," he continued. "You can donate frequent flyer miles or telephone cards, you can give gift certificates, you can send letters and messages, you can help the wounded and disabled, you can support military families, you can send packages, and you can do much more. Let’s show our troops and their families that Columbia supports them – we love them and we stand beside them."

An airman at the event had experienced support while deployed and said she was touched by Columbia’s outpouring. "When you see people that you probably have gotten care packages, cards or prayers from while you were in the desert makes me feel blessed and honored to be here and to have other people here to support us," said Tech. Sgt. Topeka Blackwell from the 169th Fighter Wing, South Carolina Air National Guard.

Asked what she thinks troops in Iraq and Afghanistan will feel when they find out about the America Supports You rally in Columbia, Blackwell said, "I’m sure they’ll probably cry to know that the city cares and shows appreciation for its military means a great deal to everyone."

The event featured patriotic and contemporary music from the 282nd Army Band from Fort Jackson, S.C., an F-16 flyover by the 169th Fighter Wing of the South Carolina Air National Guard and a fireworks display. Participants were given small American flags, yellow ribbons and free ice cream as they entered the park.

"I came here to support the troops, because they deserve more than the Vietnam people got," said Lloyd Cartledge, 81, a World War II Army corporal who earned three battle stars in Europe. "And I hope we don’t let that happen again."

His son, David Cartledge, brought Boy Scout Muscogee Troop 221, which he advises, with him. "I thought it was a good event for them to see and also for them to participate in by demonstrating their support of our folks in harm’s way," he said. "We actually have two of our scouts serving in Iraq now. One of our troops received a Purple Heart in April 2004. He got blown up by an improvised explosive device on a convoy.

"Most of the folks around here hold our services dear to our heart," said the former Army Ranger who was given a medical discharge in 1979 due to an injury on a training exercise. "We understand what they’re going through and why they’re committing their personal resources and their lives to protect our freedom. And we’re here to show that support."

Johnny Mayo, a scout dog handler in Vietnam with the Army’s 173rd Airborne Division, brought his scout dog, Buck, to the event. He said Buck accompanied him on his first visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Washington Mall in 2000.

The former Army specialist said his "patriotic blood" brought him to the America Supports You rally. "Buck and I just wanted to be here to support the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan," Mayo said. "It was a lonely trip home for me from Vietnam – almost like being invisible. The only person that talked to me was a mother who had two young children sat down beside me and asked me, ‘You going home?’"

Decked out in his junior ROTC uniform, Ton’Dray Woods, 17, walked around the park passing out little American flags and yellow ribbons to visitors. "I have family in Iraq, so I support the troops a lot," said Woods, who said he is going into the Coast Guard when he finishes school in June.

Woods gave a flag and yellow ribbon to Barbara H. Brand, who said her husband, late father and other relatives served in the Army. "I’m a big supporter of American troops," she added.

Charles Schenck, a civilian employee at nearby Fort Jackson, said, "I’m here in support of the installation where I work and the Army. To the troops, I hope they feel as proud as I do. I believe they’re doing a great service for the Iraqi people. I firmly believe that the Iraqi people appreciate what we’re doing for them."

Retired Army Sgt. 1st Class Janice Negus said she attended the event because "I support the troops every way I can."

Here’s one from the American Legion website. For those of you who don’t know, the American Legion is a huge Veterans organization with more than 3 million members and plenty of political clout.

A couple of points I’d like to make:

First, the Boy Scouts is a private organization – a club if you will. And as a private club, shouldn’t members have the right under the first ammendment to say, do and believe what they want? The anti-Boy scout folks like to point to the fact that many Boy Scout troops meet in schools or other public facilities, thereby using taxpayer dollars. But we all know that many private clubs us public facilities to hold meetings.

This brings me to my second point. If the beef the ACLU has with the Boy Scouts is that they hold to a strict viewpoint regarding religion and they do so on the public dime, if you will, by opposing the Boy Scouts, they are in affect  promoting an opposing viewpoint regarding religion. According to the last paragraph of this article, the ACLU is operating, at least in part, on taxpayer funds. Somebody oughta investigate!

Legion fires legislative volley at ACLU over Scouts

INDIANAPOLIS, April 12, 2005  -  Vowing to “make the journey to the Supreme Court” if necessary in supporting the Boy Scouts right to associate freely, the leader of the nation’s largest veterans organization today asked Congress to amend a law to stop the ACLU from using the courts to “destroy American values at taxpayer expense.”

In separate letters to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) and Rep. Jo Ann Davis (R-VA), National American Legion Commander Thomas P. Cadmus guardedly praised the “Support Our Scouts Act of 2005” but noted that several recent court decisions, if left unchallenged and allowed to stand, will likely find any statue that authorizes support for the National Boy Scout Jamboree unconstitutional. Frist and Davis are sponsoring the measure in each chamber.

“As the leader of the 2.7 million American veterans who proudly claim membership in The American Legion, I am calling upon you and your colleagues to place your immediate and fullest influence behind efforts to stem the attacks on the Boy Scouts of America and amend Title 42 to stop the cash flow to the ACLU in its tracks,” Cadmus wrote.

“The courts are awarding the ACLU millions of dollars in taxpayer paid ‘attorney fees awards’ authorized under the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S. Code Section 1988,” Cadmus added. “While the law was written with good intentions – to ensure legitimate victims of civil rights violations could obtain representation – it has been exploited by the ACLU in First Amendment ‘establishment of religion clause’ cases. ACLU profits from these cases at taxpayer expense. Title 42 must be amended to preclude this abuse.”

The ACLU has waged a legal battle with Scouting because the youth organization requires its members to have a belief in God.

Posts of The American Legion around the world have been called upon to haul in the slack created by the loss of Scout charters formerly held by public schools and military units overseas.

“They will respond accordingly, I assure you,” Cadmus said. “Our intervention, however, or that by organizations of like mind will not put a halt to the tactics being used by the ACLU in their incessant attacks on the Boy Scouts of America. We will be looking to you and other leaders in Congress to help assure that Scouts and the Scouting movement continue to receive the support they have enjoyed for decades and so rightly deserve,” Cadmus wrote.

“As more Americans learn the ACLU adds insult to injury by collecting taxpayer dollars in the process of attacking the moral values of our nation, there will be a groundswell of ‘We the People’ united to stop this practice dead in its tracks,” Cadmus said.