Our policy is that we do not respond to comments or emails in regards to a blog. The purpose of our blog is discuss important or interesting issues regarding flags, injecting our point of view along the way, and to welcome other points of view in an atmosphere of respect and trust. We want you, the reader of this blog, to know that you can offer your opinion without fear that we will skewer you in the next post. Sometimes, readers will add their two cents in the comments section for all to see, and sometimes I receive a comment via email.
Lately, our blog has been pretty much exclusively devoted to the pending amendment to the Constitution to prohibit the desecration of the American flag. Yesterday, I received an email that I think warrants that I make an exception to our policy in order to illustrate the type of comment that should be entered in the comments section for all to read, rather than an email that is read by me only. I have not included the gentleman’s name or email address, because this is not so much about what a particular individual said as it is about using abusive and derogatory language in place of reasoned debate. Have a look:
Subject: You’re an Idiot
You’re missing the point on the flag-burning issue, as much of the right wing is. It’s not about people wanting to burn the flag, it’s about people wanting to preserve the right to do so. Typical semantic baloney, not unlike the abortion issue in which the conservatives paint abortion rights advocates as people who want to encourage abortions.
Next thing you know, you’ll advocate an amendment to prohibit people from speaking out against the government.
Don’t be stupid by giving up your rights. Stop messing with your freedom. Start thinking.
My reply:
It may come as a surprise to a lot of Americans, but as American citizens, we are not accorded unlimited rights. To the contrary, we have a very limited set of rights guaranteed to us and they are clearly spelled out in the Constitution. And where, through our history, it has been deemed neccessary to further define rights, Congess has done so via the mechanism of the amendment that the framers of the Constitution wisely provided.
When the First Amendment was written, the authors allowed for political dissent in very specific forms, being "freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Nowhere does it allow for illegal acts or acts of violence or acts that have a potential to be violent. If you light a cardboard carton on fire on a street corner in your city, chances are you will be arrested for the illegal act of lighting a fire in public. Why should the Constitution protect you from prosecution if the object happens to be the American flag instead of cardboard?
Many of my fellow citizens are of the belief that the Constitution should be a "living" document, subject to the changing trends of the day. These are the folks, I suspect, who insist on stretching the meaning of the words, "free speech" to include freedom of "expression."
To the gentleman who sent me the email, that is my point. If you protect an otherwise illegal act such as flag burning – how do you then define which other acts will be protected as "expression" and which will not? If you would answer that question for me, I think we would then have the basis of a meaningful dialog instead of name calling.