With the aid of an assortment of anti-war and political activist groups, Cindy Sheehan is getting quite a bit more than her fifteen minutes of fame. As the showdown in Texas escalates, I’ve been on the lookout to see if protesters are burning American flags yet. And I’m happy to say that so far, at least as far as I can tell, there hasn’t been a single American flag burned.
There has, however, been quite a bit of American flag desecration going on including this example adorning Mrs. Sheehan. But that, I think, is to be expected in such a politically charged atmosphere. Anyhow, I am really not interested in discussing the merits or lack thereof of the three-ring circus this protest is becoming, but I do want to mention one particular incident that just happened there.
A local motorist by the name of Larry Northern staged a little protest of his own Monday night when he drove his pick-up truck over some small wooden crosses that Mrs. Sheehan had planted in the ground near her campsite. Now, that wasn’t a very nice thing to do, and there was some potential danger involved to be sure. But it seems reasonable to classify Mr. Northern’s actions as politically motivated. And in that spirit, the act of driving over those crosses could be characterized as political expression.
So how in substance does the political expression of driving over crosses differ from the political expression of burning American flags? I mean, they are both destructive and potentially hazardous to other human beings in the vicinity.
Mr. Northern was arrested, jailed and charged with criminal mischief, and there’s no sign of the ACLU clamoring to defend his free speech rights. If freedom of speech/expression was really the issue for the people who defend flag burning, they would be all over this.