The American Standard Bearer

The story making the rounds today is of a Catholic high school teacher who was given the boot for refusing to allow an American flag in his classroom. Until his dismisal, Stephen Kobasa was an English teacher at Kolbe Cathedral High School in Bridgeport, Connecticut. A local TV station ran a very short version of the event on it’s website that makes it sound as if Kobassa was the victim of a nasty school administration.Kobassa reportedly claims he was canned "because he says it conflicts with his Catholic faith and teaching beliefs."

OK – fair enough. Sounds like we have a Catholic teacher who believes an American flag in the classroom will take the focus off God. Or do we? Well, not exactly.

As it turns out, Kobassa’s true reasons for refusing to display the flag have a lot more to do with politics than religion. Here’s how Kobassa sums things up: “Everything in the Gospel rejects what flags stand for: boundaries, hatreds, creation of enemies." Notice how he uses the word "flags" and not the term "American flags." That’s because he adheres to the radical political philosophy that views all nations as equal.

But all nations are not equal, as any one of the millions of immigrants streaming into the U.S. from other countries can tell you. And the notion that the American flag stands for "boundaries, hatreds, creation of enemies,"  sounds a lot like the anti-Americanism that is so popular in certain circles, which is not surprising since Mr. Kobassa is a member of the quasi-Communist organization, Catholic Worker.

The plain fact is that Kobassa’s repeated and bizarre refusals to even allow an American flag in his classroom, let alone say the Pledge of Allegiance, is not about putting the flag before God, as he claims, but his refusal to acknowledge the unique place in history that the United States holds.

Sixty years ago, President Harry Truman famously said, "The buck stops here!" In the battle over what the United States will ultimately look like, the main battlefield is the Supreme Court because that’s where the buck now stops in 2005 America.

I continually harp on the subject of a pending amendment to the Constitution to allow states to ban the burning of American flags because the issue has a whole lot more to do with the future of America than the condition of a few American flags.

Today’s central question is whether the Constitution will survive intact, as it was written, or will continue to be transmogrified by activist courts to further the agenda of power-hungry elitists. While the attention of the country is focused on the confirmation of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court,left-wing groups like the ACLU and The First Amendment Center are in high gear to stop the flag burning amendment in it’s tracks. Why? Because they recognize that if it passes, it will be a blow to their agenda.

The First Amendment specifically and narrowly names "freedom of speech," but an activist Court has ruled to  include "expression" in the legal definition of speech, paving the way for radical groups to advance their agendas through the courts. Groups like the ACLU relentlessly promote a radical agenda through the courts and not the legislatures, effectively bypassing the will of the people.

Bill O’Reilly, in the "Talking Points" segment of his show last Wednesday said, "The ACLU simply wants a different country, a nation where conduct it approves of, public sexual displays, child molestation literature is allowed. But the ACLU wants to inhibit conduct it disagrees with, like protesting the border and celebrating the birth of Jesus."

The flag burning amendment is a sleeper issue. Most Americans find it hard to get worked up over it since the consequences of someone actually burning an American flag are so small. But  the potential benefit from a win for either side is huge. The left knows it. I hope the right figures it out before it’s too late.

One of the great things, at least in today’s world, about getting older is that you become increasingly out of touch with the cutting edge of pop culture. This morning, however, I happened across  the latest craze/destructive blow to the world of fine art – creatively mutilated dead human beings.

The "Body World" exhibit is now showing in Philadelphia, the fourth major city in the U.S., and is raking in the money. The creator of "Body World" is Gunther von Hagens, a German doctor who invented the process he calls "plastination" that preserves actual dead people in plastic. So far, the exhibit has generated more than $200 million in revenues and has been seen by upwards of 17 million art lovers worldwide.

The facination for many is that this is not merely an exhibition of dead people, but dead people who have been dissected and mutilated in disturbingly gruesome ways. One pregnant woman, for example, reclines with her womb sliced open exposing her baby. Another man has been skinned and holds his skin in his hands.

It has been reported that Dr. von Hagens’ father, who has been involved in assisting his son with his goulish art career, is a former Nazi SS officer who sent Polish citizens to their deaths in Nazi concentration camps. This fact seems to have had little effect on the headlong rush of the American avante-gard to embrace the latest depravity.

I can’t help but think that the people in this country who are hell-bent on burning American flags while hiding behind the Constitution, are just as much a symptom of the disease as Dr. von Hagens is. And those who would not get their hands dirty by burning an American flag themselves, but passionately defend those who do burn flags, in the name of "freedom," are really no different than Dr. von Hagens.

There is an element of modern culture that is drawn to and facinated by death and destruction. People who angrily march through the streets, spray painting walls and torching American flags, aren’t as much interested in expressing a political point of view as they are in giving life to this attraction to destruction.

I wrote yesterday about the overarching self absorbtion of my generation, the baby boomers, and how the hyper-exageration of ones self-importance has lead to the rejection of the accumulated wisdom of our civilization. There is a significant portion of our population that will find nothing wrong with the mutilation of dead human beings and, in fact, will applaud it and defend it as great art. Others, myself included, will be repulsed by it and see it not as art, but as the inevitable direction a society will take when it’s foundation has been swept away by the tide of self interest.

My mother lives in a retirement home and suffers from dementia. I am not a doctor, so please forgive me if I don’t get this exactly right, but demetia is akin to alzheimer’s except that you know who you and other people such as family members are. But short term memory is shot and the ability to grasp events outside your immediate sphere (and often within your immediate sphere) are pretty much shot as well.

The reason I tell you this is because I sometimes think that the silver lining in my mother’s malady is that she isn’t aware of the huge upheavals taking place in our society and in the world in general. She is comfortable and as happy as a person in that situation can be. The people at the home are terrific and take good care of her and she is full of appreciation and gratitude for the simple things that most of us take for granted.

She would be appaled, for example, to learn that a California Judge ruled that the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag is unconstitutional and has issued a restraining order to prevent school children in several California communities from reciting the Pledge, even if they want to. Or to learn that a nationwide campaign is underway to teach school kids the words to the National Anthem. They don’t know the words because they haven’t been taught the history.

My own kids have not, as yet, been taught in school that the Star Spangled Banner was an actual American flag in the midst of an actual battle on which hinged the fate of the United States of America. Of course, I have taken it upon myself to teach them a lot about American history and they are mostly appreciative (sometimes, I don’t know when to quit).

The results of a pole indicating that Americans are a lot ruder than they were twenty or thirty years ago made the news today. The news source that reported the story opened by speculating that our dependence on high-tech gadgets and the faster pace of life is to blame for this troubling development. I think that the self-absorbtion and hubris of my generation – the baby-boomers – is a more likely source of the problem.

The conclusion that was drawn by way too many of my contemporaries in the 60’s was that a higher level of enlightenment had been achieved by rejecting the traditions and mores of the past. Society was no longer a slave to history or the institutions that had held Western civilization together for generation upon generation. We would re-invent the world in our own image (just as Al Gore would re-invent government). 

The arrogant belief that we as a people have aquired some special knowledge and understanding that those who came before us lacked is nothing more than perpetual adolescence. King Solomon wisely wrote in Ecclesiastes, "There is nothing new under the sun."  It’s my hope that there are enough of us out there who are teaching the younger generation about our amazing history and the importance of it in our lives today. I want my kids, whenever they see an American flag, to think about and appreciate everything that had to happen in the long history of our country to allow them to live free here today.

Sometimes the best ideas are so simple, it makes you wonder why no one thought of it before.

We get calls all the time from people wondering how to dispose of their American flags properly. We usually tell these folks that the best way to retire an American flag is to burn it, then suggest they call the local VFW or American Legion to see if they provide that service. Unfortunately, too many American flags probably meet their end in the trash can, not because the owner lacks respect, but because the options are unknown.

Well, a veteran’s group in Winchester, Kentucky, came up with a simple solution that works like a charm. The local chapter of the Marine Corps League obtained an old mailbox from the local Post Office and set it up behind the Clark County Courthouse, then got the word out that the box was there, ready to accept worn out flags.

To everyone’s surprise, the mailbox-turned-flag-collection-box has been wildly successful. In it’s first six weeks of operation, more than 160 worn out American flags have been left in the box. And here’s the kicker – only two letters were deposited there!

City Manager and Commandant of the Harold G. Epperson chapter of the Marine Corps League, Ed Burtner, believes that many of the folks in town deposited flags that they’ve been holding onto, "A lot of people have told me over the years that the flags that they have taken down, they put them in the closet, not knowing what to do with them or where to turn them in and not wanting to throw them in the trash. So I suspect that there are a lot of people who have been pulling their flags out of the closet."

The Marine Corps League plans to hold retirement ceremonies in the future, possibly in conjunction with the high school ROTC.

Let’s hope this idea catches on. The U.S. Postal Service no doubt retires mailboxes all the time. Donating them to local municipal governments almost certainly saves money in disposal costs and the cost for setting them up should be minimal. From there, local veterans organizations or the Boy Scouts or schools can volunteer to collect the flags and conduct the proper ceremonies. If people know that they can drive a mile or two and dispose of their American flags at their own convenience, they’ll do it.

An interesting column appeared in the Waco Tribune-Herald on Sunday. United Methodist minister Robert Kenji Flowers, in his piece titled, "Flowers: Bowing Down to the American Flag," sets forth the argument that Christians in particular should be repulsed by the act of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

His basic premise is that pledging allegiance to the American flag constitutes the sin of idolatry. There are a number of problems with his argument, the first of which is a quote he uses by the infamous former Episcopal Bishop of Newark, New Jersey, the Rev. John Shelby Spong. I have met Spong and I’m familiar with him. I have always been amazed that he was the head of one of the largest diocese of the ECUSA, yet, openly rejects the tenents of his faith.

About the subject of idolatry, Spong says, “Idolatry means ascribing to anything less than God the qualities that pertain to God alone. There is an ultimate truth of God, I do believe. No person, no nation and no institution, however, can claim to possess it without becoming idolatrous.”

In essence, Spong is saying that no one can claim to really know anything about God (and those who do are practising idolatry), which is an idea that fits the worldview of someone who rejects the belief that the Bible is the word of God. However, Bible-believing Christians are not idolaters simply because they believe that God has revealed knowlege of Himself through the Bible.

Which leaves us wondering what Spong’s musings have to do with Flower’s argument. Really very little, as far as I can tell. Flower’s true argument centers around the notion that that you can only serve one master. If you are a Christian then, pledging allegiance to the American flag (actually, to the republic for which it stands), belies your claim to serve Jesus.

But this argument is nothing more than a political appeal to anti-nationalism hiding behind the mask of religiosity. The notion that there can be no substance to human relationships, no loyalty to family, community or nation, is not Biblical Christianity. Everyone understands that when you pledge allegiance to the American flag, you are not bowing before a piece of fabric in worship.

Rather, you are acknowledging your obligations and your gratitude to the country that has allowed you to live in freedom. And for Christians, the "under God" part is acknowledging that God is sovereign above all human institutions.

The issue of the possible passage of a constitutional amendment that would pave the way for enactment of laws to prohibit the desecration of the American flag seems like small potatos to a lot of folks. And taken at face value, it’s not one of the pressing issues of the day. But a lot of heavy-weights on both sides of this debate, such as the ACLU, are taking the time and trouble to make their arguments known.

Preventing a few intellectually challenged people from burning American flags is really just the vehicle for the larger issues of the limits of our Constitution and the power of the Supreme Court. 

I am not a lawyer nor do I pretend to be one, but I do know that our republic was not formed with the intent that only lawyers should be capable of participation. Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Antonin Scalia, says as much with this statement, "The premise of the First Amendment is that the American people are neither sheep nor fools, and hence fully capable of considering both the substance of speech presented to them and its proximate and ultimate source. If that premise is wrong, our democracy has a much greater problem to overcome than merely the influence of amassed wealth. Given the premises of democracy, there is no such thing as too much free speech."

The interesting thing here is that Justice Scalia sided  with the majority in two cases that struck down laws banning the desecration of American flags. In both Texas vs. Johnson (1989) and the U.S. vs Eichman (1990), Scalia, arguably the most conservative member of the Court, agreed that burning American flags was a form of speech, and thus protected under the First Amendment. Justice Scalia’s opinions in these cases is entirely consistent with his above statement. 

I agree with his statement to a point. There is not much to take issue with until the last sentence, but the idea that there should be no limit to free speech is one that the Court has consistently disagreed with. As the famous example goes, you can’t yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater. And it wouldn’t be hard to think of hundreds of other examples. The real problem with Scalia’s statement is that it doesn’t address the how’s or why’s of the notion that actions, particularly those actions which carry with them the threat of violence (such as flag burning), can be categorized as speech.   

I came accross an image of an American flag today that caught my
interest. In place of the star field, there is an abacus. I wanted to
find out the story behind this and, as it turns out, I was correct in
assuming that the intent of an American flag with an abacus is to
portray America as greedy and sinister.

The person behind it is one very self-absorbed individual who goes
by the name of Malcom Lagauche. Malcom Lagauche is only his pen name,
Lagauche meaning "the left" in French – his real name is Jeff Archer.
Archer is a native of Rhode Island who has spent eight of his fifty-six
years living in Europe and is responsible for this particular
desecration of the American flag.

I write about this because Archer is representative of the
philosophies and attitudes held by Americans who hate America. The
American flag pictured above appeared with an article titled "What is a Citizen?"
that very neatly exposes what is wrong with the America haters. It
should be noted here that Archer claims that he doesn’t hate America, "I don’t love America. I don’t hate it, but I don’t love it." But he also
says, "I think that the U.S. is portraying a diabolical image and is
making the world more violent." In other words, the image we are
portraying is accurate – we are diabolical.

Obviously,
there exists no coercion, nor should there exist any coercion on U.S.
citizens by the government to love their country. But just as people
like Archer are so quick to boisterously announce their disapproval, or
even hatred of their country, it’s incumbent upon the rest of us to
expose them for what they really are.

Archer, like millions of
others, doesn’t view his American citizenship as anything special, "In
my assessment, I owe the U.S. nothing except being a good citizen and
not cheating or misrepresenting myself, all the time obeying the laws
the country asks me to. My country owes me the rights given in certain
documents and the assurance of relative safety. It is a contract that
should be upheld on both sides."

Let’s seperate the wheat from
the chaff, "I owe the U.S. nothing…My country owes me…the assurance
of relative safety." That assurance of relative safety comes with a
price.

So many of Archer’s ilk see the U.S. as "diabolical"
while they simultaneously portray Islamic "Freedom Fighters" who chop
off American heads as the victims. The one word that Archer
conveniently avoids is loyalty. If you are an American citizen and you
expect to live in safety here, it is your responsibility to be loyal to
your country.

Among other things, Archer is an apologist for
Sadam Hussein’s regime and the Ba’ath Party and is a regular
contributor to uruknet.info (also uruknet.net – the picture at left came from this site), a virulently
anti-American organization. Here’s how columnist Michelle Malkin
characterizes it, "…uruknet.info, the nutball news outlet that
labeled Alberto Gonzales a "war criminal" and that publishes propaganda
reports from Saddam Hussein’s legal team."

Archer, as a U.S.
citizen, isn’t required to love his country, but when he encourages our
enemies by fanning the flames of hatred for America, it is the ultimate
arrogance to then demand to live in safety.