I want to go on the record as saying that flag burning is offensive. It is offensive not in a deeply personal inspire me to riot kind of way. But it's like being called names on the playground. It is infantile. It is meaningless. If it gives some Islamic nutjob or modern day American hippie a vicarious thrill to watch it burn, so what. I really don't give a damn.

I also want to be on the record as saying that the idea of an amendment to the Constitution empowering the Congress to ban desecration of the flag is one of the most repugnant to come out of Washington in a long time. The flag is a piece of colored cloth. I'm wearing colored cloth right now. But my shirt does not stand for anything. It does not represent anything.

The Flag does. The flag is a visual symbol of the United States of America. What matters about the flag is not the threads. Not the Stars or the Strips. What matters about the flag is the ideas it represents. America is not a piece of cloth. America is an idea, and an ideal. Burn the cloth, shred the cloth, flush the cloth and you do nothing to damage the idea. Nothing to weaken the ideal.

One of the ideas symbolized by the flag is the idea of freedom. This includes the freedom to be an infantile idiot who gets a thrill from burning the flag.

I have enough faith left in the rationality of enough of America to expect this Amendment to go down in flames.

Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 04:25 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment