a reflection published January 1990
Not surprisingly, as soon as Congress passed a law prohibiting the desecration
of the flag (oops, The Flag), certain radicals made headlines by burning the same. Though I was not one of those certain radicals (certainty is not my bag), I could not help but sympathize with them. Jingoistic laws like this deserve to be challenged. State worship, Americanism
— the whole servile civic religion that self-proclaimed patriots have been shoving down the throats of innocent children ever since freedom and the rule of law became inadequate for good Americans
— is badly in need of challenge, and if the Supreme Court will once again decide against the statists, I cannot help but raise a cheer.
Still, I doubt if I could bring myself to burn a flag. As symbolic acts go, flag-burning is far too extreme for my temperament. Furthermore, it is expressive of a severe, unambivalent attitude, and my attitude to both America and its symbology is nothing if not ambivalent.
It is not that I am not patriotic, in my own way; it's just that I am not patriotic in other people's way. For instance, my version of patriotism influenced me, years ago, to decide not to recite the odious Pledge of Allegiance. I reasoned that pledging allegiance to a symbol that was usually carried by the most despicable of criminals (that is, politicians) would be as unpatriotic an act as I could imagine. It would fly in the face of what I regarded as my American values: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I believed that the right to govern should rest on the consent of the governed, and that the nobility of the American experiment consisted in the principle of limiting governments by the same rule of law that limits the activities of the common folk; no symbol of America (I reasoned) should be allowed to work against these ideals. So I dissented.
Conveniently, by the time I made this decision I was no longer required to recite the thing. Not so conveniently, I have often found myself in a somewhat similar position, where I am expected to stand in respect for the flag as the National Anthem plays. Though I believe that sitting while the musicians go through the leaps of their variant of Anacreon in Heaven is too disrespectful (people might think I am a communist, or against freedom, or something), doing what everyone else is doing seems too respectful of the unthinking patriotism of the obedient masses. My solution to this crisis of ceremony is novel enough that I recommend flag-burners to follow suit. When the anthem is played (or worse yet, sung), I stand up, take off my hat and place it over a portion of my anatomy somewhat removed from my heart. I call this the CYA gesture,
and though most people do not notice it, I do not hesitate to explain when asked by anyone who looks unlikely to assault me in response.
So, if you feel compelled to show your dissent by burning a flag, show at least a little respect for the common opinions of mankind (or at least Americans) by refraining from chanting, swigging beer, shouting names, or making rude gestures to the police. Write a solemn declaration — perhaps mimicking Jeffersonian language — and have someone soberly read it for the assembled dissidents and voyeuristic cameramen. And, as the flag goes up in flames, why not salute it, or play taps? If flag-burners claim to stand for ideals that flag-burning laws unconstitutionally abridge, they should show respect for the ideals they wish to uphold by recognizing that, to many people, Old Glory once stood for those same ideals.
— TWV |
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