THE US FLAG

Well it seems that once again the issue of burning a flag is at the front line of the GOP. Yes ladies and gentlemen once again there is a possibility that burning a flag will be a criminal offense.

Now I know this is a touchy subject for some, but please be patience and hear me out.

I can see how nationalism can bring some to say that is my flag I don't want to see it disgraced or the such, but lets take a step back look at what the flag is. The flag is made of material with colors red, white and blue. Also the flag has 50 stars upon to represent the 50 states that make up the United States. Now I wonder how many people know how many stripes are on the flag and what they represent, or for that matter how many know who designed the US flag.

Next I would like people to stop and reflect on what the flag was to mean, what is it purpose. Was the flag purpose to be cause of imprisonment? Perhaps the purpose was to limit freedoms, such as freedom of speech or expression? Maybe the flag purpose was always to restrict liberties?

Now I know some might be thinking I'm being very silly here but honestly this is what I feel the attempt to make flag burning illegal is relaying to many different people across the world.

We know (at least I hope we do) what the flag truly was to represent and still is to represent: freedom and liberty, correct? The flag a symbol of those very important rights. It seems to me to make burning the flag illegal once again is to step on the very rights the flag is to represent. As a very wise man (Thomas Jefferson) once said "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."

In the present states of these times it seems very risky and downright wrong to allow any liberties to be infringed upon. Too many freedoms are slowly being restricted if not totally being disregarded. A true patriot would not want flag burning to be illegal regardless of their personal beliefs of the subject. See freedoms and liberties are not to be just how one wants them to be. Freedom and liberty is for all even for those that go against your thoughts and ideas. One cannot limit freedoms for some and allow them for other just because they are in agreement with yours. That is not freedom!!!!

Here's a bit of history on flag burning: 1897\Adoption of State Flag Desecration Statutes -- By the late 1800's an organized flag protection movement was born in reaction to perceived commercial and political misuse of the flag. After supporters failed to obtain federal legislation, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota became the first States to adopt flag desecration statutes. By 1932, all of the States had adopted flag desecration laws. In general, these State laws outlawed: (i) placing any kind of marking on the flag, whether for commercial, political, or other purposes; (ii) using the flag in any form of advertising; and (iii) publicly mutilating, trampling, defacing, defiling, defying or casting contempt, either by words or by act, upon the flag. Under the model flag desecration law, the term "flag" was defined to include any flag, standard, ensign, or color, or any representation of such made of any substance whatsoever and of any size that evidently purported to be said flag or a picture or representation thereof, upon which shall be shown the colors, the stars and stripes in any number, or by which the person seeing the same without deliberation may believe the same to represent the flag of the U.S.

1907\Halter v. Nebraska (205 U.S. 34) -- The Supreme Court held that although the flag was a federal creation, the States' had the authority to promulgate flag desecration laws under their general police power to safeguard public safety and welfare.

Halter involved a conviction of two businessmen selling "Stars and Stripes" brand beer with representations of the U.S. flag affixed to the labels. The defendants did not raise any First Amendment claim.

1931\Stromberg v. California (283 U.S. 359) -- The Supreme Court found that a State statute prohibiting the display of a "red flag" as a sign of opposition to organized government unconstitutionally infringed on the defendant's First Amendment rights. Stromberg represented the Court's first declaration that "symbolic speech" was protected by the First Amendment.

1942\Federal Flag Code (36 U.S.C. 171 et seq.) -- On June 22, 1942, President Roosevelt approved the Federal Flag Code, providing for uniform guidelines for the display and respect shown to the flag. The Flag Code does not prescribe any penalties for non-compliance nor does it include any enforcement provisions, rather it functions simply as a guide for voluntary civilian compliance.

1943\West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette (319 U.S. 624) -- The Supreme Court held that public school children could not be compelled to salute the U.S. flag. In a now famous passage, Justice Jackson highlighted the importance of freedom of expression under the First Amendment:

Freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order. If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion.

The very first federal flag desecration law was in 1968 in response to a highly publicized Central Park flag burning incident in protest of the Vietnam War. The federal law made it illegal to "knowingly" cast "contempt" upon "any flag of the United States by publicly mutilating, defacing, defiling, burning or trampling upon it." The law defined flag in an expansive manner similar to most States.

1989\Texas v. Johnson (491 U.S. 397) -- The Supreme Court upheld the Texas Court of Criminal appeals finding that Texas law -- making it a crime to "desecrate" or otherwise "mistreat" the flag in a way the "actor knows will seriously offend one or more persons" -- was unconstitutional as applied. This was the first time the Supreme Court had directly considered the applicability of the First Amendment to flag burning.

See what gets to me is that politicians knows how to pull at the heart strings of the American citizen and they do so with no shame at all. I hope that no one would want to go back to the era of Vietnam war when people were arrested for daring to practice their rights to protest and speak their minds. Freedom is for all not just a selected few and no one has ever said freedom was easy. True freedom means to sometimes have to hear and/or see things that they themselves would never be able to do. Freedom is not to limit all that another might find offensive, for what seems right to you might seem wrong to another.

So please I implore you to think a bit on this before allowing your nationalism to get the better of you, for isn't freedom what we all want?