In 1991 I wrote a book titled “I hold These Truths.” It contained 90 chapters of my opinions on 90 subjects. It went through four printings and has long been out of circulation. I re-read it last weekend, and was surprised at how good a 21 year old book can be. For the next few columns, I am going to print some of these chapters. Maybe I should re-print it. This is chapter 37.
It’s all the rage now! Burn baby burn! The highest court in the land has said it’s O.K. I beg to disagree, honorable justices.
The Court’s opinion is that burning an American flag is simply a way of ’expressing ones self,’ and therefore comes under the purview of the First Amendment, guaranteeing freedom of speech. At the same time, even the Supreme Court would probably rule that shouting “FIRE” in a crowded theatre, is not freedom of speech, but a crime.
I’m all for freedom of speech, but how does flag burning, have anything to do with speech? Lighting a match and incinerating an American flag, requires no speech at all. The highest court in the land has been legislating far too much and often. Its job isn’t to decide what is good or bad, depending the political persuasion of the justices. The Supreme Court is to decide what is Constitutional, or not Constitutional. All very simple. Their personal opinions have absolutely nothing to do with it, or shouldn’t anyway. How far they have gotten from their assignments.
If the Congress wants to pass a law forbidding the burning of American flags, that is a Constitutional act. It has nothing whatsoever to do with freedom of speech, press, religion, or freedom of any kind, as covered in the Bill of Rights. No one being legally denied the right to burn the highest symbol of this land, is being denied the right to free speech. He is being denied an ACT which happens to be offensive to most. Laws prohibit public defecation, nudity, intercourse, incest, and even adultery in some places. Laws prohibit speeding, driving on the wrong side of the road, burglary, theft, fraud, and making a nuisance of ones self by playing a radio too loudly. These actions are prohibited by law, and the Supreme Court has never denied the legislature the right to enact and enforce such laws or prohibitions.
Burning a flag is an ACT, not a speech, and has nothing whatsoever to do with any Amendment, much less the First. Maybe their honors should reconsider the issue, unless a physical act can be considered speech, in their often befuddled minds. If it is O.K. to burn flags, is it also O.K. for the Ku Klux Klan to burn crosses? Please rule on this your Honors.
P.S. Yesterday, the befuddled minds of the conservative wing, plus Justice Kennedy, ruled in exact opposition to our Constitution, when they ruled that it’s just fine to strip search anyone who is arrested for any reason. Walking your dog without a leash? Burned out tail light on your car? You might be strip searched, and it’s O.K. with the Supremes. Please allow me to quote part of the Fourth Amendment of our Constitution, and you decide if they’re correct. “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated…” What is happening to America? I can’t decide whether I am outraged or depressed at the Court’s latest mistake, this time on the part of the conservative sector.