Waving the flag and smothering the flame
Oh, that Bill Frist. What a dreamboat. When not evaluating a piece of animate produce via remote video on behalf of the national conscience, he's busy futilely trying to constitutionalize whom you can consort with and what you can combust, on the off chance that one of his Democratic colleagues up for re-election this year is politically autistic enough to vote "no" to either amendment and script his or her own attack ad.
As my hero Frank Rich wrote in his most recent New York Times column:
Still, "Asked on 'Fox News Sunday' if flag burning and gay marriage were the most important issues the Senate can address in June," according to the Associated Press, "Frist said the agenda will focus on securing the country and its values." And, the good doctor said, stamping out flag desecration "is important to our values as a people when we've got 130,000 people fighting for our freedom and liberty today."
Because bored teenagers in their anarchist phases and absent-minded patriots who leave their flags out in the rain are truly the scourge of the nation, much more harmful than its government wasting time, effort and tax dollars on measures pre-emptively doomed by polls and politicos alike in a transparent attempt to distract from its failures among rising costs of living and the commencement of hurricane season at home, and that pesky matter of the continuing state-sponsored carnage overseas to which Mr. Frist alluded.
Indeed, the fine ruling patriots who roll their eyes at things like gun control or energy regulation as un-American meddling by an alarmist nanny state but see no problem in preaching about imposing their paternalistic will on others' freedoms through this nation's founding document, wishing to use it for the first time to curtail rights rather than extend them, need to straighten their priorities.
Symbols in a democracy are by their nature ambiguous, conveying different messages to different sources. They command their power and serve their unifying purpose in a diverse society by being commonly recognized despite those conflicting interpretations, not by having a single interpretation mandated.
It's not by accident that this country does not have sacred symbols, and that we (blessedly) don't have to display portraits of our leaders in our homes. It's also no accident that amending the Constitution is set up to be so difficult–so that the vocal political forces of the day, be they neocon nutjobs or lily-livered liberals, can't use their tenure, transient also by design, to change the basic principles of government on their every point-scoring whim.
But true to 2004 form, some Republicans are hoping that all things flaming will trump such silly, practical concerns as economic survival and perpetual war at the midterm ballot box. Others are skeptical:
Never mind the opinion polls showing far greater majorities than it takes to win the presidency opposing both amendments: Many people in this country get absolutely incensed at the notion of making illegal immigration a federal crime–does anyone honestly think the masses would support tossing Zippo-happy citizens into federal prison for igniting a piece of fabric in political protest or democratic expression, or just to be good, vengeful American neighbors?
Granted, there are probably many more constructive and meaningful ways to go about any of those, and no one is going to say flag desecration is a fabulous thing and we should have more of it, but honestly–who does it hurt?
Oh, right–military veterans, proud Americans and their FEELINGS.
But in this post-modern, commodified culture in which everything is packaged and sold, patriotism is hardly an exception. And when you see Old Glory plastered on the bumper of a mammoth SUV that cuts you off in traffic, or undulating on a greasy tank top barely covering the bloated gut of some human-walrus hybrid lumbering down the street slurping on an ice cream cone he or she needs like another hole in the head, it's a little tough to swallow the grand and teary eyed arguments about the flag being a precious symbol of national pride and sacrifice whose purity must be defended from the highest echelons.
And as long as power remains concentrated among the likes of Bill Frist, essential democratic values face more of a threat than they ever could from a drunken malcontent with a book of matches.
As my hero Frank Rich wrote in his most recent New York Times column:
The current Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, has proudly put on this month's legislative agenda constitutional amendments to stop same-sex marriage and flag burning. "Right now people in this country are saying it's O.K. to desecrate that flag and to burn it," he said on Fox News last Sunday, though it's not clear exactly who these traitors are. A Nexis search turns up only one semi-recent American flag-burning incident – by a drunk and apparently apolitical teenager in Mr. Frist's home state, Tennessee, in 2005.The "Citizens Flag Alliance," which tracks flag desecration incidents to bolster its fight for the democratic right to protect the flag from those wantons who want to sully it with their sordid First Amendment right to free expression, lists several more, but at issue in most of the anecdotes seems to be that the flags being burned didn't belong to the unpatriotic pyros in question.
Still, "Asked on 'Fox News Sunday' if flag burning and gay marriage were the most important issues the Senate can address in June," according to the Associated Press, "Frist said the agenda will focus on securing the country and its values." And, the good doctor said, stamping out flag desecration "is important to our values as a people when we've got 130,000 people fighting for our freedom and liberty today."
Because bored teenagers in their anarchist phases and absent-minded patriots who leave their flags out in the rain are truly the scourge of the nation, much more harmful than its government wasting time, effort and tax dollars on measures pre-emptively doomed by polls and politicos alike in a transparent attempt to distract from its failures among rising costs of living and the commencement of hurricane season at home, and that pesky matter of the continuing state-sponsored carnage overseas to which Mr. Frist alluded.
Indeed, the fine ruling patriots who roll their eyes at things like gun control or energy regulation as un-American meddling by an alarmist nanny state but see no problem in preaching about imposing their paternalistic will on others' freedoms through this nation's founding document, wishing to use it for the first time to curtail rights rather than extend them, need to straighten their priorities.
Symbols in a democracy are by their nature ambiguous, conveying different messages to different sources. They command their power and serve their unifying purpose in a diverse society by being commonly recognized despite those conflicting interpretations, not by having a single interpretation mandated.
It's not by accident that this country does not have sacred symbols, and that we (blessedly) don't have to display portraits of our leaders in our homes. It's also no accident that amending the Constitution is set up to be so difficult–so that the vocal political forces of the day, be they neocon nutjobs or lily-livered liberals, can't use their tenure, transient also by design, to change the basic principles of government on their every point-scoring whim.
But true to 2004 form, some Republicans are hoping that all things flaming will trump such silly, practical concerns as economic survival and perpetual war at the midterm ballot box. Others are skeptical:
"Those are the issues that are dominating people's dinner-table talk," said Scott Reed, who managed Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign. Reed dismissed Frist's plan, saying: "If you're a gay who likes to burn flags, it's going to be a long year."As it's going to be for all of us who have to listen to this pandering rhetoric if it's allowed to keep masquerading as policy discussion.
Never mind the opinion polls showing far greater majorities than it takes to win the presidency opposing both amendments: Many people in this country get absolutely incensed at the notion of making illegal immigration a federal crime–does anyone honestly think the masses would support tossing Zippo-happy citizens into federal prison for igniting a piece of fabric in political protest or democratic expression, or just to be good, vengeful American neighbors?
Granted, there are probably many more constructive and meaningful ways to go about any of those, and no one is going to say flag desecration is a fabulous thing and we should have more of it, but honestly–who does it hurt?
Oh, right–military veterans, proud Americans and their FEELINGS.
But in this post-modern, commodified culture in which everything is packaged and sold, patriotism is hardly an exception. And when you see Old Glory plastered on the bumper of a mammoth SUV that cuts you off in traffic, or undulating on a greasy tank top barely covering the bloated gut of some human-walrus hybrid lumbering down the street slurping on an ice cream cone he or she needs like another hole in the head, it's a little tough to swallow the grand and teary eyed arguments about the flag being a precious symbol of national pride and sacrifice whose purity must be defended from the highest echelons.
And as long as power remains concentrated among the likes of Bill Frist, essential democratic values face more of a threat than they ever could from a drunken malcontent with a book of matches.
posted by Holly at 3:07 AM
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