Flag Is A Symbol, Remember?

Flag is a symbol, remember?

http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_2806816

(Gold9472: When I first heard of this, I thought to myself, "Hmmm... are they anticipating a lot of protests?")

By Reggie Rivers

The U.S. flag means a great deal to nearly all Americans. Military veterans have strong emotional ties to the flag as a symbol of their service; politicians believe that children will be better citizens if they pledge allegiance to the flag; most Americans would be outraged if a flag were desecrated in a public setting; and, after Sept. 11, the flag was a ubiquitous symbol of our national unity.

However, the flag is not without its problems. It seems that too many Americans have forgotten that the U.S. flag is merely a symbol of our ideals - it is not the actual embodiment of them.

Totalitarian leaders have been notorious for treating symbols as if they were real, arresting people who disrespected them. But in the United States, we enjoy broad political freedom partly because we separate symbolic activities from actual threats. If you want to cut out a picture of George W. Bush in The Denver Post and throw darts at it, the Secret Service will not arrest you.

However, in the case of the flag, the distinction between the symbol and reality is murky. Many people would rush forward and punch anyone who was harming a flag. Many Americans would react as if the flag were a small child that needed to be rescued, and that's not normal.

I believe many traditions are feeding our confusion about what the flag means and how much protection it needs.

This week, we observed Flag Day, June 14. It's a little odd to recognize a symbol in this way, but Flag Day by itself would be fairly benign. What's more troublesome is that we have a national anthem that is entirely about the flag; we pledge our allegiance to the flag itself; and the proposed Flag Desecration Amendment could turn symbolic acts into crimes.

Destroying your own flag would be like printing a big letter "S" and burning it. You wouldn't do harm to the alphabet by destroying this "S" nor would you harm any words that used the letter. You would do no harm to the English language, yet if you did the same thing with a flag, people would erupt in violence.

If a man in North Korea were arrested for stomping on a newspaper photo of Kim Jong Il, we would condemn his arrest as a form of political repression. However, if a man in Denver were arrested for stomping on a U.S. flag that he purchased at Wal-Mart, many of us would not recognize it as political repression. Many would say it's OK to arrest a man for harming a flag, because we've forgotten that the flag is a symbol.

The Christian Lord knew that humans were prone to this type of confusion, so his Second Commandment called for a moratorium on idol worship. We should heed this commandment.

Instead of amending our Constitution - as House Joint Resolution 10 and Senate Joint Resolution 12 seek to do - we should change our pledge. It should read: "I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America ... ." That way, our kids will pledge their allegiance to our ideals, not a cloth symbol.

We should also change our national anthem. The song's first verse - the only one we normally sing - is entirely about the flag. If you look at the lyrics and replace references to the flag with descriptions of Britney Spears, it is instantly clear that the song is about an object, not ideals.

The American flag is a wonderful symbol, and it is important for us to maintain it in our society. However, it's clear that the flag has become more important than the ideals that it symbolizes, so in the name of democracy, we have to shift our focus. We can't allow our loyalty to the flag to trump our allegiance to the Constitution.