Flag is a symbol, remember?

By Reggie Rivers

DenverPost.com

http://denverpost.com/rivers/ci_2806816

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.