Thursday, May 6, 1999 --- New York (APJP) -- For a real laugh, tune in to the Senate debates concerning the latest in a round of new neo-fascist legislation being offered in Congress: "The Flag Desecration Amendment" to the United States Constitution.

In an effort to torch no less than two landmark Supreme Court rulings that protect flag burning as "symbolic speech" protected by the First Amendment, Representatives -- and well-known morons -- Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA) and John Murtha (D-PA) have introduced HJ Res. 33 in the House. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has introduced a similarly inane measure, SJ Res. 14, in the Senate. If you are familiar with my commentary, you know that Hatch is one of the few GOP senators for whom I have maintained some modicum of respect -- until now!

The House of Representatives, controlled by exerminator Tom DeLay, whose only semantic or other differential from Hitler is his lack of a mustache, pushed a similar bill in the last Congress -- but he couldn't even get the votes in the House to bring it to the floor. Thank the Lord for the ineptitude of Newt Gingrich.

Of course, this resolution hasn't got a prayer, but it speaks loudly to the real lack of leadership -- wise leadership -- in both houses of Congress. Witness Orrin Hatch, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and a man who cut his own CD or religious songs -- and was annoyed that it didn't sell well when he failed to find competent distribution -- telling you that burning the flag shouldn't be a right protected under the Constitution, a document that only stands the test of time because of its free speech guarantees.

FROM: Brian Zick TO: Mr. MacArthur & The Editors DATE: May 6, 1999 Flag "protection" law and amendment proposals have made my head explode for several years now. My testimony in opposition was published in the legislative hearings record back in 1989. And I've devoted considerable thought to the notion since. I've concluded that it is, by fact of plain dictionary meaning, quite impossible to desecrate an American flag. I've posted a lengthy argument at the WGN web site. A "flag protection" amendment is intellectually equivalent to making 2+2=5 a constitutional principle. It is an oxymoronic impossibility. In brief, the point is that physical effacement or destruction is not at all a synonym for desecration. Indeed, desecration (according to Random House Unabridged, for example) means "to divest of sacred meaning," or, in plainer words, "show contempt," but the whole point of burning a flag (poorly conceived as it has always been as a means of communication) is to salute the principles of free speech dissent. A political display that embodies respect for the constitution, and the whole purpose of which is guided by First Amendment guarantees, cannot possibly be honestly defined as a display of contempt for the symbol. (And I can easily prove - and I show at my web page - that using scissors or fire or anything else to "destroy" a flag can be done in an act of patriotism so pure that even Strom Thurmond would recognize it.) So while in theory a constitutional amendment could be passed, no act of flag desecration could ever transpire for which any law could legitimately impose punishment. It should not go without notice that one of the very first pieces of legislation passed by the German Reichstag when the Nazis achieved their electoral triumphs in the elections of 1932 - even before Hitler was appointed Chancellor, a couple weeks later- was a flag protection law: RGB 1-I, 548, Statutory Criminal Law of Germany, passed December 19, 1932.

As former Senator John Glenn, a decorated war hero, told the Senate Judiciary Committee last week:

"I believe that the members of this Committee have a special responsibility to recognize that it would be a hollow victory indeed if we preserved the symbol of our freedoms by chipping away at those fundamental freedoms themselves."

So to all those conservatives who take read APJ, I have one message: don't waste both of our times writing to me and complaining that I don't love my country. I love it as much or more than most, and I devote much of my life to protecting your right to speak out against government and the men and women that run it.

The flag is a powerful and emotional symbol, but it is only that... a symbol of all the freedoms we enjoy in this nation. The debate is not between those of us who are snidely called "flag wavers" and those of us who are less vocal or visual in demonstrating our love for America.

We all love our country and respect our flag. But you cannot fly the flag and simultaneously stain its meaning.

Men like our fathers, uncles and grandfathers did not fight and die for a piece of cloth. They came home traumatized, crippled or in body bags for the values and principals that piece of red, white and blue cloth signifies and symbolizes.

For those of you who are not history buffs, be certain to prick up your ears when when one of your ultra-right-leaning cocktail buddies starts to talk about the "Founding Fathers" -- because you know what? The Founding Fathers did not include the Bill of Rights in the Constitution! It took tremendous effort to guarantee those first ten amendments -- and only one, the First Amendment, protects freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly.

Senator Glenn reminds all of us now in our early fifties that there was

"...not a single change when we were going through great national times of trials and tribulations and times of great emotion and anger like the Vietnam era, when flag after flag was burned or desecrated, far more often than they are today. Even during all that time, our first amendment remained unchanged and unchallenged."

If the men who introduce and support this kind of Constitutional Amendment were allowed to rule by fiat, you can be sure they would begin to dismantle the freedoms protected under the Bill of Rights. They would start with freedom of the speech, move on to the press and work their way down to freedom of assembly, already eroded in our big cities by borderline fascists like Mayor Rudolph "Barricades" Giuliani of New York.

If you aren't convinced yet to write your Senator and Representative, let me tell you what the backers of this twaddle tell me -- off the record. They are concerned, said one Republican source, that burning the flag could start a riot in this country of "right-wingers," and therefore flag burning must not be protected under the First Amendment.

In short, these bozos are trying to sell you with the argument that burning a flag is an incitement to riot!

Now that makes a lot of sense -- NOT! This is fearmongering of the worst kind -- these guys who are mucking with your freedom are telling you that you can't say anything that might anger the majority of people who hear it. So much for the minority who so often have alerted us to the truth.

If you think John Glenn doesn't have a sense of humor, read this tongue lashing he gave the GOP controlled "Judiciary" Committee:

"If Congress and States are allowed to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag, how precisely are we defining the flag? We do not have an official flag, as such, with an exact size, type, kind of ink, dyes, or fabric. There is no official flag, as such. So does this amendment refer to only manufactured flags of cloth or nylon of a certain size or description, such as the one we fly over the Capitol? Does it refer to the small paper flags on a stick we hand out to children at political rallies or stick in a cupcake at a banquet? Those flags are often tossed on the floor or in a garbage can at conclusion of an event. How about during the 1976 bicentennial when vendors were selling flag bikini swimsuits for women and boxer shorts for men?"

I couldn't have said it better.