On Flag Burning

I was 14 years old the day I made a rude discovery in a UA theater at the Topanga Mall in Canoga Park, CA. Apparently, if the movie theater isn't on a military base, they don't play the Star Spangled Banner before the previews start. So when the theater darkened at the beginning of Back to the Future, I was the only rube that got up and put his hand over his heart in anticipation of what had thus far preceded every single movie I'd ever seen. I sat back down, feeling an equal mix of embarrassment and dismay.

The embarrassment for obvious reason, I suppose. But the dismay was because I thought that we were all in this together, and I discovered that only me and the other military-brats had been saluting Old Glory before The Breakfast Club, Karate Kid, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. I had always believed that we were on the same page; in fact, didn't even know there were other pages to begin with. That was a nice little life when I actually believed that.

It's never been more obvious to me than today that we are not on the same page. In fact, I'm not even sure we're in the same book anymore. After growing up in a military home, roaming from town to town and base to base—where the Anthem, Reveille, and Taps were a routine part of everyday life—the idea of burning our nation's flag is abhorrent to me. Like being in a room full of people that are making fun of my Mom, and I'm just supposed to sit there and take it. I know that the sense of patriotism that I was raised with isn't en vogue anymore, just like I know that the government that's ruling my country doesn't deserve the kind of ardor that the Stars and Stripes generate in my heart, or the lump it puts in my throat. Mark Twain said it best: "Patriotism is supporting your country all of the time, and your government when they deserve it." I think it's been a while since they deserved it.

Even so, I'm against the idea of punishing people for burning the flag, for the same reason I'm against my faith being the law of the land: I don't believe you can legislate things like morality or a love of country into existence. I don't want the Bible to be the law of the land, but the law of our hearts, and I don't want the symbol of our country to be sanctified by law, but by the strength of our allegiance to a government that deserves it.

You've read all the commentaries and Facebook diatribes on the First Amendment; about whether flag burning should be protected speech, which it currently is. Oddly enough, the staunchest defender that the flag-burners ever had was the recently-deceased uber-conservative judge, Antonin Scalia, who also hated the burning of the flag. But he was immovable in the belief that it is part of the expression of free speech, reasoning that the Founders saw fit to enshrine the First Amendment rights first because they held them the dearest. Echoing the Founders, Scalia believed that the right of free expression in speech, religion, and assembly are the best defense against bad government.

Everybody loves those lofty beliefs on the 4th of July with a side of Mom's apple pie, just like everybody's a fan on Super Bowl Sunday. I mean, who doesn't whistle Yankee-Doodle-Dandy when the fireworks are going off? But it takes a more robust belief to remain dedicated to defending the rights of people to scream from the public stage words that make your blood boil, and ideas that you'd spend your entire life resisting.

Can you imagine what it felt like for JK Rowling to defend Donald Trump's visit to the UK, then? To rebuke her own fans and supporters, insisting on hearing Trump out? He is anathema to everything she stands for, believes in, and writes about. Still, she weathered a storm of criticism from all the people who claimed that they loved freedom—even as they tried to ban Trump's very entry into their country—because she actually believes in freedom. Not just freedom for people she likes or agrees with. For everyone. And if you want to sing about the land of the free and the home of the brave, you'll have to have that kind of fortitude, too.

I'm sorry that America represents such advanced citizenship. That it requires you to have more than one emotion at a time and more than one thought in your head. It requires a nuanced intellect and emotional complexity to care more about an idea than about an event. Because as much as I love her, nobody ever died for Old Glory. They died for the Constitution, which protects people's rights to do all kinds of things, many of which you're going to hate. They died for the idea of America, not its symbol.

So if a dyed-in-the-wool, proud-as-hell military-brat like me can watch some disrespectful piece of shit burn the flag that I love in a senseless paroxysm of self-serving, masturbatory outrage, so can you. Because the only way to be sure that you'll always be free to say that the President is a Muslim terrorist, homos are going to hell, and darkies belong in the back of the bus, is to be sure that everybody can wear a hijab and smoke a doobie while they burn the flag if they goddamn feel like it. 
                                                     
                                                                                                                                                                   
Freedom is one-size-fits-all. Sorry about that.