The Wrightwing

Recently, an Amendment to the Constitution was barely defeated. This Amendment would have authorized Congress to pass laws prohibiting the physical desecration of the flag.

The Text:

The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.

This would have been only the third time in U.S. history that the Constitution was used to oppress the rights of people under the jurisdiction of the Federal Government. The defeat was a good defeat, and hopefully this will not come up again. The upcoming elections in November will change the configuration of Congress, so that this will have less chance than ever of passing. At least it should if we have any respect for freedom.

Does anyone remember the two times violations of human rights were written into the Constitution?

The first time was at it’s very creation, and officially became law upon ratification on June 21, 1788 with that first and most egregious oppression of human rights, the Three fifths clause that institutionalized slavery in the US. The delegates knew that it would lead to conflict later on, but without it the slave states would not join a union, and fearing a division of strength in the face of the global powers of the day, not to mention the threat of mother England trying to regain control of her former colonies, the abolitionists relented.

And it did. A mere 73 years later, within the lifetime of many alive as youngsters when ratified, this bastard clause led to the Civil War in 1861. One of the bloodiest battles in history, the bloodiest in U.S. history so far, Antietam, occurred during that war. Wounds were created that still fester to this day, generations later.

The second time rights violations were written in was when Alchohol Prohibition was enshrined by way of the 18th Amendment. An attempt at human social engineering the world had not yet seen the like of in modern times, until the truth of the horrors of the Soviet and Red Chinese revolutions that were hidden at the time, saw light.

This rasp of idiocy led to a decade of violence, corruption and cynicism on the part of the American populace. It started the tear in the fabric of trust the public had in government, a tear that has grown ever larger as the decades since have rolled on. But we did learn one big lesson form that mistake. Never put these things into the Constitution, a lesson learned well by Franklin D. Roosevelt when he implemented his rape of the Constitution during his New Deal. A lesson learned by those that later went on to wage “wars” on Poverty, Drugs and Guns.

Both of these attempts to restrict rights through the Constitution led to violence and death. It could be argued that Prohibition still does, through the never abandoned idea that simply banning something potentially harmful, can make society all better.

What could be the consequences of a ban on Flag Burning?

The first erosion of the hard won victories in free speech, for one. After all, if we can ban something as offensive as flag burning some people, what can we ban next? Gay porn is offensive, so ban that. Next could be Heterosexual porn of certain genre’s and then of course all of it.

How about offensive political speech? I could certainly stand to see less of Rick “Gays ‘R Bad, mmkay?” Santorum, Ted Stevens, Cynthia McKinney, Jabba the Kennedy.

Those folks all spout stuff offensive to many, can we ban them next?

How about Intelligent Design nonsense? Can we ban that? No? Not enough support? Well Evolution then, that pisses a lot of people off.

What kind of response will we see from the population when more and more speech is banned as a desecration by more and more Amendments, provided the bother of further Amendments is even pretended. This would seem to be a perfect laboratory for the Law of Unintended Consequences. I, however, do not care to be a rat in that maze.

Flag burning is such an infrequent occurrence that to pass a Constitutional Amendment to ban it, it is clear, is nothing more than a cynical attempt to pander to the most rabid right wing ideologs in a manner that will intimidate the weak-kneed on the left to go along.

And it almost worked.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 3rd, 2006 at 7:29 pm and is filed under BillOfRights, Liberty, Politics, WarOnPeople. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.