Why Pledge Allegiance to the Flag?

On Facebook, I once added the page (group or whatever it actually is) called “Being Conservative” as a friend. They have a new T-shirt each week that I never buy. And they have interesting perspectives on current issues, again, some with which I do not agree. I typically avoid their polls, like one asking whether I thought it was OK that Obama skipped the traditional DC events on Memorial Day and instead did some lesser events where he went for some vacation. (I had mixed feelings, so I didn't participate, but I probably thought it was OK.)

But a week or so ago there was a new poll asking whether it should be a crime to burn an American flag. My answer was the road less traveled. “No” received less than nine percent of the votes. But for me, the only way burning an American flag should be a crime is if the fire itself is a crime. In other words, if the fire is not a crime, then the fact that there is an American flag in that fire is also not a crime.

I live in a country with a form of republican democracy (representative government) that allows all kinds of political speech — even speech that is in opposition to the existing power structure and popular thought. And while this country has a great flag to which we (virtually) all pledge our allegiance, it is not really the flag, but the country and its people that we support with our lives. When we get to the words in our pledge “and to the Republic for which it stands” we need to remember what it is that makes this republic unique — what so many died for so many years ago when we gained independence and in more recent battles defending it. And it had nothing to do with a flag.

Two of the more important things were the freedom to speak against the government without fear of retribution and to practice religion without government intervention to support one form over another. You and I may not understand the anger or frustration that causes someone to burn our flag as a statement that something is seriously wrong. We may not agree with the change that such people want or think they need. But if we simply deny them the ability to protest in this manner because it offends our sense of patriotism, then we have become the very government that Jefferson and Henry spoke against and Washington and others fought to allow that protest. We then become intolerant of the people who today stand in the place of the patriots of 1776. Those who are not heard because they are “far away” in political terms.

 I like the lines the writer gave to Michael Douglas in The American President:

You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can't just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the “land of the free.”

Yep. He was a liberal Democrat. But whether in movies, TV, or real life, while I find the politics of the conservatives (Republicans) preferable, there is often something missing in the area of connection with real people for the conservatives. We like to think that it is just Hollywood’s bias coming through. But too often, there is a “my way or the highway” attitude among conservatives that shows up where it ought not be. I do not deny that both sides are like this on their political policies and posturing. But conservatives too often seem simply mean.

Did we simply transfer our allegiance from the Union Jack to the Stars and Stripes? Or did our quest for freedom really mean something? Are we a nation that is tolerant of political expression, or are we Just 18th century England warmed over?