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 Editorials | Opinions | November 2006 
Is It Patriotic To Act Un-American?
 Erik Gable - Daily Telegram
Have you ever noticed that the people who are most vocal about waving the American flag are sometimes the most likely to ignore what it represents?
Case in point: the town of Pahrump, Nev., which on Tuesday enacted a law making it illegal to fly another country’s flag unless the American flag is flown above it.
That’s right — if you live in Pahrump, you’d better not hoist an Irish flag in your yard on St. Patrick’s Day. Otherwise, you could be slapped with a $50 fine and 300 hours of community service.
(It’s unclear whether folks who want to fly the confederate flag will be in trouble as well. After all, it used to be another country’s flag, even if it isn’t anymore.)
Pahrump’s ordinance would be completely laughable if it weren’t for the number of people who seem to think it’s a good idea — apparently laboring under the misconception that the constitutional guarantee of free speech applies only as long as no one’s delicate sensitivities are offended.
Apologists will no doubt come up with the usual array of pathetic excuses. Flying a flag doesn’t technically count as free speech, because it doesn’t involve words coming out of anyone’s mouth. (Don’t laugh, I’ve heard variations on this argument used before.) Or they’ll make lame comparisons to laws against yelling “fire” in a crowded theater, ignoring the fact that yelling “fire” places people in actual danger, while flying a flag in your yard — last time I checked — does not.
If you strain hard enough, you can justify just about any absurdity as being a compelling enough cause to justify limiting the exercise of free speech — like we do when we outlaw yelling “fire” in a theater.
But here’s the question. Why would you want to?
If you feel so strongly about patriotism that you can’t abide seeing another country’s flag without the American flag flying above it, shouldn’t you also care about the principles that flag represents?
It’s perplexing.
Of course, I doubt you’d get fined for flying the Irish green, white and red in honor of St. Paddy’s Day. This law was really aimed at people who fly a different green, white and red flag: the one with the seal of Mexico in the middle.
“All of the illegal alien protesters are waving Mexican flags, and we just got tired of it,” town board member Paul Willis told Reuters.
Well, gee. “We just got tired of it.”
I’m tired of talk-radio blowhards, cable TV pundits and Paris Hilton. Think we can get a law passed outlawing those?
Oh, wait, that’s right. We can’t — because we live in America.
What makes people who are otherwise such devoted patriots so quick to forget that?
Erik Gable, news editor of The Daily Telegram, can be reached at erik@lenconnect.com. |
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