Dangerous Remedy

There are two possible explanations for President Bush’s decision to promote a constitutional amendment prohibiting vandalism of the American flag. Neither does the President much credit.

One is that the advisers who so adroitly manipulated the flag and other popular patriotic symbols during his campaign last year persuaded him to take what political advantage he could of the Supreme Court’s ruling that flag burning is a protected form of political protest. The other accepts his notion that the solemn compact by which this nation governs itself ought to change because Bush feels “viscerally” about the issue.

The First Amendment to the Constitution is the most majestic and flexible blueprint for the practical realization of fundamental human liberty ever devised. “Congress,” it says, “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

In the 200 years since Congress approved those words as the first and most important provision of the charter we call our Bill of Rights, the United States has passed through armed civil turmoil, foreign wars, global confrontation with aggressive totalitarianism and economic and social changes so profound as to have been unimaginable to the framers. Yet in all that perilous passage, no one, no matter how dire the press of circumstance, has found it necessary to alter the language of the First Amendment or to create a constitutional exception to its application.

Flag burning, with all its connotations of contempt for this country’s basic institutions and the sacrifices made to maintain them, is a particularly noxious form of expressive speech. It is, in fact, political pornography. This court, like others before it, has wisely held that tolerance of obnoxious speech is the irritating--but, in the end, not very burdensome--price we pay for that freedom which is the root of all others.

Cooler heads on both sides of the congressional aisle, like House Speaker Thomas S. Foley and conservative New Hampshire Sen. Gordon J. Humphrey, already have expressed skepticism about any attempt to alter the First Amendment. As outrage gives way to prudent deliberation, others doubtless will join them. The cynical, the opportunistic and the merely rash, however vocal, must not be allowed to have their way in this.

It would be a tragic paradox indeed if an attempt to protect the symbol of the American nation became, in fact, an assault on the most substantial foundation of its liberties.