THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 16, 1995 TAG: 9507150015
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: Perry Morgan
LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines
Notes on the flag, the courts and down-home deadbeats who preach conservative values. . .
The House has passed a constitutional amendment allowing states to make it a crime to desecrate the flag. The vote speaks emotionally to deep patriotic impulses and, practically, to new heights of political silliness.
First of all, what does desecration mean? To ``treat as not sacred,'' says one dictionary. There are more treatments of that sort, most hardly noticed, than can be easily imagined. If the flag is sacred, Americans have been profaning it for a very long time. Some wear it on underpants and T-shirts; others dry themselves with towels imprinted with its image which, squirted on cakes, also goes down gullets. These uses mix slovenliness with affection and for the most part connote callousness.
They cannot be ignored, however, if legislatures are to say what desecrates and what does not desecrate after centuries of leaving questions of sacredness to religion and conscience. One understands, of course, that the House's real aim is elimination of deliberate acts of contempt, such as flag-burning. So, why not say so? Because if a specific act is prohibited, another way of showing contempt can be found. And another. And another.
The whole business is a fool's errand playing into the hands of the sort of exhibitionists many Americans would like to punish or at least restrain. People who burn flags want attention and cheap martyrdom. Imagine the leaping heart of a lout with a match as he contemplates his moment of fame on the evening news and then on appeal to the Supreme Court. Like wow! Now he can violate the Constitution, too.
No law or series of laws can compel respect for the flag, but ill-advised amendments can trivialize the Constitution. That document is more in need of protection from foolishness and political pandering than the flag is from disrespect.
There has been too much lamentation over the Supreme Court decision barring racial gerrymandering of congressional districts.
Contrary to some critics, the courts did not thwart a command of Congress that districts be drawn so as to ensure the election of minority candidates. Both political parties, to be sure, wanted that result and connived to achieve it - the Democrats as the party of minorities and the Republicans as likely beneficiaries of a process that could (and did) tip their way seats heretofore held by Democrats. But Congress never explicitly authorized making electoral districts into racial ghettos; it wouldn't have dared enact a process so thoroughly segregationist.
It merely winked as the Justice Department stretched beyond reason its enforcement powers under the Voting Rights Act. No matter to Justice that Georgia's 11th Congressional District was made to straggle 260 miles from Atlanta to Savannah, tucking in and pushing out to confine every black voter within reach. The contrivance of this and other districts achieved the aim of electing black representatives which was desirable enough considered alone. But the means were flawed and the victory hollow. Concentration of black citizens in a few districts reduced their influence in many contiguous districts, discouraged biracial coalitions and aided in the election of Republicans. The court pronounced on the constitutional defects of racial gerrymanders. The shortsightedness of them has been evident from their beginnings.
Orange County, Calif., is rich, conservative and a bad example of the Republican litany that virtue is vested in local government.
While playing the market, the county's former treasurer plunged it into bankruptcy. Orange owes $2 billion but will not willingly pay debt as it comes due. Asked directly to do so by adding a half-cent to the sales tax, voters refused, telling creditors to buzz off. The likely result of default by the richest of places is that municipalities everywhere will be punished with higher costs for borrowing.
Who will be the first Republican presidential candidate to head West and give Orange Countians the blessing-out they deserve for making a plague on others of home-grown arrogance and irresponsibility? MEMO: Mr. Morgan is a former publisher of The Virginian-Pilot and The
Ledger-Star. by CNB