Judiciary HomepageMr. Speaker, I would appreciate it if my colleagues would not interrupt me until I am through because I would like to complete my argument.
I want to preface my remarks by saying there are good people on both sides of this argument. There are no good guys or bad guys here. A very respectable case can be made against the amendment. And it has been made by the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Conyers], the gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Skaggs], and other, without question.
But a very good case and, in my judgment, a better case can be made in support of the amendment; and we hope to do that. We hope we have done that today. I would like to introduce the gentleman from Illinois, [Mr. John Porter] my constituent, my friend, my neighbor, standing there clutching the flag to his bosom because next to him is the coffin of his 21-year-old son, Lance Cpl. Christian Porter, who died in Operation Desert Storm.
This picture speaks more eloquently than anything I could say; and I hope my colleagues will take a look at it and, if they get a chance, look at the eyes of the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Porter] and the gentleman standing by the casket.
Mr. Speaker, we are not alone in thinking as we think. We are not a bunch of yahoos, unlettered, unwashed jingoists. We have some pretty distinguished people who agree with us: Chief Justice Earl Warren, Justice Hugo Black, Justice Abe Fortas, Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice John Paul Stevens, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Justice Byron White. These people knew a little something about the Constitution.
And so this is not a one-sided debate at all. There is authority, there is scholarship on both sides of this issue.
Now there are two important questions in this dispute. First, is flag burning conduct imbued with speech and hence protected by the first amendment? Those of us supporting this amendment shout no to that questions despite a 5 to 4 Supreme Court decision in Texas versus Johnson in 1989.
I think the average person knows the difference between freedom of speech and vandalism. Almost any act can be called expressive speech. Blowing up a building can be expressive speech, urinating in public can be a political statement. Why, the courts have declared nude dancing and dial-a-porn services as free speech. To burn an object is to demonstrate one's contempt for it, not speech. It is the antithesis of speech. It is not a form of argument. It is an act of contempt for the very idea of reasoned argument. Flag burning is no more speech than a child's temper tantrum.
And to suggest that the Founders and Framers intended to protect such public displays of childish pique, to suggest that this is what the first amendment free speech clause protects is demeaning and it is degrading.
Free speech has never been absolute as our laws against libel, slander, copyright infringement, and so many more prove. By freedom of speech the Founders meant the freedom to make reasoned arguments about matters touching the common good. They did not mean a freestanding right to say anything on wants, any time and any place.
Freedom of speech is a freedom inherent in the dignity of the people, and the Government should honor it and protect it so that democracy might flourish. But democracy is possible only where a civil society can deliberate the common good freely, openly and publicly.
The notion that our highest value is self-expression has confused some of our leaders. What the highest court has done, by a margin of one vote, no less, is draw the line between speech and conduct at a point that maximizes expression, lest anyone's personal fulfillment be stifled. But America cannot long survive the selfishness of autonomous individuals as its highest value.
There is another value; that with our rights come responsibilities, a value well expressed and embodied in our national symbol, the flag. By reducing freedom of speech to yet another freestanding personal autonomy right, the Supreme Court has once again weakened the once strong fabric of our constitutional democracy and has once again struck a blow against the idea that it is a civil society, not merely autonomous individuals, that makes democracy possible.
As for the substance of the issue, to think seriously about flag protection and flag burning means thinking seriously about the nature of American democracy. The Founders and the Framers pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to a democratic experiment of self-governance that engaged the moral energies and the imagination of the people. Democracy for that generation of Americans was not simply a matter of procedures. Democracy was an ongoing test of a people's capacity to be self-governing. Democracy was not a matter simply of rights. It was a matter of duties with rights understood as the freedom to do what we ought, not simply what we like.
Procedural democracy, democracy reduced to an array of legal and political procedures, would have made no sense to Jefferson and Madison and all the rest. They were interested in the substance of democracy. They were interested in the Republican virtue that would make democracy possible.
As my colleagues know, to have a successful monarchy, all that is needed is a virtuous king. But to have a successful democracy, what is needed is a virtuous people. We look around this Chamber, we see the splendid diversity of America, we see men and women whose great grandparents came from virtually every corner of the globe. What holds this democratic community together? A common commitment to certain moral norms is the foundation of the democratic experiment, and just as man does not live by bread alone, human beings do not live by abstract ideas alone. Those ideas and ideals have to be embodied in symbols.
And what is a symbol? A symbol is more than a sign. A sign simply conveys information; a symbol is much more richly textured. A symbol is material reality that makes a spiritual reality present among us. An octagonal piece of red metal on a street corner is a sign. The flag is a symbol. Vandalizing a no parking sign is a misdemeanor. But burning the flag is a hate crime because burning the flag is an expression of contempt for the moral unity of the American people that the flag makes present to us every day.
I said there were two questions. The second question is why do we need this amendment now? Is there a rash of flag burning going on? Happily there is not. But I believe in my heart we live in a time of serious disunity. Our society is pulled apart by the powerful centrifugal force of racism, ethnicity, language, culture, gender and religion. Diversity can be a source of strength, but disunity is a source of peril. We Americans share a moral unity expressed so profoundly in our country's birth certificate, the Declaration of Independence. We hold these truths to be self-evident, Jefferson wrote, the truth that all are equal before the law, the truth that the right to life and liberty is inalienable and inviolable, the truth that government is intended to facilitate, not impede, the people's pursuit of happiness. Adherence to these truths is the foundation of civil society and of democratic culture in America.
And what is the symbol of our moral unity amidst our racial, ethnic and religious diversity? Old Glory, the Stars and Stripes, the flag. In seeking to provide the constitutional protection for the flag we are seeking to protect the moral unity that makes American democracy possible. We have spent the better part of the last 30 years telling each other about the things that divide us. It is time to start talking about the things that unite us, that make us all together Americans. The flag is the symbol, the embodiment of the unity of the American people, a unity built on those self-evident truths on which the American experiment rests, the truths which are our Nation's claim to be a just society.
Let us take a step toward the reconciliation of America and toward constitutional sanity by adopting this amendment. The flag is our connection to the past and proclaims our aspirations for the future. There may be no flags burning right now, but it is worthwhile to elevate our flag in our consciousness, to catch the falling flag and to hold it high as the embodiment of those ideals which we have in common. Too many brave Americans have marched behind it. Too many have come home in a box covered by a flag. Too many parents and widows have clutched that flag to their hearts as the last remembrance of their beloved one. Do not treat that flag with anything less than reverence and respect.
About 183 years ago during the British bombardment of Baltimore, Francis Scott Key looked toward Fort McHenry in the early dawn and asked his famous question. To his joy he saw that our flag was still there. And he might be surprised to learn that our flag is even planted on the Moon. But most especially it is planted in the hearts of every loyal American, and we should clutch it to our bosom, as John Porter does every day of his life.