For the record, the 1932 German flag protection law decrees: "Whoever
publicly profanes the Reich or one of the states incorporated into it,
its constitution, colors or flag or the German armed forces, or maliciously
and with premeditation exposes them to contempt, shall be punished by imprisonment"
- RGB 1-I, 548, Statutory Criminal Law of Germany. The statute was broadened
on June 28, 1935, to "protect" the German National Socialist
Labor Party and its symbols.
In 1973, Article 160 of the Criminal Code for the Republic of China
featured two component parts. Section I declared : " A person who
with intent to insult the Republic of China openly damages, removes, or
dishonors the emblem of the Republic of China or the flag of the Republic
of China shall be punished with imprisonment for not more than one year,
detention, or a fine of not more than 300 yuan." Section II
decreed: "A person who with intent to insult the founder of the Republic
of China, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, openly damages, removes, or dishonors his portrait
shall be subject to the same punishment."
The state law overturned by the U. S. Supreme Court in Texas v Johnson,
in 1989 - Texas Penal Code 42.09 - provided: "(a) A person commits
an offense if he intentionally or knowingly desecrates: (1) a public monument;
(2) a place of worship or burial; or (3) a state or national flag. (b)
For purposes of this section, 'desecration' means deface, damage, or otherwise
physically mistreat in a way that the actor knows will seriously offend
one or more persons likely to observe or discover his action." The
federal law, passed in the wake of Texas v Johnson by the 101st Congress
on October 28, 1989, was also rejected by the Supreme Court. Public Law
101-131, declared: "Whoever knowingly mutilates, defaces, physically
defiles, burns, maintains on the floor or ground, or tramples upon any
flag of the United States shall be fined under this title or imprisoned
for not more than one year, or both."
While one subsection to the federal law exempted "any conduct
consisting of the disposal of a flag when it has become worn or soiled,"
another declared "As used in this section, the term 'flag of the United
States' means any flag of the United States, or any part thereof, made
of any substance, of any size, in a form that is commonly displayed."
This language, intended to protect a frightened public from the menacing
evils for which the legislation had been drafted, could be seen rather
to conflict if the flag-related activity in legal question had anything
to do with the use of flag toilet paper.
The guiding theology of Nazi Germany was the Aryan premise of self-proclaimed
cultural superiority. The Nazis, asserting their supremacist views, appointed
themselves arbiters of national taste and propriety. They promoted the
alleged virtue of traditional "Volkisch" values. Hitler and his
various cultural protégés, Joseph Goebbels, Alfred Rosenberg,
Adolf Ziegler, and Wolfgang Willrich, to name but a few, dedicated themselves
to the fanatical waging of an "unrelenting war of purification against
the last elements of putrefaction in (their) culture." And any failure
to demonstrate an obligatory patriotic, artistic or even journalistic fealty
to the terms and conditions of Cultural Correctness in the Third Reich
was deemed a criminal offense.
Given the moment in time and the political conditions wherein it was
passed into law, the legal concept of flag protection served rather to
usher in the Third Reich, and the police state mechanisms of enforced cultural
conformity dictated by the fiction of Aryan supremacy. The government of
Nazi Germany was guided by themes of enforced Cultural, Patriotic, Artistic
and Sexual Correctness. And even a brief examination of statutory language
and political agendas betrays distinct parallels between self-proclaimed
cultural supremacy there/then and here/now.
Here I must digress, for a moment. One must always be careful when
making reference to Nazism, as the parallels commonly drawn usually rely
on inaccurate abstractions at best, and general association solely to the
Holocaust. But the implementation of Final Solution atrocities didn't begin
until 1939, and Hitler did a whole lot of damage before then (although
I can imagine certain prominent conservative minds actually believing that
had Adolf just not crossed that anti-Semitic line so forcefully he might
have been quite a splendid fellow after all). The point I hasten to make
clear is that degrees of abomination must surely be differentiated. The
degree of human suffering, say, in Ex-Yugoslavia has not been the same
as in the Holocaust. But the principle of genocide is indisputably identical.
Intellectual integrity mandates an honest recognition of identical character
in basic operative principle and idiosyncratic legal purpose, when such
sameness exists, especially when the similarities are so precise and incorporated
into statutory language, even though degrees of consequence may profoundly
differ.
It was a self-proclaimed cultural superiority that motivated Japanese
imperialism, for example, and led to that nation's involvement in WWII,
just as a supremacist mind set has currently motivated the competing fascists
in Ex-Yugoslavia. Yet differences exist, to be sure, between the particular
consequences of differing fascisms, in Franco's Spain and Mussolini's Italy
and Hitler's Germany and Hirohito's Japan and, more recently, Saddam Hussein's
Iraq. Not all fascisms are equal, in the sense that they are all literally
identical. Still, the basic operative ideology of self-proclaimed cultural
superiority must be recognized as the same motivating principle in all
these cases, however the attending abominations may differ in particular
character and degree of extreme. All easily foreseen negative consequences,
however they may differ in the specific, are nevertheless easily foreseen
negative consequences in general.
In this particular instance, the Republican Party, complicit as it
has been with many Democrats equally craven, arrogant and sanctimonious,
as they all wrap themselves in the flag and proclaim themselves Patriotically
Correct and thus culturally superior, has endeavored to pass a constitutional
amendment to "protect" the flag. Again, to be clear, and because
any reference to Nazi Germany invites valid skepticism, I do not assert
that any potential literal sameness, in degree of human suffering, would
necessarily attend contemporary legal constraints, parallel to those extant
in the Third Reich. I do submit that the same underlying philosophical
motivation, in abstracted legal principle, is indisputably at work. And
while I do not suggest that Republicans (or pusillanimous Democrats), who
favor a given set of laws idiosyncratic to Nazi Germany, are by associative
definition fascist, given the constant unmistakable squeals of self-proclaimed
cultural superiority which so relentlessly pierce the public air, there
can be no intellectually credible dispute that certain prominent features
of the conservative political agenda do indeed echo Aryan ideals.
The political efforts of contemporary cultural supremacists, in the
United States, have already included efforts to punish or otherwise discriminate
against, by force of law, artists, musicians, homosexual persons, immigrants
and others, whom the self-appointed culturally superior beings have charged
with a failure to dogmatically adhere to a unilaterally declared moral
standard of orthodox cultural convention. Abortion is equated with murder,
homosexuality is equated with child molestation, non-conformist art and
music is equated with obscenity; the mere absence of conformity to orthodox
conservative doctrine is described unvaryingly as criminal offense. The
ultimate goal, as one may extrapolate from conservative argument and reasoning,
is the literal imprisonment of everyone with whom conservative minds disagree
philosophically, be they doctors, artists, women who choose abortion, homosexuals,
or citizens who salute the flag in a manner lacking in conformist appeal.
Again, without putting too fine a point on it, Adolf Hitler was motivated
by the puritanical ideal of moral absolutism, and he too promoted criminal
punishment for the absence of cultural, artistic, sexual, and patriotic
orthodoxy.
Flag protection is a legal contrivance by which the absence of an Officially
Approved Patriotic salute justifies criminal punishment. As such it is
an exhibition of hyper-nationalism, a jingoistic assertion of cultural
supremacy. By inherent definition flag protection is synonymous with fascism,
and all that fascism represents in terms of both symbolism and substance.
Flag protectors pretty much have their minds made up, however, and they
will not likely be dissuaded by allegations of fascist motive cast against
them. They are used to it, for one thing, and merely deny it, in condescending
Orwellian paradoxical fashion; they rely for support on the blindness of
brain dead knee jerk emotionalism that inevitably surrounds jingo appeals
to "patriotism" (that is to say the typical über alles Sieg
Heil pledge of allegiance that history has witnessed before).
Particularly relevant as history may be, however, it is apparently
taboo for members of Congress (excepting the retired Pat Schroeder and
Don Edwards, so far as I know) or the press corps (excepting the late William
Kunstler acting as editorial commentator) to direct upon it any focus of
attention. The issue is debated exclusively in a historical vacuum, totally
voided of substantive context. And so the public, by and large, remains
ignorant of the ideological genesis of this proposition. Arguments in opposition
have adopted the limited and less than emotional tone of "why fix
sumthin' that ain't broke?"
It is true, of course, that the nation has not suffered any firestorm,
so to speak, of flag desecration. Fortunately most useful political protest
is much more articulate. But it is not common sense that motivates this
flag protection juggernaut, it is irrational emotion fueled by ignorance
and arrogant sanctimony. And self-proclaimed cultural superiority. I submit
that there is very little difference in narcissist arrogance between proclaiming
oneself a "Super Power" and proclaiming oneself a "Master
Race." Dog shit by any other name smells just as bad.