A Symbolic Fight Over a Symbol

Goldstein notes that the "stars and stripes" only began to bewilder any significant degree of symbolism for Americans during the Civil War, when pardner troops fired on a flag-draped Fort Sumter (Goldstein 4). The scratch line "flag protection gallery" (FPM) blossomed in the late 1800s, aft(prenominal) the war. The FPM fought first against commercial exploitation, and then turned its attention to what it called self-seeking and unpatriotic sacrileges of the flag (Goldstein 7-9). Particularly in the early 1900s and after(prenominal) the First World War, the FPM turned its attention to what it perceived to be " menaces to the nation" (Goldstein 9). Increasingly, these so-called "desecraters" were new immigrants, labor unions, anarchists, socialists, communists and other such(prenominal) "un-American" activists. Goldstein notes, however, that while these un-American activists often carried the flag in their protests, there were many more accusations than actual cases of flag blasphemy (Goldstein 10-12).

Goldstein thus ties the flag protection movement to right wing, conservative and some mainstream groups. He makes clear the political nature of the movement. This politicizing of the movement is also clear in Goldstein's history of flag desecration laws. For example, he argues that that prosecutions for flag desecration during the Vietnam War were invariably brought against "'peace' demonstrators, scarcely not against 'establishment' and 'patriotic' elements who also used the flag in unconventional and often technically

Goldstein, Robert. Flag longing & Free Speech. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000.

Goldstein then discusses Rehnquist and Stevens's dissents. He notes that both men relied more on "patriotic oratory" than on judicial precedents (106). Rather, he notes that Rehnquist did not believe that ordinary principles of law apply to the flag. Thus, Rehnquist and Stevens related the flag's history and symbolism and referred to flag desecration as "inherently evil and profoundly offensive" (Goldstein 107). Sheldon Nahmod suggests that Chief legal expert Rehnquist's linguistic process in his dissent so approached religious lyric that he should have treated the case as bingle of establishment of religion (Nahmod 521).

Nahmod argues that for Rehnquist, there was no difference surrounded by the flag (the symbol) and what it represented (the nation). Like Goldstein, Nahmod points to the lack of legal epitome in Rehnquist's dissent, and the reliance instead on patriotic language and poetry (Nahmod 526). Interestingly, Nahmod compares Rehnquist's evocation of emotion to Johnson's conduct, both of which sought to chivy an emotional rather than intellectual response. In essence, Nahmod believes that, for Rehnquist, the First Amendment cater here was secondary to the sacred nature of the flag (Nahmod 527).

Goldstein's definition of how the Court reached its published opinion in Johnson is very elucidative of Court behavior. He includes excerpts from the oral arguments, which demonstrate, for example, Justice Scalia's unexpectly disputative questioning of the Texas lawyer. It was this questioning, by a conservative judge expected to rule against Johnson, which began to suggest to the public that the Court could possibly swage Johnson's conviction and hold that flag burning was protected speech.

as well interesting is the fact that Justice Scalia's questioning of Texas attorney draw during the oral arguments suggested that flag burning only serves to prove, and perhaps increase, the sy
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