First Principles

Local curmudgeon James Bennett has undertaken a mission here in Reno to purge or purify all the impure patriots in town. It seems that most flag displays used by local citizens are actually unpatriotic.

Bennett, who thinks that a federal advisory code on flag etiquette ought to trump the First Amendment of the US Constitution, has undertaken a local jihad against all those businesses and fellow citizens out there that dare to use Old Glory – or some representation thereof – in their advertising, on flag poles in front of their businesses, and even (gasp!) in a Veteran’s Day Parade!

[Teri] Ahlers will be part of Sunday’s Veterans Day Parade in downtown Reno, riding in a truck painted like an American flag and handing out 2,000 small American flags. “Our truck is a big American flag,” said Ahlers, general manager of eight A-American Self Storage facilities in Northern Nevada. “You can’t miss it.”

But Bennett, an 81-year-old Air Force veteran, probably will. “I’ll stay the heck away from it,” Bennett said of the parade. “They’ll be doing it wrong.”

Bennett dislikes the way flags are flown at A-American and many other businesses in Reno and Sparks. He said the displays are disrespectful and violate federal code. “There’s a lot of people doing a lot of things wrong,” said Bennett, his voice getting louder and angrier. “They’re not ‘smiley faces.’ They’re American flags. They represent a living country.”

According to the Gazette-Journal, he also says that “even decals are not the proper display of an American flag,” and that “wearing a flag pin on the left lapel is the only way to show patriotism.”

Well, now. I didn’t serve 6 years in the Navy so I could have some pious self-righteous hypocritical control freak tell me how I’m allowed to show my patriotism. I’ll show it any damn way I please, and in light of all the America hating hippies out there, I’m just as happy to see MORE Americans display their pride in our national symbols in as many creative and proud ways as they can think of, not LESS.

There’s nothing more American than capitalism, no more profound symbol of our freedom or the prosperity such freedom brings than an American entrepreneur. If they’re a patriotic entrepreneur, than so much the better! I love being in American themed bars, surrounded by people attracted to that advertising because they love America as much as I do. What’s wrong with American symbolism being infused in our pop culture or economy in a way that screams pride and exceptionalism?

I wonder if Bennett refuses to buy anything with an American flag on it that says, “proudly made in the U.S.A”? That, too, is advertising. What’s ironic is that if he had his way, we’d have FEWER displays of patriotism in this country instead of more.

The truth is that Americans have been using the flag in creative (and commercial) ways for the entirety of the existence of the Republic. I’ll bet my next paycheck that the vast majority of veterans from any war don’t give a hoot or a holler if a bar has an American theme and flies the flag from its wall, nor do they take offense if car salesmen appeal to our patriotism.

Unfortunately, Mr. Bennett will get a lot of support from people who think of themselves as conservative, and he will be held up as an example to the elitist left (who think badmouthing the US in a time of war is the “highest form of patriotism”) of how “dangerous” and controlling “patriotism” is.

But the truth is that this kind of nosy pushiness is very much un-conservative. If conservatism is the respect for the sovereignty of the individual, then this kind of narrow-minded self-appointed (and unelected) arbiter of how one should and should not show their love of country is offensive to conservatism.

(This is, of course, different from the hippy protester who burns the flag, complains that America is the root of all the world’s evils, hopes for American defeat in Iraq and elsewhere, and then complains about people impugning his patriotism. Patriotism is the love and reverence for your country, and it’s impossible to be patriotic if you think the USA is such a rotten place.)

It is one thing to seek to control someone else’s behavior when that behavior will impact your own life. And appealing to people merely through a persuasive argument or even through peer pressure to choose a more civilized or restrained form of expression is perfectly legitimate. Mr. Bennett is even free to attempt to use market forces to bring about compliance with what he thinks is the “right” way to honor our nation by boycotting businesses he thinks “overdo” their patriotism, and to convince others to join him.

But it is quite another thing to seek to control behavior or expression by invoking penalties under the law for no other reason than that someone somewhere finds it offensive. (Isn’t this the way of the PC Police that Conservatives have been rightly condemning for years?) And by brandishing the US Code when he visits local businesses, Mr. Bennett is doing exactly that. (Never mind that his “laws” aren’t enforceable – he thinks they are, and no doubt does his best to convince others that he is correct.)

It’s only half a step removed from using actual violence to enforce these social mores. And when this becomes acceptable, we live in either chaos or tyranny. Neither are acceptable to a Conservative, or to the Constitution of the United States of America he hopes to conserve.