“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” — Voltaire
In his film, “The American President,” Andrew Sorkin’s protagonist, President Andrew Shepherd, addresses a news conference.
“Yes, I am a card-carrying member of the ACLU, whose sole purpose is to defend the Bill of Rights. You want free speech, let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil.
“The symbol of your country can’t just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms.”
Here, playwright Sorkin seems to be echoing Voltaire.
If these words sound familiar, it’s because this challenge to our democracy is ever present. Currently, the National Football League, thanks to Colin Keopernik, finds itself in a “brouhaha” over freedom of speech.
Sorkin puts his finger on the problem when he tells us that the protest/free speech lesson needs to be taught in our classrooms.
After 50 years of teaching, I am convinced that we have failed in this endeavor. We never, adequately, communicated the notion that free speech is one very important litmus test of a democracy.
I would like school Boards across the country to make it mandatory that anyone graduating from high school be able to understand and articulate what freedom of speech actually entails and that political protest is what makes America different from totalitarian states.
In 1984, Gregory Lee Johnson burned an American flag outside the Republican National Convention in Dallas.
In so doing, he violated a Texas statute making it a crime to desecrate a venerated object. A Texas court found him guilty and the case went to the Supreme Court.
Representing Johnson was famed attorney William Kunstler who argued that burning the flag was “symbolic free speech” protected by the First Amendment.
The court split 5-4 with Justice Brennan writing for the majority. In an earlier case (Tinker v. Des Moines 1969), the Court had held that wearing an armband to protest the war in Vietnam was also protected as “symbolic free speech.”
Two factoids: First, Antonin Scalia voted with the liberal majority upholding the idea of “symbolic free speech.” Second, we shouldn’t consider this “settled law” because, with Gorsuch on the bench, the new conservative court might not be inclined to affirm the Brennan decision.
The fight between the National Football League and the president started when the “Tweeter-in-Chief” said, “The issue of kneeling has nothing to do with race.”
Patently false!
When Colin Koepernik began his protest, it was because white police officers were killing young black men. Sounds like race to me.
Players and owners from many sports got into the act. The cover of the Oct. 2, 2017 edition of Sports Illustrated summed it up with the headline “A Nation Divided — Sports United.”
Behind it was a photograph of Lebron James and Stephen Curry, two basketball legends, arms intertwined.
What the president was arguing was that it was disrespectful not to stand and sing our national anthem. What the president meant was that Koepernik wasn’t being patriotic. So let’s examine that.
U.S. citizens are subjected to large doses of patriotism in our schools and elsewhere. What should we consider about patriotism?
Almost every classroom has a flag in it, and students “from sea to shining sea” say the Pledge to that flag.
We go to sporting events and sing, you guessed it, the National anthem. Major League baseball has even introduced the singing of “God Bless America” as part of the 7th inning stretch along with “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”
Sometimes, we are lucky enough to see a flyover by highly skilled military pilots.
We also see huge American flags carried by military personnel. All of these acts are designed to make us feel patriotic and to get our youth to enlist in the military.
These acts are subtle and taken for granted. And who pays for this? You and I do!
Since 2012, the Department of Defense has paid sports teams $10.4 million so that these displays of patriotism may be viewed. We equate patriotism with love of country and respect for its symbols.
For many, the idea of supporting flag-burning or “taking a knee” is more than any “red-blooded” American should have to put up with — Colin Koepernik’s rights be damned!
During the Vietnam War, supporters of that conflict were told to “love it or leave it,” meaning America had no place for dissenters.
There was no recognition of the fact that what our troops had fought and died for in many a war was this very precious right of protest. We are left with citizens who don’t know their history and who elect to high office others equally ignorant.
Voltaire must be turning over in his grave!
Dr. Hal Sobel
Great Neck
