EDITORIAL: The American flag continues to fly high despite desecration by protesters

The protest last weekend at Valdosta State University did exactly what the protesters wanted — it stirred up controversy.

By desecrating the American flag, trampling it underfoot, the protesters showed that whatever position they have, they were unable to construct the argument for their position in any other way than eliciting raw emotion. When a position is weak and untenable, that is always the preferred method. If you can’t argue in a reasoned way, make someone angry.

And few things get Americans angrier than seeing the symbol of our nation, the Stars and Stripes, trampled.

Longtime baseball fans will recall what some consider the greatest play ever on the field of professional baseball, one that didn’t involve the game itself. Protesters got onto the field in Los Angeles on April 25, 1976, and attempted to set a U.S. flag on fire in the outfield. Rick Monday, playing center field for the visiting Chicago Cubs, ran over and scooped up the flag, taking it to safety before the demonstrators could ignite it.

A similar occurrence took place in Valdosta when a military veteran and former Playboy model, Michelle Manhart, took the flag Friday from the demonstrators at VSU and was detained by law enforcement, then banned from the campus. Manhart, by the way, has her own history of misusing the U.S. flag, which she draped over her nude body for a PETA advertisement. While she has defended her photo shoot, including noting that the flag that she allowed to touch the ground was properly disposed of, that photo shoot also was a desecration of the U.S. flag, pure and simple.

The difference in the incidents at VSU last week and the one nearly 40 years ago in LA are last week’s demonstrators were — regardless of whether we like it — acting within the law, while the 1976 incident involved people who were trespassing. But there is a stark similarity in the results: Whatever message the protesters hoped to get out to the public has been swamped by the outpouring of revolt for their demonstration and a show of support for the flag. Nobody remembers was the bungling flag burners were protesting, they remember Monday’s rescue. Few know what the VSU demonstrators were protesting, but they know about Manhart’s reaction and the ensuing pro-American flag reaction.

And that is the way to protest this type of misuse of the American flag, not by making a form of free speech that is reprehensible illegal, but by countering that offensive speech by demonstrating support in an even more visible and more vocal way that also protected by the First Amendment — holding the American flag up high and rallying around it.

People are free to point out what they see as deficiencies in America, even in unpopular ways, and people are just as free to defend America. This is what separates American freedom from that of most other nations. And despite the occasional outrage free speech can generate, it’s a freedom brave American men and women have died to guarantee and one that we, as Americans, should be vigilant to preserve of our own future generations.