The American Flag

2004-2023 | 19 years

Today is Flag Day, celebrating the anniversary of when the Continental Congress approved the design for the American flag on June 14, 1777. President Harry Truman signed a bill making Flag Day a day of “national observance” in 1949, but the holiday has been celebrated in some places since the late 19th century. The American flag is a strong symbol, and because it means so much to the American people, people not only use it to support their country, but also to protest it. This is usually done by hanging the flag upside down or burning the flag.

Whether or not the American flag should be legal to burn is a debate covered in the West Wing that continues to come up today. During the Vietnam War, the American flag was sometimes burned by protesters, causing the passage of the Flag Protection Act, which made it illegal to burn, or desecrate through other means, the American Flag in protest. In 1990 this law was struck down by the Supreme Court for violating First Amendment rights. A flag-burning amendment is brought up in the episode, and this is still something seriously being considered by politicians. On June 14th, 2021 Senator Daines introduced a Constitutional Amendment to prohibit flag burning to the Senate.

Those who are against flag burning argue it is a cheap stunt and disrespectful to those in combat who die wearing that flag on their chests trying to protect the liberties it represents, and that burning the flag is on par with killing a bald eagle. But those in favor of flag burning argue that the flag does not symbolize our freedoms, but is simply a flag, and that burning it is a good use of free speech to protest. Others take more of a middle ground, acknowledging that flag burning is disrespectful and there are better ways to protest while arguing a ban on flag desecration would go against the freedoms the American Flag stands for.

It has also been pointed out by some, like President Bartlet in an earlier episode where this issue came up, that flag burning is not that big of a problem anyways and that we are only wasting time and energy by putting so much emphasis on this issue in the first place. This is demonstrated in this week’s episode, In the Room, where magicians Penn and Teller burn a flag at a birthday party in the White House. This creates a media frenzy so large that it overshadows coverage of a China Summit with major international ramifications. The whole issue of flag burning only demonstrates how far too easy it is for our attention to be pulled away from critical political issues by controversial ones of lesser importance.