GUEST COLUMNIST Week of March 15, 1999 |
LEGISLATING PATRIOTISM
by Nat Hentoff
FULTON'S COMMENTARY ON THIS ARTICLE: |
Nat Hentoff is a tireless defender of freedom of speech. He rightly issues a warning about proposals to make it criminal to desecrate the American flag.
However, the desecration of the American flag is not really an issue of freedom of speech or of patriotism, but one of property rights. If you purchase an American flag, then it is your property and you have the right to use and dispose of it any way you wish, even if it involves some morally disgusting use of the flag. However, if another person destroys, without your permission, your flag, then your property rights have been violated. Such destruction of property is properly outlawed in a society devoted to the protection of your right to life, liberty and property.
Notwithstanding Hentoff's apparent failure to understand the property rights issue, his comments are worth reading.
Fulton Huxtable
March 14, 1999
Copyright © 1999. All rights reserved.
