July 01, 2005

A day after championing passage of the flag desecration amendment in the House of Representatives as a victory for mom, apple pie, and the American way, conservative radio talk show hosts took to the airwaves and chastised the United States Supreme Court for its decision upholding the power of cities to take private property for private development projects. This decision, according to many conservative hosts, is an assault on private property and the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution for the United States. Apparently, conservative talk show hosts have been blinded by the red, white and blue and cannot distinguish one assault on private property from another. Since the flag desecration amendment, at its core, is nothing but an assault on private property under the guise of patriotism, their commentaries on the relationship between private property and freedom went from historical fact to constitutional hypocrisy.

The right to private property is rooted in English Common Law and was characterized by the Founders as a "natural right." The word "natural" is derived from a body of law known as "the laws of nature." The tenet of this body of law is that people have God-given (endowed by their creator) rights that exist independent of government or any written constitution. Since government did not create these rights, government cannot take them away. One of the core principles of this body of law is the right to own and dispose of private property.

In 1772, four years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Samuel Adams composed an article entitled "Rights Of The Colonists." Adams wrote the following concerning the unalienable or natural rights of the people:

"Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can."

"The absolute rights of Englishmen and all freemen, in or out of civil society, are principally personal security, personal liberty, and private property."

As stated by Adams, the right to private property is an unqualified or absolute right. The Founders considered private property to be the foundation of liberty. In fact, personal liberty cannot exist without the right to acquire, possess, and dispose of private property.

This takes us to the flag desecration amendment. Under present law, both state and federal, it is illegal to remove a flag from city, county, state, or federal property and desecrate or damage it in any way. By the same token, it is illegal to remove or desecrate a flag that belongs to your neighbor or the business down the street. That leaves us with only one class of flag---your flag.

The flag desecration amendment is a private property issue. If an individual goes to a store and purchases a flag, does the flag belong to the federal government, the American people, or the individual who purchased it? The answer is irrefutable. It constitutes private property and belongs to the individual who purchased it.

The federal government wants to take private property, that is legal to acquire and possess, and give itself the power to criminalize how an individual uses his property even though the individual's conduct does not cause bodily harm or damage the property of another individual. When an individual desecrates his flag, the only victim is the fool who damaged or destroyed his property.

Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the proposed amendments chief sponsor in the Senate called flag desecration "offensive conduct." The Constitution does not grant the federal government the general power to penetrate the borders of one of the United States and punish personal conduct politicians find offensive. As stated by the United States Supreme Court in a 1990 case involving flag burning and the First Amendment, the federal government lacks the constitutional authority "to prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable."

The Congress of the United States wants to turn the Constitution on its head and take a document that was written to define and limit the powers of the federal government and use it as a weapon against the American people to acquire more power under the banner of patriotism. In essence, the federal government wants to use the Constitution to criminalize the private use of private property.

Under the Constitution, as written by the Founders, the federal government does not have any general authority on private property within the several States. If the flag amendment becomes part of the Constitution, Congress intends to use this power to come on your property and prosecute you if you desecrate a flag on your property. Thus, Congress will convert the innocent use of private property, on private property, into a crime with the result being a potential loss of liberty.

Every time government acquires more power, the American people lose more freedom. It doesn't matter if the property is the flag you bought from the hardware store or the house you call home. If the federal government acquires the power to control the harmless use of private property within the several States, then freedom and our constitutional system of government will be on the brink of annihilation.

Conservative talk show hosts, if they are going to retain any creditability on the private property issue, need to strip away the red, white and blue and stop engaging in constitutional hypocrisy. They should step-up to the microphone and inform their listeners that even though they find flag desecration offensive, the proposed amendment is nothing but an assault on private property disguised as patriotism.

Note: as this article was being written, a pair of Florida teenagers were charged with arson, under Florida law, for burning five United States flags at homes in a subdivision and a sixth at its clubhouse. The teenagers could be prosecuted because the flags constituted private property and, as stated in this article, it is already a crime to damage someone else's flag. Thus, the flag of the United States already enjoys a high level of protection. This story can be reviewed here.

If you are interested in finding out more about the Constitution, take a look at this book. I use it in many of my articles and it is the best book I've found on this subject. Bob

The Federal Government: Its True Nature and Character: Being a Review of Judge Story's Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States.

Reprint of the 1868 edition. ''Perhaps the ablest analysis of the nature and character of the federal government that has ever been published. It has remained unanswered.'' This review of Judge Story's Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States is perhaps the ablest analysis of the nature and character of the Federal Government that has ever been published. It has remained unanswered. Indeed, we are not aware that any attempt has been made to challenge the soundness of its reasoning. The great vise of Judge Story and the Federalists consisted in desiring the clothe the federal government with almost monarchical power, whereas the States had carefully and resolutely reserved the great mass of political power for themselves. The powers which they delegated to the federal government were few, and were general in their character. Those which they reserved embraced their original and inalienable sovereignty, which no state imagined it was surrendering when it adopted the consitution. Mr Madison dwelt with great force upon the fact that ''a delegated is not a surrendered power.'' The states surrendered no powers to the federal government -- they only delegated them. 160 pages.

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