Toni Smith is a 21-year old member of the women’s basketball team of the Manhattanville College in New York. She is making the news these days, not apparently because of her jump shots (although they may be astounding), but because of her actions involving a pre-game ritual, the playing of the Star Spangled Banner and the solemnity of standing for the flag.

Ms. Smith is standing for the flag alright.

With her back to it, and with an intentional show of disrespect.

Not disrespect for the flag actually. Nor disrespect for the country it symbolizes.

Rather Ms. Smith is upset with the government of this country. She is upset with the people holding power in this country. She is upset with the policies of the people in power.

Without commenting on the political ideology of the people in power or of Ms. Smith, I propose an alternative that ought to please both Ms. Smith and those who jeer her and would like even to jail or exile her.

I think Ms. Smith is a patriot: that is, she loves her country, and her people. It is only the people in power with whom she has a problem (note I avoid using the word “leaders” with its weighty connotation). So how can she demonstrate her contempt for the people holding power in this country while expressing to others her love for her country?

The answer still involves showing disrespect to a flag, but not the one symbolizing this country. The flag, in this case, is the symbolic representation of the people in power in this government. The president has a flag that represents the office of the president. It makes use of the seal of the president fixed on a blue field, I believe. The Congress may have a flag that represents its institution as well.

So rather than turn her back on the flag of the United States, the Stars & Stripes, Ms. Smith can stand in honor of it while at the same time showing her disrespect and contempt for this nation’s president and the Congress. For while she stands in solemn respect for the flag of the United States, she can stand on the flag of the president—trodding her feet upon it—stamping on it in total disrespect and contempt.

She gets to make her statement against those holding power, and at the same time, let the nation know she holds nothing against its good people or symbol of liberty.

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Of course, there are zealous, incorrigible supporters to consider. Not supporters of this nation, nor supporters of the flag of the United States (though they will make the pretense).

They are the supporters of the people in power of this government. The solution proposed here for this dilemma will not be a pleasing answer at all to them. It is their express desire to make Ms. Smith submit to the will and ideology of her opponents, to kiss the feet of the president.

Normally there would be no need to concern ourselves with these brown-shirted ^* opponents of Ms. Smith. But because they support the people in power, and likely have the power to harass, intimidate, and persecute, or to influence those with that power, it is important to instruct these people about the United States Constitution and the history of this country. It is important to help Ms. Smith guard against any abuse of power which is intended to prevent her ability to disrespect and dishonor the flag of the president.

There will be some supporters of the people in power in this government, many with police powers, who will misinterpret laws that forbid citizens from making facsimiles of the seal of the president for the purpose of perpetrating a fraud. Ms. Smith will make the likeness of the flag of the president, bearing its seal, and her purpose will be to make a political statement using that flag. Her purpose is not to perpetrate a fraud, and they most likely understand that. But that will not matter to them. Their determination to harass and to intimidate Ms. Smith will be firm.

Naturally any harassment or intimidation of Ms. Smith or others who make use of materials to produce the symbols of the office of president for the purpose of political protest is unconstitutional, illegal (as an abuse of power), and immoral. The Supreme Court has ruled that shows of disrespect even to the Stars & Stripes, including the burning of it, is constitutionally protected, because the actions of those are intended as political protest. Those who intend to harass or to intimidate Ms. Smith, especially those under the badge and color of authority, should know that what they do is criminal, and should be made to answer for it as criminals.

It will likewise be criminal for any opponent of Ms. Smith’s to try to yank from her the flag of the president she uses in protest. First of all, that flag, or the likeness of it, is Ms. Smith’s personal property, and any opponent of hers attempting to take it away from her is guilty of a mugging, a larceny. In addition any opponent who pushes or strikes Ms. Smith in attempt to take the flag away from her is guilty of an assault. Any duly sworn peace officer who fails to arrest, and any prosecutor who fails to charge, an ideological opponent involved in such offenses committed against Ms. Smith’s person and property, does more to show contempt, disrespect, and dishonor for the flag of the United States of America than Ms. Smith may have ever done. This is a nation that abides by the rule of law...not the rule of the mob.

There will be some supporters of the people in power who claim that the president represents this country as much as the flag of the United States does, perversely trying to establish some sort of equivalence between the president and the Stars & Stripes. This childish attempt aside, there is no link between the glory of this country and the president now holding power over it. Presidents do not earn glory from assuming the office, but in distinguishing themselves in it. That is the point of Ms. Smith's action entirely. Any attempt to draw a comparison between the flag of the United States and the man in power is ludicrous and obtuse.

But more importantly, it would justify the action of Ms. Smith to show contempt for the flag of the United States, if it symbolized more than the glory of the country, if it symbolized the power and policies of those now running it. If the supporters of the man in power want to assert this nonsense, then they must accept a show of disrespect and contempt for any symbol of the man in power and of his policies.

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So at her next game, as she contemplates the fine points of the pick, as she keeps her attention to good form in free-throw shooting, I suggest Ms. Smith take the flag of the president and the Congress with which to wipe her shoes, and to tell the people in power and their staunch supporters that their ideas and policies are despicable, and wrong for this country.

^* The fanatical, zealous supporters of Adolf Hitler wore brown shirts and were, not surprisingly, known as Brown Shirts. [back]

Mavi Gözler
American Patriot

originally posted 20 October 2003
revised 31 January 2004