Without a doubt, politics makes strange bedfellows.
In other words, the effort to get what one wants occasionally requires cozying up with someone who he might not normally agree with or care for.
What’s the point?
A recent student protest celebrated the Second Amendment, but the use of a Confederate flag in communicating the message missed the point.
Let's say an organization wants to defeat efforts to bring casinos to Arkansas because the organization opposes gambling across the board. Their success might require them to, at the least, be on the same side as a horse racing track in Hot Springs or a dog racing track in West Memphis, both longtime establishments that involve wagering on an unpredictable outcome. The racing interests generally work to defeat any ventures competing for gamblers' dollars.
What's the lesser of the two evils -- work with existing gambling interests in opposition to gambling's spread or, as a matter of principle, go it alone and potentially lose the fight to contain gambling's proliferation?
Defenders of the First Amendment have had ample opportunity to share similar experiences. The fact is most major free speech cases involve defending speech that is offensive and stomach-turning. Shielding the concept that American speech ought to be protected from government intrusion has forced advocates to stand in the corner of people like Larry Flynt, publisher of Hustler magazine, when Jerry Falwell attempted to quash Flynt's satirical fun-poking at Falwell's expense. And First Amendment advocates have had to defend the rights of racist organizations to protest just like any other organization of Americans.
In such cases, defense of a principle supersedes the offensiveness of whatever was actually said or written.
This is what inspires the oft-repeated phrase, "I don't agree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it," sometimes attributed to Voltaire, although that origin remains disputed.
Such thoughts came to mind a week ago when a small collection of Bentonville High School students spent a few hours skipping school so they could orchestrate a demonstration across the street from the school. Their efforts coincided with a national movement dubbed "Stand for the Second," in which students were encouraged to walk out of school in support of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The movement is no doubt a response to student protests earlier this year in Bentonville and in communities across the country in which students walked out of school as a show of unity for gun laws and the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. That's where a former student opened fire back on Valentine's Day, killing 17 and wounding 14 others.
The more recent protest in Bentonville was far smaller, which is neither here nor there because, last we checked, right and wrong isn't necessary determined by how many people take to the streets. Here were students expressing themselves and advocating for the right to keep and bear arms, a subject they apparently feel strongly about. Most of the students identified themselves as hunters, but self-defense was also cited as a reason for gun ownership.
Like those students who participated in the March for Our Lives walkout, these gun advocates also faced disciplinary action from the school district for unexcused absences from classes. We're glad to hear that. Fair is fair, and it would be the height of hypocrisy for the Bentonville School Board to shield these students when the board was so adamant the pro-gun regulation crowd that walked out in March should face disciplinary action.
The school board caught flak for standing firm, requiring detention for the missed classes. Some school districts embraced the March for Our Lives walkout and did not discipline students. Bentonville School Board members, however, said they didn't want an approach in which the school district favored some causes and not others. The fairest approach, they suggested, was to enforce detention for unexcused absences, period. It's hard to argue the fairness of evenhanded application of a policy.
Our hope then, and with the more recent, smaller demonstration, is that students learned civil disobedience or protest sometimes comes at a cost. Affecting change isn't always easy or popular. Students who face discipline but who make their stand are deserving of praise, whether one agrees with their position or not.
Which brings us to the particulars of the most recent demonstration. These earnest young people wanted the world to know of their support for the Second Amendment. So they protested on a street corner. And they waved flags.
A couple of the flags featured the "Don't tread on me" slogan that originated in the American Revolutionary War. OK.
But the head-scratcher was the energetic waving of various facsimiles of the battle flag from the Confederate Army of the U.S. Civil War. What, exactly, does waving that divisive symbol have to say about the Second Amendment?
There are plenty of gun-loving Americans who would be appalled at the waving of that banner, often viewed as an expression of racism in the 21st century. Sure, some people claim the flag represents their Southern heritage, but what part of their heritage, exactly, are they celebrating with the Southern Cross?
It's free speech, right? Indeed, but if these students were to take, say, a debate class, they might learn a little something about confusing one's message and how to avoid such strange bedfellows. The presence of Confederate flags at a Second Amendment protest blurs the protest's meaning.
One student suggested waving those flags was an exercise to show no one could take away their right to wave said flag. In so describing the effort, he made a common mistake: A celebration of free speech does not require one to adopt a banner solely because it's an offensive symbol some people oppose. Under the student's logic, the flag could have just have easily featured a swastika, or maybe the star-and-crescent symbol often used to represent Islam, or why not the white-blue-red flag of Russia?
As much as we applaud students being active in issues that concern them, it's important to note the Confederate battle flag doesn't celebrate free speech. Waving it makes use of our free speech rights, but the flag itself does not represent free speech. It conjures up a lot of emotional messages, but free speech isn't one of them. If one's point is preservation of the Second Amendment -- which, by the way, is in the Constitution of the nation the Confederacy formed to defeat -- waving these flags is a terrible way to deliver the message.
Commentary on 05/12/2018