Editorials
Monday, April 13, 1998

Ban on flag-burning
should be defeated

TWICE in recent years Congress has come close to approving a proposed constitutional amendment banning desecration of the flag. The issue is again at hand, but nothing has changed. It's still a dangerous idea.

Last June the House of Representatives approved the proposed amendment by a large margin, 310-114, with Hawaii Reps. Neil Abercrombie and Patsy Mink opposed. It is now before the Senate Judiciary Committee. In 1995 a similar resolution fell three votes short in the Senate of the required two-thirds majority for a constitutional amendment. The margin in the House last June was 27 votes more than two-thirds. The House approved the resolution in 1995 on a 312-120 vote, or 72.2 percent.

The Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on the proposed amendment, which is sponsored by Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, in mid-May and the full Senate on or about Flag Day, June 14.

The current version of the amendment would permit only Congress, rather than Congress and the states, to pass flag protection laws. Some opponents had argued that the 1995 measure could have created a hodge-podge of different state laws.

The proposed constitutional amendment is an attempt to nullify Supreme Court decisions in 1989 and 1990 striking down state and federal flag desecration statutes. In those decisions, the court held that desecration of the flag is a form of political expression protected by the First Amendment.

This is a highly emotional issue. Many people, especially war veterans, are outraged by flag burnings. But the outrageousness of the act is the reason it must be protected. When the expression of ideas is not outrageous, it doesn't require protection. Freedom of expression is the essence of democracy.

If burning the flag was exempted from the protection of the First Amendment, it could lead to further weakening of the constitutional rights of free speech and free press. This proposal, like its predecessors, should be defeated.

China’s naval buildup

CHINA seems to be planning to build an aircraft carrier someday. That would explain the purchase of an incomplete ship from Ukraine by a trading company in Hong Kong. The company, Chinluck Holdings, owns a subsidiary in Macau called Chong Lot Tourist and Amusement Agency. That outfit won a bid for the carrier, the Varyag, which was abandoned after the fall of the Soviet Union.

The Far Eastern Economic Review reported that the winning price of $20 million was about three times the normal scrap price for ships of that size -- 33,000 tons. One condition of the sale was that the ship could not be used for military purposes.

Chong Lot pledged to turn the carrier into a hotel, but the Macau government rejected the company's application to anchor the carrier offshore as a floating hotel. The rejection apparently leaves the owners free to do whatever they please with the vessel, which is in a Black Sea shipyard, after the sale is executed.

In 1992 Chinese officials examined the same ship but failed to agree with Ukraine on a price for use as an aircraft carrier. Since then the ship has been left to rust and all weapons and propulsion systems have been removed. However, the hull is complete. A Western analyst said China's naval designers could obtain valuable information about wiring, piping and sealed bulkheads by dismantling the Varyag.

If China wants to take the ship apart for research purposes, it wouldn't be the first time. In 1985 China bought a former Royal Australian Navy aircraft carrier and dismantled it.

The Chinese navy is no immediate threat to U.S. naval dominance in the Western Pacific. It will be years before China will be able to build and operate an aircraft carrier, but it evidently intends to do so. Two years ago Washington dispatched two aircraft carrier groups to Taiwan when China began firing missiles and conducting military exercises in the area. China had no answer for that. Someday it probably will.

Protecting turtles

FREE trade and environmental protection collided in a recent decision of the World Trade Organization. It ruled that the United States had violated international trade agreements by prohibiting shrimp imports from countries whose boats trap and kill endangered sea turtles.

A 1989 act prohibits shrimp imports from countries that do not require their shrimp fleets to use grills and other devices to exclude turtles and other large animals that would otherwise be trapped in shrimp nets, where they invariably drown. Many countries have complied with the law, but four Asian nations -- India, Pakistan, Thailand and Malaysia -- challenged it before the WTO as an unfair restriction on their shrimp sales.

If the Clinton administration's appeal fails, it will either have to reopen U.S. markets to Asian shrimp, pay a fine or suffer countervailing duties by the four governments on U.S. products. Washington should stand by the law, even at the cost of a fine or duties.

In addition to the ruling's impact on turtles, it could lead to other decisions by the trade organization challenging U.S. sanctions to protect endangered species and prevent overfishing. The problem lies with the WTO committee on environmental issues, which is supposed to be involved in such questions but has been ineffective.

Washington should be seeking ways to give environmental considerations a larger role in WTO decisions. European governments have proposed a special session of the organization devoted to strengthening environmental protection. This could be at least part of the answer.

---

Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited Partnership

Rupert E. Phillips, CEO

John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher

David Shapiro, Managing Editor

Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor

Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors

A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor