The Pendragon's Hall

I don't know what has possessed conservatives this week. Maybe they are feeling ashamed that since the election most of what they have proposed to do is standard conservative stuff, pretty predictable, and more of the tame stuff at that. First we had Ann Coulter's article, now World magazine has been sounding their trumpet on everything from the supposed occultism of Harry Potter to echoing Ann Coulter's worries about John Roberts Jr. to Janie B. Cheaney even writing an article opposing a flag-burning amendment to the Constitution on the grounds that the flag would become an idol. In paranoid language, Cheaney fears living in a country where it is perfectly acceptable to burn a cross but a Federal offense to burn the flag. And she drags in some references to the bronze snake in the Wilderness that Moses made and then it became an idol in Israel. What Ms. Cheaney misses is that the people most staunchly supporting the flag-burning amendment are the same people who staunchly oppose burning crosses as well, and would, in fact, like to display them. Seeing as the cross is a religious symbol, one might ask Ms. Cheaney if protecting it from burning might make it an idol as well. After all, the cross is much more analogous to the bronze snake she refers to than the American flag is. One thing she neglects to mention too is that, at least for now, cross burning will be opposed by everyone: conservatives because it desecrates the symbol of the Christian religion and liberals because it is most often used in the persecution of blacks. I do not foresee a country where flag-burning is taboo but burning a cross is considered freedom of speech. Even liberals don't consider it such. I'm really not sure what has gotten into conservatives this week, but I think it may be their resentment at supporting officials and programs that are easily branded conservative. It's the old, "I want to be unplottable" argument. Someone once confided in me that her friend had actually dared to register Independent. "I wish I could do that," she lamented, apparently believing that her friend was some kind of latter-day female Sir Lancelot for registering this way. I'm not sure, though: how much courage does it take to tell the world you have no convictions whatsoever?