Flag Burning Ban rejected by Senate

The Senate turned back an effort to amend the Constitution to ban any desecration of the U.S. flag - but just barely. The 66 votes in favor of the amendment fell just one vote short of the majority needed to pass, despite additions Republican congressional leaders have deemed important to their conservative political base, including an anti-gay-marriage amendment and further cuts in the estate tax.

First, let me say that flag burning is a despicable act that more times than not is counter-productive to any effort or cause it is supposed to symbolize or bring attention to. I will never, ever burn an American flag, and I'm sure I would need all the self-control I could round up to keep from punching a flag-burner in the eyeball if I ever come accross one.

But I cannot begin to express how relieved I am that this did not pass.

Most Americans, according to polls referenced by the Seattle Times, apparently feel that flag-burning is a "reprehensible insult to the nation's founders and a dishonor to those Americans who died fighting tyranny."

I don't disagree. But there's a big leap from calling something a symbolically insulting act and passing a Constitutional ammendment making it a criminal act.

I feel that flag-burning shouldn't necessarily be any more illegal than publically setting fire to a tablecloth. Beyond the fire-hazard concerns, it is simply a symbolic gesture, and by definition should be protected under "free speech and expression." Such exceptions and limitations to free speech would only be the first step down a grease-covered slide to outright opression.

Let's say flag-desecration is officially banned. What would happen next? Obviously entrepeneurs would pop up selling flags with 6-pointed stars or reversed colors or 14-stripes, etc. The ban would have to be corrected to cover any other similarly American or patriotic symbols. Which would then inevitably lead to a ban of pictures or drawings depicting the desecration of the flag and the like. Which could then become an ammendment against burning the image of the president while he is in power. Which would no doubt lead to a ban against anything un-American (which, by nature, is purely subjective). And that ban would axiomatically aim to curb any expression deemed un-American.

If that kind of despotism works for you, try Cuba on for size.