Burn Baby Burn

This past week, the Senate fell one vote short of passing a Constitutional amendment banning flag burning. While I'm not surprised it failed, I am shocked that it came oh so close to passing. Such a measure, in my opinion, is utterly devoid of logic and abandons the precepts on which our country was founded in the first place.

Follow me here: If you go to Wal-Mart (every conservative's favorite mass-market big box department store) and purchase swaths of red, white, and blue fabric, you can take them home and do whatever you want with them, including tear it up, set fire to it, or turn it into a piece of post-modernist art by utilizing your animal bodily fluid of choice. But, if you cut the white fabric into stars, sew them onto a blue background in such a way, and attach that blue background to red and white stripes, all of a sudden you have a sacred object that cannot be immolated under penalty of law. I understand why it is illegal to destroy money, since it is technically the property of the federal government, but when is it illegal to destroy your own inanimate private property?

We fought the American Revolution because we wanted the right to criticize the government. And we won that right. Now that new government is turning around and telling us that, well, you can only criticize it in certain ways. Our American soldiers have gone to war to protect many freedoms, including the freedom to tell them that you're completely ungrateful for their efforts. Media whores like Cindy Sheehan proclaim that they'd rather live under dictator Hugo Chavez in Venezuela than under George W. Bush. (Let's see you put your money where your mouth is, Cindy!) It infuriates me to hear that, but I respect her right to do so.

Yes, flag burning is a very pointed form of expression, but what makes it so objectionable that it needs to be outlawed? Surely flag burning is no more provocative than many other forms of protected speech. Certain people, particularly veterans who laid down their lives for this country, might be extremely upset when they see the Stars and Stripes set aflame. But is it something that would naturally and automatically incite violence and therefore be a threat to the public safety? I highly doubt it. Therefore, there is no legitimate reason to ban such a practice. Those who are bothered by flag burning must reluctantly tolerate it as one of the prices we pay to live in a free society.

Shame on the Senate for almost condemning one of our basic freedoms in the name of national unity. Our right to say we hate America is one of the reasons why I love America.