Finally! Why I Like Flag Burning!

Most of the arguments against the flag-burning amendment have already been made. A brief recap:

There's not exactly a rash of flag burnings right now.
Actual freedom is more important than the symbol of freedom.
Nice speech doesn't need protecting, only abhorrent speech.
It's impractical. (What constitutes a flag? What if it only has 12 stripes? What about bunting?)
Haven't we got more pressing problems?
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
It's stupid.

OK. There are a plethora of reasons that an amendment prohibiting the desecration of the flag is the idiotic last gasp of an ineffectual, incompetent administration looking for a way to distract us from their lack of accomplishment.

But none of the reasons above explain why this is, at its core, such an ill-conceived anti-American idea.

What is the Constitution? The Constitution doesn't have any laws in it. There's nothing in the Constitution that says you can't murder somebody. There's nothing in the Constitution that says you can't beat someone up, burn their house or steal their blue suede shoes. The Constitution is a framework. It is a set of guidelines for how to make the laws. It explains how we elect people, and those people make whatever laws they see fit, within limits. Those limits are mostly found in the first ten amendments, your friend the Bill of Rights.

The limits on the power of government found in the Bill of Rights are what make us a free country. When the government can make any laws it wants, that's tyranny. To change the Bill of Rights would be to fundamentally alter the freedom that makes us the greatest country in the world.

Again, the Constitution does not have any laws in it. So you can't just amend the Constitution to add a law that bans flag-burning. The reason that Congress can't just pass a law banning flag burning is because it's prohibited by the First Amendment. So if you want to ban flag burning, you have to eliminate the First Amendment. You might replace it with another (small "f") first amendment, but either "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech" or not.

So, in order to keep some idiot with a match and a $3 piece of cloth from hurting someone's feelings, we're going to replace the bedrock of our freedom with a hunk of painted styrofoam.

Any Senator or Representative who voted for this amendment should resign in shame.

God Bless America. (This also, technically, would not be allowed by the First Amendment, but I'm not going to be a dick about it.)