Senate Judiciary Committee
The United States Senate
Dear Chairman Hatch and Members of the Committee
A law to ban flag burning would be feel-good legislation, but counter-productive to the rights and freedoms of all Americans. I am a retired Navy veteran of WWII and Korea. I have two sons who were in the service during Viet Nam, one of whom was over there for 18 months. Our flag flies in front of our house every day and night (lighted).
The burning of our flag thoroughly disgusts me. But a law banning the burning of the flag plays right into the hands of the weirdos who are doing the burning. They are trying to make a statement that they hate the United States and/or our government. By banning the burning of the flag, we are empowering them by giving significance to their stupid act. Let them burn the flag and let us ignore them. Then their act carries no significance.
Many of our young men and women have given their lives defending our liberties and freedoms. Freedom of expression is one of the rights our ancestors fought and died for. So let the malcontents express themselves, as long as they do no physical harm to others. And let us (including the media) ignore them. Pretty soon, it wont mean anything if they burn the flag. They'll have to come up with something else to insult us. The greatness of our country will carry on, with our without the flag being burned.
While flag burning is rare, it can be a powerful and important form of free speech. In fact, the proposed constitutional amendment would do irreparable harm to our right to free speech and undermine our right to dissent. Those who favor the proposed amendment say they do so in honor of the flag. But in proposing to unravel the First Amendment, they desecrate what the flag represents, and what millions of Americans have died to defend.
In America, we expect that our right to free speech is not abridged. We expect that our elected representatives act in good faith and prevent encroachments on our individual liberty. This measure would require that we categorize the First Amendment guarantees into acceptable and unacceptable forms of speech. If we go down this road, what next will be found unacceptable?
Again, I urge you to oppose this amendment. We cannot allow the promise of freedom enshrined in the flag to become an empty one.
William C. Ragsdale