Senate Judicial Committee
United States Senate
Committee Members,
As your constituent and as a military veteran, I urge you to oppose the constitutional amendment to ban physical desecration of the flag (SJ Res. 4). This legislation would undermine the very principles for which the American flag stands.
Thirty years ago I was a U.S. Army Military Police Sentry-Dog Handler stationed in the Republic of Korea. Back then Korea was an oppressive police state under President Park Chung Hee, a democracy in name only. A lot has happened in the past thirty years. Korea and the United States have both changed. Today Korea is a thriving democracy and the Korean people enjoy American-style civil liberties. While freedom has flourished in Korea, it has been under assault here in the United States and our civil liberties are in grave danger. One major threat to civil liberties that we face is SJ Res. 4.
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 will be found unacceptable next?
Again, I urge you to oppose SJ Res. 4. We cannot allow the promise of freedom enshrined in the flag to become an empty one.
Sincerely,
Steven E. Sanderson