and the rocket's red glare

"The flag-burning amendment will move out of the category of inane legislative posturing in which it has lurked since the Supreme Court rightly declared burning the flag to be a form of constitutionally protected speech.

Such an amendment would be offensive even if flag burning were a kind of expressive epidemic. But the problem the amendment purports to address is a fiction. When was the last time you saw someone burning a flag? If the answer is never, that's because it hardly ever happens. In fact, one of the few certain consequences of passing this amendment would be to make flag burning a fashionable form of protest.

The other effect would be to water down one of the most profound principles that the Constitution articulates: that Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech. The great power of this principle is that it admits no exception: not for the most odious racism or Holocaust denial, not for the most insulting criticisms of those in high office, not for cone-shaped white hoods or hammers and sickles, and not for burning or otherwise defiling the Stars and Stripes. Passing this amendment probably wouldn't create a great substantive shift in the general scope of the First Amendment's protection, but it would sap it of the idea that gives it its power: that American government does not punish even the most offensive ideas. Congress does the flag no service with such protection." - The Post