I respect the American flag; I think desecrating it is a an act of vandalism against history and a violation of the spirit of brave people who sacrificed all they had to make this flag a symbol of unique freedom.  Out of the depth of this feeling, I hope that this amendment never becomes law.  In fact, precisely because I respect the flag, I hope this proposed amendment fails.

There are two reasons why I feel this way:  The question of what the American flag stands for is answered Freedom.  Embedded in freedom is the right to self expression.  Especially important is the freedom to irritate others, without doing them actual harm.  When a person burns his own copy of the American flag, he may irk me, but he has done me no harm.

The second reason is more abstract:  The fabric of the flag itself has no power.  Anyone who believes the physical object of a flag deserves respect in and of itself is making no sense, and should remove himself from adult conversation.  The American flag stands for the value of the American people, the value of this symbol is only as great as the American people.

The immense value of the American flag is the willingness of her people to tolerate genuine difference of viewpoint.  The value of our flag is that we don't call people criminal who burn it.

One last clarification:  Much of the present uproar about flag-burning stems from an incident where a  knot of thugs stole a flag from a Post Office and burned it.  These petty thugs had the audacity to claim their act was protected by the right of free speech.  Had the copy of the flag they burned been their own, I would tend to agree.  As it was, they should have faced ordinary criminal and civil penalties for destruction of property.