House Approves Flag Burning Amendment:
"'If the flag needs protection at all, it needs protection from members of Congress who value the symbol more than the freedoms that the flag represents.'"

A flag is not the people. It is not the country. It is not even the government. It is a symbol of that government. If we chose to get rid of our government, the new one would pick a new flag. That flag would then be the symbol of our government.

We don't fight for the flag. Well, perhaps there are those who do, but that's as misguided as fighting to protect a bible. It's not the thing, but the thing it represents. We fight for the principles that have shaped our government and this country. When the government mishandles our rights, we can - in fact we should - organize a protest. One of the ways to protest our government is to show our distaste for the symbols of that government.

Suppressing this form of protest is a complete misunderstanding of what we mean by freedom. The people of this country are patriotic. We like this country. We like the freedoms we have rightly earned. But we don't like the government moving step by step, inch by inch, toward the sort of regime it claims to abhor.