The Senate Judiciary Commitee last week voted to send a constitutional amendment banning the desecration of the American flag to the floor for a vote, and by all accounts, it will be a close one.
Now Dennis Archer, President of the very liberal American Bar Association, is speaking out, confirming what we suspected – that the legal establishment has hijacked the Constitution and they will not give it back without a fight.
Like all liberals who argue against this amendment, Archer points out the seeming paradox that the American flag represents the very liberties that an amendment protecting the flag would crush. It seems to make sense unless, of course, you know the facts.
Archer ominously warns that a flag amendment “would restrict freedom of speech, and for the first time in our country’s political history, revise the Constitution to limit, not expand, the liberties that are the fabric of what it means to be an American.” And with that, Archer has got right to the nub of what is wrong with the liberal argument.
The writers of the Constitution wisely created the amendment process as the mechanism to change the Constitution, and they made it purposely difficult. But judges, all of whom I presume are members in good standing of the American Bar Association, have been effectively “amending” the Constitution for decades now without the approval of our elected representatives.
One such instance of judicial chicanery came in 1989 when the Supreme Court ruled that laws against burning American flags were no longer constitutional. In order to get to that point, the Court had to expand the meaning of the word “speech” in the First Amendment to include “expression.” The writers of the Constitution were no doubt familiar with the word “expression” but they didn’t see fit to include it, and for good reason. There’s a world of difference between speech and physical action.
An amendment to prevent crazy and violent people from lighting objects such as American flags on fire in public places would not “limit” the liberties guaranteed in the Constitution. Rather, it would be a start at restoring the true and original meaning of the First Amendment and it would send a message to the lawyers that were wise to them.