There is currently a Constitutional Amendment in consideration in Congress to permit federal and state governments to create laws against burning the flag. This is perhaps the greatest waste of the limited time available for political change. And further, there are much more urgent amendments to be considered debated rather than to waste time on this no-brainer.
The first that should be considered is to strengthen the 4th amendment against warrantless search and seizure. For thirty years it has been a hobby of law enforcement agencies find ways to avoid the protections of the 4th and to actively ignore it. These efforts have been supported by the Supreme Court. It is clearly time to withdraw from our government the power to issue search warrants.
This means simply that there will not longer be any hair splitting over what is and is not a search. No form of search without consent is permitted, ever. All questions of discovery in due course will be moot as there will be no expressed or implied power to search given to the government.
In light of the pending bill to make the 1st amendment inapplicable to any computer network it is time to add this amendment to the constitution. "When it says Congress shall make no law, it means MAKE NO LAW you illiterate fool." That might not be strong enough for the present day breed of Congressrats but stronger language, such as making passage of such a law a shoot on sight offense might get their attention but likely not.
It is about time Congress and the states learn what "shall make not law" means. It means no law. If it permits shouting fire in a crowded theater, so be it. The pending violation of speech, total censorship of cyberspace, is sufficient to warrant a few such fire shouts.
While everyone would agree that using a child in pornography should be a crime, morphing Barbara Bush into a young teenager should be regarded as an artistic accomplishment, a miracle even, rather than kiddie porn. And it makes no difference if an 18 year old loses a few years. How can the law tell? No one ever said either that law enforcement was easy or that rights have to be given up to make it easy.
In light of the myriad of "interstate commerce" and import regulations clauses it is about time we amended the Constitution to state, "The power to regulate shall never be construed to be the power to prohibit nor shall excessive taxation, tariffs, duties or imposts ever be used as a means prohibition. In no case shall criminal penalties be applied to violations of revenue raising statutes."
This will mean that all taxes on commerce shall only attempt to optimize revenue, as excessive taxation is prohibition can not raise revenue and as such it is not a revenue raising provision, but that if you fail to pay a $200 tax for owning a machinegun you can not be thrown in jail for ten years. The worst penalty would be a "usual" fine of ten times the unpaid tax.
To this change I would add one sub-amendment, "all taxpayers shall be considered equal and no qualifications to pay taxes shall be imposed." This means the to own a machinegun, one can not be required to pass a background check to qualify to pay a tax. But it goes further. It is possible to place a one dollar federal tax on all sea going boat purchases and require a background check (buyer paid for) to assure one is not likely to become a drug smuggler under the same trivial tax on machineguns.
And to the big one, "No clause of this constitution shall ever be construed as a means of the avoidance of the provision of any other clause of this constitution."
This will mean the government can not restrict weapons possession by invoking another clause such as interstate commerce of federal licensing or import clauses any more than it would be considered reasonable to restrict the ownership of foreign cars by invoking the power to regulate foreign trade.
And in light of all of these necessary and needful amendments we are talking about permitting a new restriction, that against burning the flag? That might be a good idea. I think it sucks but I will leave that to the debate that will require 38 states to ratify it.
But in the mean time when we permit a no-knock warrant because the alleged violator might flush a ton of cocaine or a machinegun down a toilet this is terrible waste of time. When there is a possibility of making the use of the f-word on the world wide internet a criminal matter we have better things to spend time on. When there are so many unplugged loopholes in the Constitutional protections of our rights that pre-existed the Constitution we do have better things to spend our time discussing.
Rather this Congress is truly no different from the previous save in some necessary fiscal matters. Rather than addressing the real issues, it will reverse prior trends without renouncing and prohibiting forever the basis for those trends.
The flag is but a symbol of our liberties. It is not proper to prohibit burning the symbol while burning the liberties.