I am writing in response to the editorial you ran titled, Protecting Free Speech.”

The reasoning you used would make John I-voted-for-the-war-before-l-voted-against-it Kerry proud with your, “We love the American flag before we watch it burn” argument.

Sure, the Supreme Court has ruled that flag burning is speech, but they are in a decades long war on the English language.

Flag burning is no more “speech” that when 2-year-olds throw themselves at their parents’ feet kicking and screaming, is “speech.” It is what it is: a tantrum.

Rational adults know better than to try to reason with a child in that state of mind. It would only encourage more of the same.

Well, the Supreme Court knows it, too and in its steady lurch leftward is doing everything it can to foster civil unrest in society and destroy tradition.

What does burning a flag say? What idea does it communicate? Has anyone ever noticed that you never see fans of Charleston Heston, Ronald Reagan or John Wayne burning a flag?

Why? Those men are/were no more a fan of government than the people who burn flags purport to be; yet why don’t they resort to flag burning?

Perhaps, it is because they respect the flag as a symbol of the ideal of liberty and honor it, for the lives that have died to preserve it. What symbol do leftists have that patriots can burn, or desecrate to protest socialism, communism or atheism?

You see, you are at a disadvantage if you believe in something. Anarchists believe in nothing, they just want to create chaos and the Supreme Court approves.

The only reason that the Michael Moore fans, Moveon.org supporters, eco-terrorists and anarchists burn flags is to satisfy a childish urge to throw a tantrum and spit in the eye of tradition, not because they have anything constructive to say. If they did, they would say it.

We wouldn’t need a constitutional amendment to protect the flag if we didn’t have a Supreme Court redefining words to suit their own policy preferences.

The Founding Fathers knew the importance of words and they chose the words they used very carefully when they crafted the constitution.

If they had meant to protect symbols from arson you can bet that they knew how to say it that way.

They meant “speech” when they used the word, “speech.”

They sought to protect the speech of the people to speak out against government as in the “freedom of speech we lost when the Supreme Court upheld McCain/Feingold campaign finance reform law.

Perhaps, we wouldn’t need to pass a constitutional amendment protecting the flag and civil society if law enforcement would just start charging flag burners with incinerating without a permit,” “disturbing the peace” “reckless endangerment” or “unlawful creation of greenhouse gases.” etc.

Del Sharp

Breckenridge