As I read another
excellent diary that demonstrates how banning "desecration" of the flag is to make certain thoughts illegal, I realized what this could all lead to: Making
Lèse majesté a crime again.
In short, Lèse majesté is to badmouth the Ruler. However, in the parlance of Monarchies, the Ruler is the State (as in Louis XIV's famous "L'etat, c'est moi"), so it also is badmouthing the state.
From there, it's an easy leap to see how this can be abused. The current US Supreme Court is packed with activists including Alito, who believes in a "unitary" executive.
Think: If these guys can interpret the 2nd Amendment to mean "everyone gets to have whatever guns they want whenever" and Article II to mean "The President can do anything as long as he thinks it necessary for national security" then how far can they stretch this:
The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.
What's a "flag"? It seems Congress gets to define that too!
Let's see, maybe the flag will legally include:
* Copies of the Constitution
* The US Seal
* The words and music of the National Anthem
* The words of the pledge of allegiance
* The President, Vice-President and all likenesses thereof
* The United States itself
Thus, it could become illegal to:
* sing the anthem off-key, or change the words for political purposes
* burn pictures or effigies of the president
and worst:
* bad-mouth the President, or the Government of the United States.
From Wikipedia, the definition of Lèse majesté:
is the crime of violating majesty, an offense against the dignity of a reigning sovereign or against a state.
(emphasis added).
This is not just about banning flag burning, and the somewhat abstract 1st Amendment/free speech concerns that raises, this can easily be expanded to ban many other forms of very important and frequently used types of political speech.
Remember, these guys often call us "traitors" for critisizing the President or the actions of the Military in a "time of war" - they already want to make critisizing him illegal. This amendment seems to be plain speech and only refers to the flag - I say, without an explicit provision that "this amendment will not be interpreted to prohibit any other form of expression" or some such, it will get stretched. With a sane Supreme Court, it couldn't happen, but with this court, watch your rights get pissed away 5-4.