Jerry Nadler: “Mr. Speaker, today we are enduring the annual Republican rite of spring, a proposed amendment to the Bill of Rights to…”

“Mr. Speaker, today we are enduring the annual Republican rite of spring, a proposed amendment to the Bill of Rights to restrict what it calls flag desecration. Why spring? Because the calendar tells us that June 14 is Flag Day, and then, of course, we have July 4. Members need to send out a press release extolling the need to protect the flag, as if the flag needed protection by Congress. We do not see a great epidemic of flag burning. This amendment is truly an answer in search of a problem. The flag is a symbol of a great Nation and of the fundamental freedoms for which this Nation stands. If the flag needs protection at all, it is from Members of Congress who value the symbol more than the freedoms that the flag represents, and would, in fact, limit those freedoms to protect the symbol. The argument that we must, for the first time in our Nation's history, amend the Constitution to limit freedom of speech because the flag stands for freedom would sound like a bad joke if the danger to the First Amendment were not so real. I warn my colleagues, once we get into the business of amending the Constitution, every time someone does something we do not like, there will be no end to it. We have never in the 200 years of this country so far, of this Republic, amended the Bill of Rights, and we should not start now. There is unpopular speech that people find offensive, unpopular religions that people do not like.…”