I haven't said anything about the anti-flagburning amendment that was recently passed by the House and is coming up in the Senate soon. It's not so much that I didn't consider the issue important, just that I didn't think I could add very much to the debate.
But Eugene Volokh's op-ed in the LATimes argued the issue so well that I feel obliged to link to it, adding nothing but my own hearty agreement.
America is different from most other countries, and even from most other democracies. In America, all ideologies are protected, even those that the majority thinks are evil.
Why is this right? Because the First Amendment was drafted and interpreted by people who intimately understood cultural, religious, and political conflict, and who knew how calls for censorship could launch the most bitter of culture wars.
The [First] Amendment is a truce: "I won't try to suppress your ideas, if you don't try to suppress mine." And the flagburning amendment risks shattering this truce.
Comments