Forty Dead in Iraq....

...And the Senate is debating flag burning. I despise flag burning, the deliberate, provocative desicration of a symbol of a nation that, despite the Repugnicans' best efforts to follow Stalin's best principles of governance, I still love. In fact, I love it enough to have served eight years in the Air Force to defend flag burners' right to free speech. There have been four flag burning incidents so far in 2006, forty dead in one week in Iraq. I think there are some priorities out of place here.

The purpose of the amendment is to divide Americans, not to protect the flag that, given the minimially small number of flag burning cases, needs no defense. It deflects attention away from serious matters, something Republicans desire because at every level of government, they have failed to represent the people whenever a serious matter has come up. And finally, it desecrates the very symbol it purports to protect by limiting free speech, a fundamental right the Right, thumbing their noses at the founding fathers they so like to misrepresent and, like little boys dressing up in Daddy's clothes, imitate, would see reined in at all levels. Free speech, particularly as practiced by the few remaining journalists, is an affront to the Right as it exposes them, their plots, their attempts to take away your freedoms. Although you may never consider burning a flag, although it may offend you greatly as it does me, by passing this amendment, they would take yet another of your freedoms.