Partisan waste of time

Today, the Senate came the closest it has ever come to passing a useless constitutional amendment that would reduce American's freedom of expression in order to boost partisan support. The Flag Protection Amendment failed 66-34 (it needed a 2/3 majority to be sent to the state legislatures for ratification). While Orrin Hatch, the author of the Amendment claimed on his Senate website that:

This amendment would give back to Congress the power the Supreme Court usurped from it 17 years ago when five unelected justices rejected 200 years of statutes that protected Old Glory. This amendment wouldn’t change the Constitution, it would restore it to what it was before the Supreme Court altered it.

What it really does is strip constitutional protection to those who burn the American flag in protest. It is no more a significant issue (and as much a nationalistic sham) as Congressional moves to make English the only language used by the government. Both of these share the same dishonor associated with extremist rhetoric that anyone who is not a heterosexual English-speaker with blind loyalty to Republican government ideologies (and not too many years ago, also those who were not white and Protestant) are unpatriotic and deserving of punishment. This is the same type of belief that nurtures xenophobia, racism and facism and it scares me that 66 senators (including several supposed liberals) could express support for such a repugnant amendment.

Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) summed up why the anti-flag burning amendment is wrong: "This is more than a case of misplaced priorities, it is playing politics with our most fundamental freedoms".