Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is, there have been thousands of amendments introduced, thousands of proposed amendments introduced to the Constitution of the United States. Only 17 have been adopted since 1791 after the Bill of Rights.

Amendments were proposed after most unpopular Supreme Court decisions. After the one-man, one-vote decision in 1960, whatever it was, where they said you had to reapportion based on population, there were amendments introduced. Amendments have been introduced after every unpopular decision of the Supreme Court.

It is deliberately difficult to amend the Constitution because the framers of the Constitution were afraid of transient majorities. They were afraid of emotion, and they deliberately wanted it to be difficult to amend the Constitution so it would not be amended very often, and only under dire necessity. What is the dire necessity here?

What is the dire necessity, that in the last 20 years, I heard someone say 119 people have burned the flag. Well, a lot more than 119 people have burned the flag. Most, however, have burned the flag to dispose of it, which is the approved method of disposing of it.

I have heard the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns) say, and others say, this has nothing to do with free speech. People can say anything they want. But it is burning the flag. But the fact is, it is very much free speech.

That is why the Supreme Court decided as it did, because burning the flag for a proper purpose, that is, to say an approved purpose, to destroy it, to destroy a tattered flag, is approved. But burning the flag to express an unpopular viewpoint, we do not agree with the administration in power about whatever, that would be made a crime.

So what is the real essence of the crime? Burning the flag in connection with unpopular speech. If you burn it in connection with popular speech, we respect the flag and we dispose of this, or this connection with popular speech because you are an actor playing the British burning Washington in 1814, that is okay. So this gets at the heart of free speech.

Now, it may not be all that important right now, and it is not. We do not see any epidemic of people burning flags. We have no great emotional issue at the moment that have people marching in the streets; but as the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Snyder) pointed out, at times in our history we have, and at times in our history people have been persecuted and free speech has been violated. We should not repeat that.

We should not make it easier at times of emotion in the future on issues we cannot now foresee for unpopular minorities to be bullied. We should not make it easier for unpopular minorities in the future to have their free speech trampled or to give weapons to a future government with which to trample free speech.

We all love the flag. No one is divided on that in this Chamber. But those of us who understand, I think, the meaning of liberty and the meaning of what this country stands for, perhaps in a way, I would want to say better than others, but that would be a little arrogant, but to understand that as we do, understand that the real meaning of this country is to permit free speech, to magnify free speech, to magnify free speech of those we do not agree with, of those we find obnoxious. And what this amendment does is to sacrifice that.

The cloth of the flag is not what we revere. What we revere is the idea of the flag and the Republic for which it stands. That idea is threatened by this amendment, not protected by it; and that is why it should not be approved.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.