[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 80 (Tuesday, June 10, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H3638-H3639]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  WE SHOULD NOT SACRIFICE FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION WITH A FLAG AMENDMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Paul] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, in 2 days we are going to be debating an 
amendment to the Constitution dealing with the flag. The proposed flag 
amendment to the Constitution deals with more than just the issue of 
freedom of speech. It involves the right of free expression and the 
right to own property. These two are inseparable. A free society cannot 
have one without the other; and when one is compromised, so is the 
other.
  When property rights are correctly honored, free expression is 
guaranteed through that right. The independence of a newspaper, radio 
station or a church guarantees the use of that property in any free 
expression desired. No one has the right to use any newspaper, radio or 
church to exert his or her own opinion as an example of free speech. 
Catholics have no right to say Mass in a Jewish temple. Certainly in 
our homes we are protected from others imposing their free speech on 
us. It is the church property that guarantees freedom of religion. The 
networks or papers need not submit to demands to be heard by religious 
believers as an example of free speech. Use of the radio or newspaper 
by those with strong opinions or religious views is only done 
voluntarily with the permission of the owner.
  Yes, it is very important who owns the flag and where it was 
desecrated. What if it is in a home or in a church for some weird 
reason? Do the police invade the premises? Who gets sent in? The BATF, 
the DEA, the FBI, the U.S. Army or the U.S. flag police? If it is on 
government property or a government flag or someone else's flag, that 
is an attack on property that can and should be prosecuted. By 
legislating against how someone else's flag is being used, the right of 
free expression and property ownership is infringed just as if it were 
church property or a newspaper.
  We work diligently to protect controversial expression in books, 
television and movies and even bizarre religious activities through the 
concept of

[[Page H3639]]

private property ownership as long as violence is not used. Is this 
matter any different?
  We live in an age where it is becoming more common to attack free 
expression, and that is a danger we should not ignore. We find one 
political group attacking expression that violates the subjective rules 
of politically correctness while working to prohibit voluntary prayer. 
Now another wants to curtail expression through flag anti-desecration 
laws in the name of patriotism. But there is a better way to handle 
demonstrations and malcontents.
  The danger here is that flag burners frequently express a disdain for 
big government. Curtailing any expression of criticism of the 
government is fraught with great danger. Will anyone who opposed big 
government someday be identified as a friend of the flag burners and 
treated like one since he is expressing an idea similar to the flag 
burners? Just because some people are not smart enough to express 
themselves in any other way than flag burning, it does not justify the 
careless attack on free expression. Once it is routinely accepted 
expressing these ideas as dangerous to the status quo, all our freedoms 
are threatened.
  We need to direct our patriotic zeal toward defending the 
Constitution and to the protection of liberty. Lack of this effort has 
led to the impending bankruptcy of the warfare state. Now, there is a 
problem worth directing our attention.
  The flag police are no substitute for our policing our own activities 
and responsibilities here in the Congress. We are endlessly delivering 
more power in the name of political emergencies, budgetary crises and 
government efficiency to the Executive, a process not permitted under 
the Constitution. We permit socialists to attack property rights and 
the fundamentals of economic liberty as a right under our Constitution. 
But those who profess respect for private property should not be 
trapped into attacking flag property when it is used to express 
unpopular antigovernment views and even change the Bill of Rights to do 
so.
  The socialists know what they are doing, but the anti-desecrators act 
out of confused emotions while responding to political pressures. We 
should not further sacrifice freedom of expression with a flag 
amendment. Especially when compared to the harm done with taxpayers' 
funding of school programs and NEA desecration, it is negligible. True 
patriots can surely match the wits of the jerks who burn flags without 
undermining the first and the fifth amendments.
  Mr. Speaker, we can do better than rush to alter constitutionally 
protected free expression for a nonproblem. We could easily organize 
bigger and grander demonstrations to celebrate our constitutional 
liberties for which the flag is our symbol in answer to the flag 
burners.
  I promise to appear any time, any place to celebrate our liberties 
and countermand the flag burners who work so hard to offend us. We do 
not need an amendment to the Constitution which for the first time in 
our history would undermine and curtail the protections of the first 
amendment.

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