Dear Editor of the San Jose Mercury News: 

Desecrating the American flag in public is despicable, peace-threatening, violence-provoking conduct.  It's like spitting in the soup.

The First Amendment has nothing to do with this.  The free speech clause has no relevance whatsoever as to how a person conducts himself or herself in the presence of another.  Our Constitution deals exclusively with government-to-citizenry relationships, not citizen-to- citizen relationships 

To claim that free speech means a person has rights vis a vis a peer, i.e., to insult, provoke, or intimidate another; or to influence another as one pleases; or to inflict offensive sounds and sights on another; is a monstrous falsity.   No ACLU pontificator or law professor can show original intent in this regard. 

What is needed is not to amend the Constitution, but to invalidate 70 years of past court decisions.

Respectfully,
Louis Worth Jones
 

Subj: The Price of Free Speech
Date: 7/8/98
From: LouisWJ 
To: [email protected]

Re:  Your July 8 editorial on the above subject.

You commendably laud the ideals for which the American flag stands.  Fine.

Then you say that Senate rejection of the proposed flag amendment would strengthen those ideals.  I say you do not strengthen anything by licensing contempt for that same thing.

Desecrating the flag is like spitting in the soup, or paying one’s traffic fine with urine-soaked pennies.  It is contemptuous, offensive, peace-threatening conduct, and to say this is “protected” by the First Amendment is a monstrous error.

What is really needed here is not more law but a Supreme Court reversal.  Our Constitution and Bill of Rights do not deal with conduct of one citizen as regards another, whether in or out of the meeting hall.  No constitutional scholar can show original intent in this regard.

Remove the protective free speech blanket from the flag desecrator and then let him perform at his own peril - for instance outside a meeting place of the American Legion or during an Independence Day parade.

Louis Worth Jones
 
 

1998, 1999