You know your party is on the outs at the moment in Washington, D.C., if you’re proposing a constitutional amendment to prohibit burning the American flag.
That what Tennessee senior Sen. Marsha Blackburn did Monday, joining four Republican colleagues in reintroducing a measure that forbids the physical desecration of the flag.
It’s the kind of bill that is likely to gather much public support at the outset. After all, what kind of American who loves his or her country would entertain the thought of burning one of its most beloved and enduring symbols?
But such an amendment is wrong-headed.
We agree with the late, great Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia when he said in 2015, at one of his last public events, “If it were up to me, I would put in jail every sandal- wearing, scruffy-bearded weirdo who burns the American flag.”