With all the great problems facing the Republic – rapacious tort lawyers, a Social Security system hurtling toward fiscal shortfalls, escalating medical costs – it’s no small thing that the House of Representatives felt it had to take the time this week to start the ball rolling toward a Constitutional amendment in respect of flag-burning. The House, by a vote of 286 to 130, approved wording that would say, “The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.”

It’s hard to say whether this idea will prosper in the Senate, but the Congress has been festering on this issue since 1989, when the Supreme Court, in Texas v. Johnson, found that a Texas law banning flag burning infringed on the First Amendment free speech rights of the burner. It was a 5-to-4 split. Justice Stevens, usually a liberal, sided with Texas, as did Justices Rehnquist and O’Connor, who both still sit on the high court. Justices Scalia and Marshall joined the majority opinion by Justice Brennan, which said, “We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for in doing so we dilute the freedom that this cherished emblem represents.”

Anytime The Great Scalia agrees with The Great Marshall, we’d recommend the rest of the nine just fold their tents. But we don’t belittle the disgust of the House majority at the disturbing anti-Americanism that is in evidence on the far fringes of the anti-war, anti-Bush left. We’ve covered too many anti-war marches in Manhattan at which Palestinian Arab flags were more common than American ones. The American flag is a symbol of a great nation. It deserves to be saluted and honored, not burned or desecrated.

Most Americans recognize this, which is why flag-burning is so rare and horrifying when it occurs. Even opponents of the proposed constitutional amendment, such as Senator Clinton, view burning of the American flag as abhorrent, even more so with American troops under fire overseas. “Burning or destroying an American flag is a despicable act that disrespects the sacrifices of our brave veterans and soldiers who fought to protect the very freedom of speech that flag burners exploit,” she said.

We live in an odd era of free speech in America, one in which the freedom to burn a flag is constitutionally protected but in which the freedom to air a television commercial naming a candidate within 60 days of an election is sharply restricted and highly regulated under the McCain-Feingold law. The liberals who are made uncomfortable, as we are, by the idea of a law against flag-burning would be in a stronger position had they been standing on principle, with the most idealistic of the conservatives, when campaign speech regulation came up for a vote.