Flag-Burning Amendment

* Re “House Approves Amendment to Ban Flag Desecration,” June 29:

The House of Representatives has blundered by violating a classic rule of management. They have allowed their fervor and posturing to confuse a symbol with what it symbolizes. People respect a country’s flag or they abhor it. One would think that an individual’s reverence or revulsion is actually directed at what that piece of fabric and colors stands for and not at the flag itself.

Burning the flag or in some other way desecrating it is an expression of freedom in America. An act that may be ill advised, immature and mindless is protected by that freedom for which the American flag stands. Confusing a symbol with what it symbolizes is a mistake that is too often made today. It is a technique used successfully to sell merchandise to people who, for example, believe they will attract beautiful women if they just remember to drink the right beer. In Congress it has led the House to a bad decision that we can only hope the Senate will soon mitigate.

DAVID G. WONNELL

Yorba Linda

* I see by the House vote on the flag-desecration amendment that the representatives of the right have taken it upon themselves to protect our individual freedoms by deciding for us how we may express certain opinions. Do you think they will be generous enough to take the next logical step and decide for us which opinions we may express? Soon they can free us entirely from the necessity of making up our own minds, let alone speaking them. That is freedom, GOP-style.

RICHARD RISEMBERG

Los Angeles

* What is flag desecration? Every day millions of Americans spit on little flags and beat them with a fist. Shall we see, “Lick a stamp, go to jail,” warnings? Congress has proposed an unenforceable amendment.

ARTHUR M. COHEN

Los Angeles

* As Congress pontificates ad nauseam about a flag-burning amendment (a monument to self-doubt and insecurity, if ever there were one) and gallantly fights for our precious right to blow each other away with assault rifles and cop-killing ammo, one might imagine the kind of country this might be if its political representative were as passionate in their defense of living, breathing flesh and blood as they are of cold steel and colored cloth.

MICHAEL TOOHEY HEILIG

Venice