We Do Not Consecrate The Flag By

Clerks Get Into The Damnedest Wrangles--which Is The Way They Help Me.

After Each Perceived Security Crisis Ended, The United States Has Remorsefully Realized That The Abrogation Of Civil Liberties Was Unnecessary.

At Bottom, The Battle Has Been Waged On Moral Grounds. The Country Has Debated Whether A Society For Which The Dignity Of The Individual Is The Supreme Value Can, Without A Fundamental Inconsistency, Follow The Practice Of Deliberately Putting One Of Its Members To Death.

Our Amended Constitution Is The Lodestar For Our Aspirations. Like Every Text Worth Reading, It Is Not Crystalline. The Phrasing Is Broad And The Limitations Of Its Provisions Are Not Clearly Marked. Its Majestic Generalities And Ennobling Pronouncements Are Both Luminous And Obscure. This Ambiguity Of Course Calls Forth Interpretation, The Interaction Of Reader And Text. The Encounter With The Constitutional Text Has Been, In Many Senses, My Life's Work.

We Do Not Consecrate The Flag By Punishing Its Desecration, For In Doing So, We Dilute The Freedom This Cherished Emblem Represents.