‘Don’t Amend the Bill of Rights!’

The crucial objection to a flag-burning amendment, an amendment of the First Amendment, is, in fact, conservative and Burkean: the Bill of Rights stands as a foundational protection of the rights of a free people, held to be beyond the reach of government. Amending the original Bill of Rights breaks the historical chain of which our liberty is the result and opens a Pandora’s Box of governmental and even popular interference, by whatever means, in the liberties held by the Founders and their descendants to be essential to the American experience of limited government. The belief that the Bill of Rights is up for grabs would imperil the sense of inalienable rights vital to what America is and stands for. A free people should have a deep understanding of this: Don’t amend the Bill of Rights!