Congress Tries to Make Itself Look Useful

What do you do when you're a Congress that's too ineffective to pass meaningful legislation and too ideological to reach agreement on important issues? You pass whatever "feel good" ridiculous nonsense you can. Nonsense which, at best, is completely meaningless and, at worst, an obscene restriction on individual liberty.

I was naive enough to think that all of the flag-burning ban talk had finally died a well-deserved death. Apparently, it is back in the House of Representatives with H.J. Res 10. Unfortunately, it looks like it actually has a chance of passing in the Senate as well this time. It seems the proponents of this monstrosity are trying to take advantage of the post 9/11 patriotism with vulgar emotional appeals proclaiming to speak for the people who died on that day. If they were really patriotic then they would stop trying to figuratively burn the flag with this garbage. What's worse is that this isn't some random legislation, but an actual amendment (the type of thing we've only had to do 27 times in the history of the nation, which has generally taken place to expand liberty, not restrict it). Can Congress think of nothing better to spend their time on?

Here's an article talking about this:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=4&u=/ap/20050622/ap_on_go_co/flag_burning

And here's a place where you can contact your representatives and tell them to stop playing around and get to work:
http://www.house.gov/writerep/