I wouldn't go that far...

Rep. Randy ''Duke'' Cunningham (R - CA) made the following argument:

''Ask the men and women who stood on top of the Trade Center. Ask them and they will tell you: Pass this amendment."

Uh, I wouldn't go that far, Duke. However, I don't think Mark Steyn's initial criticism is apt: Duke wasn't speaking for the victims of 9/11, he was speaking on behalf of the police officers, firefighters, emergency personnel, and construction crews who looked for bodies and cleared the debris on the days, weeks, and months after 9/11.

However, Mr. Steyn deoes have some wise words. First, desecration of an inanimate object is not torture, nor should it even be grounds for a crime, assuming the inanimate object is your own property. Second, I too wonder everyday in-fact, how many members of the public - even individuals who consider themselves democratic - know that the man who occupied the -

seat of honor in the presidential box next to Jimmy Carter, [characterized] the terrorist ''insurgents'' -- the guys who kidnap and murder aid workers, hack the heads off foreigners, load Down's syndrome youths up with explosives and send them off to detonate in shopping markets -- as Iraq's Minutemen. I wonder how many viewers knew that on Sept. 11 itself Michael Moore's only gripe was that the terrorists had targeted New York and Washington instead of Texas or Mississippi: ''They did not deserve to die. If someone did this to get back at Bush, then they did so by killing thousands of people who DID NOT VOTE for him! Boston, New York, D.C. and the plane's destination of California -- these were places that voted AGAINST Bush!"

Third, banning flag burning is like taking your ball and going home. It is admitting "hurt" to those who spit at the U.S., who curse it, who plot against it.

Banning flag desecration flatters the desecrators and suggests that the flag of this great republic is a wee delicate bloom that has to be protected. It's not. It gets burned because it's strong.

A flag has to be worth torching. When a flag gets burned, that's not a sign of its weakness but of its strength. If you can't stand the heat of your burning flag, get out of the superpower business. It's the left that believes the state can regulate everyone into thought-compliance. The right should understand that the battle of ideas is won out in the open.