Politics & Power Quote by Larry Craig

Craig’s line performs a classic Washington sleight of hand: it treats the First Amendment as something you can “protect” by narrowing it. The phrasing “do not cut away” is a preemptive reassurance, the kind politicians deploy when they know they’re standing on contested constitutional ground. It’s less an argument than a confidence trick: if you say the incision is not an incision, maybe no one will notice the blood.

The specific intent is to reframe flag desecration not as speech but as a civic wound requiring repair. By invoking “laws protecting the United States flag,” Craig leans on the emotional capital of the symbol itself, betting that reverence can outrun doctrine. The subtext is that some expressions are so offensive they fall outside the moral boundaries of “real” speech, even if they technically fit the legal definition. That’s why he pivots to Congress: “made this position clear” suggests constitutional meaning can be clarified by legislation, not just interpreted by courts or grounded in principle.

Context matters. The Flag Protection Act of 1989 was Congress’s direct response to Texas v. Johnson (1989), where the Supreme Court held flag burning is protected expressive conduct. Craig’s argument is essentially a counter-narrative to that ruling: a claim that national unity and symbolic respect can be legislated without undermining liberty. It’s an attempt to turn the flag into a kind of constitutional exception clause - a sacred object placed above the messy, often abrasive realities of dissent that the First Amendment was built to shelter.