Today is Flag Day in America. Display it with pride.

But, at the end of the day, before you take Old Glory down from the porch, think about what the American flag represents. Get beyond the schoolhouse platitudes and consider the lofty principles the flag represents.

This nation was founded on a fundamental trust in the wisdom of the people to choose their government and to participate in their own governance and to remove leaders not to their liking. It was also founded on a fundamental distrust of power, and government was thus divided so that the elected legislature makes laws, the elected executive executes them and judges insulated from the electorate interpret them.

To those broad principles were appended specific protections of liberties, freedom of religion and freedom from government-imposed religion, protections against illegal searches, guarantees of a fair trial incorporating the idea that a potentially guilty suspect should go free if the constable errs.

Among these articulated liberties is freedom of speech, and within that is a notion that is unique in history: the idea that even disagreeable speech, speech that is outrageous, speech that is vicious and hateful, has as much right to be uttered as any other speech. That sets us apart from every other nation, even other democracies, not to mention states where disagreeable speech may be punishable by death.

The underlying principle of free speech is the idea that the search for truth is so vital to our democracy that the government can never be given the power to silence even unpopular speakers for fear that it will also sweep away speakers who deserve to be heard. The job of sorting out the truth is left to the people.

This principle, embodied in the First Amendment, led the U.S. Supreme Court in 1989 to strike down a Texas statute that made it illegal to burn an American flag. Writing for the court, the late Justice William Brennan captured the essence of this idea when he said, "The way to preserve the flag's special role is not to punish those who feel differently about these matters. It is to persuade them that they are wrong."

That requires more speech, not less.

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Originally published on Sunday, June 14, 1998. Copyright © 1998, The Des Moines Register.