Butch Otter rides again.

• Author: Kraft, Robert
• Position: Letter to the editor

Rep. Butch Otter ("Butch Otter Rides Again," November) voted against the PATRIOT Act and in favor of prohibiting flag burning. From a purely libertarian perspective, the PATRIOT Act--to address a situation in which lives may be at stake--is actually more justifiable than a ban on flag burning, which puts neither lives nor property at risk.

To Otter, the flag is not your flag or my flag; it is "our brand." But in his attempt to preserve our abstract "property," he has voted to violate our right to actual property and has diminished what our brand represents. The flag that doesn't allow...