Conservative Hangup?

I happen, even as a conservative, to have some reservations about the amendment to prevent desecration of the American flag, the "anti-flag-burning amendment."

Now, it's not that I have any sympathy for the misguided, smelly, pot-smoking neohippies who burn American flags nowadays. I wonder, actually, how hippies in this day, four solid decades after the initial incarnation of those bath-deprived cretins graced us with their drug-addled discourses on the perceived injustices of American life, set fire to flag. Zippo lighters produced cheaply and efficiently through the power of industrial capitalism, purchased with the money these hippie-wannabes got as spoiled brats from their rich parents, who sent them off to expensive, elite colleges to make them successes, unaware of the liberal indoctrination they'd receive from their ivory-tower-dwelling professors? It's rather ironic, or something, that the overindulged little rich kids at top universities, people who experience most closely the benefits of capitalism and privilege, are the ones most vocal in decrying the evils of the very thing giving them the luxury and freedom to protest.

But, really, I digress. My point in that previous paragraph, in simplified form: I hate hippies of all generations and hate anyone who has the gall to burn the American flag.

However, I wonder if we really need an amendment to the Constitution to authorize Congress to pass legislation to prevent the desecration of the flag. As a practical matter, if you want Congress to be able to pass such legislation, you have to amend the Constitution, since judicial precedent has already made clear that the Supreme Court will strike down anti-flag-burning legislation. An amendment would essentially overturn all that precedent and allow Congress to make such laws. But, really, what's the harm in burning the American flag? So some hippies want to make a pathetic protest based on their ignorant and hypocritical political views - so what? I'm fairly wary of any government regulation, being that government is a violent and unpredictable beast that frankly cannot ever be depended on to protect my freedom and security, and this amendment is no exception. And I don't care that it's a pet cause of many conservatives to pass such an amendment, because it seems we have a lot better things to be considering, such as securing our Swiss-cheese borders, preventing the murder of innocent children (let's pass a partial-birth abortion ban, okay, guys?), &c.

All the previous rambling brings me back to the title of this post. Why are conservatives so insistent on banning flag burning? I don't mind sticking it to the hippies, but is this amendment and its concomitant restriction of free speech (even [ick!] symbolic free speech is speech, I guess) worth the pain and suffering it'll bring to liberals? It does seem rather to cede the Constitutional high ground when conservatives are willing to denigrate the sacrosanct First Amendment in favor of an ill-defined and controversial ideal...

What do I know? Maybe it gets votes. It's Machiavellian, but doing the wrong thing to get the right people in power isn't something I'm exactly willing to let become monopolized by the Left (Hillary, this means you)...