for enacting a law in the first place.

Those will vary from place to place. Let's look at this from a Hancock, MI perspective - which you've some handle on.

If I had to characterize veterans status here (where I'm typing this), I'd say it amounts to an intangible property interest - created over the period of military service via the experiences and tests of that service; and perhaps leaving a body part or two behind.

I'm not talking about VA benefits or the like; and not about social status. What I'm saying is that the guy who walks in here wearing a Marine Corps League jacket, or on other days, a USMC "Sniper" jacket, earned and retained something (as I said it is an intangible) that has a value that cannot be expressed in monetary terms. All property rights, tangible and intangible, deserve to be protected from impairment - that is a basic beyond doctrinal law.

So, that, in my noggin, is what the Stolen Valor Act is really about. So, yeh, what I'm saying now ain't legal analysis - it's a belief, with which there is no argument.

Go down the road 100 miles to Marquette - perhaps a different set of beliefs. Go down the road 500 miles to Ann Arbor - probably a different set of beliefs.

If you'd ask me how I'd vote on the Stolen Valor Act - I'd vote "yes" (and would re-enact it just to let the courts know that I disagree with the decision).

Regards

Mike