Anyone has the right to fly the flag rightside up or upside down as they see fit. The dude’s veteran status gives him neither more rights nor less rights than anyone else. The only part of the arguments put forth that I have issue with are those that are willing to cut him more slack because he was a Marine. Sure, great, wonderful, he was a Marine, but it’s irrelevant.
Seconded. Unless the police could show that the upside-down flag was demonstrably riling people up and leading to an imminent breach of the peace, the guy is free to fly it upside down. Going onto his property to remove it without his consent is an abuse of authority.
Edwin Walker, the very conservative former Army general whom Oswald attempted to kill in April 1963, was notorious for flying his flag upside-down in protest of the Kennedy Administration not being tough enough against the Commies.
As it happens, there’s a house not far from where I live that has been flying an American flag upside-down for several weeks now. The funny thing is, I remember they had an Obama sign on their lawn last fall. Don’t know if they’re deeply disappointed in the President, or maybe it’s a politically-divided household, or something else is going on here.
No the CNO reports to the SecNav, and the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff.
Look at the Joint Chief’s, Army, Navy, And Air Force. No Marine they are repersented by the CNO. And no Coast Guard, they are not a part of the department of defence.
The motivations behind the acts are different, but the acts aren’t. What I meant was that there’s no substantive difference in the legality of the acts or the appropriate response to them.
Strangely enough – there’s an ex-Marine chick in our neighborhood (her yard is ugly as sin*) who’s been flying the flag upside down since the election. And yes, it’s her right, of course – this thread just made me think of it.
She’s really weird, too. She started screaming at my mother when she - my mom - tried to pass by her big-ass SUV. Woman has a few screws loose. She’s got a “Michael Savage for President!” sticker on said SUV as well.
*She also has her motorcycle parked practically out in the middle of the street. One of these days, someone is going to smash right into the damned thing.
That’s true but my comment was directed more towards actually destroying or defacing the flag rather than the legality of either action when compared with one another.
I don’t like it when people burn US flags in protest here in America. It just rubs me the wrong way. At least flying it upside down doesn’t destroy a perfectly good flag.
Even if both actions are equal in the eyes of the law. Burning it just bothers me more.
Anyhoo, here’s a news video clip pertaining to the incident: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j48NQl5dkg
He bought it. He owns it. Whatever he wants to do with it, is none of my business. If he wants to get a rise out of me by flying it upside down or burning it, it will not work. Have at it.
I’d really like to know if this guy has a legitimate gripe regarding his liquour license or not. Sounds like he was promised it, paid for his renovations on good faith he was going to get it, then it was denied.
I don’t understand why the town would cite economic hardship as a reason for not issuing the license. I believe they sell those things to businesses to make money, right?
You DO know that burning a flag is the proper way to dispose of it, when it’s old or tattered, correct?
Of course, but there’s a difference between a protester doing so in anger and an American Legion WW2 vet doing so in a ceremony, even if the end result is the same.
It’s funny how these things are never a real big deal until the police decide to take action against them and then they become national news.
It’s only news because of the police doing what they did (unless there’s more to the story than we know, their actions were unjustified).
That’s what I mean. Somehow I doubt it got beyond, “That asshole flying his flag upside down.”, “Well you know he served his country as a Marine, you didn’t even serve in the military, are YOU going to question HIS patriotism?”
My point is those things are rarely actually socially disruptive until the police make it a thing.
The only difference is what the flag burners are thinking about while doing the flag burning.
The police rarely make it a thing unless it’s socially disruptive.
At the end of the day, it’s his flag, his property, he can do whatever he wants and the cops probably overstepped their bounds, but I doubt they did it because they gave a crap about his “patriotism,” or about the statement itself, or because they just wanted to be dicks. They were probably worried that it might cause problems during the parade.
So we require the “thought police” to take care of such problems.
Sure, but as I know you are aware, E.H., you can fly the flag upside down, or burn it, or take a piss on it, or whatever you like. (Well, burning might be regulated by content-neutral environmental regulations.) All are protected by the First Amendment.
To the rest of the posters, I see a lot of the usual conservative suspects in your numbers, I hope you caught that one of your habitual bugbears, the American Civil Liberties Union, is getting involved here on the side of the homeowner. I dare to dream that this might give you pause the next you target it in your outrage-fests.
Oh bullshit. I generally dislike the ACLU because my dim view of them is that they grandstand on issues and try to draw attention to themselves rather than really giving two shits about what they are representing.
The issue at hand to me is two-fold:
One: the police had no right to trespass on this guy’s property and confiscate his flag, no matter how he was flying it and just because it was the 4th of July and his business where the flag was flying upside down along a planned parade route upset people. Unless there’s more evidence to the contrary, like he was lobbing sandwich baggies full of Marine-poo at parade-goers or generally making a nuisance of himself isn’t totally clear.
It sounds like a small-town mentality decision: we don’t like what this guy is doing, take down his fucking flag.
Two: the unresolved issue is about the liquour license. Sometimes these things are very difficult to obtain and they obviously can make or break a business like a restaurant. We don’t know why the license wasn’t issued…there may be more to that. Maybe this ex-Marine is batshit insane. We don’t know.
But it sounds like to me, if you watch the video, that he proceeded in improving and renovating his newly brought property under the assumption that he was given assurances by the local authorities that his liquour license was a foregone conclusion. Otherwise, why invest/borrow almost a quarter million dollars?
If that’s the case, then this local townships government fucked up twice, if it can be proven that they withheld the license for ambiguous reasons.
You have to apply for liquour licenses, localities only have so many to give out, and if I’m not mistaken, the owner of the prospective business has to PAY for them, so in the case of the video, the municipality claiming “it’s the economy” doesn’t hold water, because they would make money off the sale of the license as well as the tax dollars generated afterwards.
Something doesn’t add up, but I have a very dim view of cops just deciding that they can come and confiscate property without a warrant because THEY get to decide what’s the law, or that some group of flag-waving blue-hairs are put out by having to witness the horror of an American flag flying upside down.
How are we defining socially disruptive? One or two people called to complain?
I did say “I dare to dream.” I really didn’t expect that you and the rest of your conservative ilk would suddenly judge the ACLU on the basis of what they do (as here, representing the homeowner) and instead continue to pout about how the ACLU “doesn’t really give two shits” about what they are representing (without ever explaining how exactly you know what the ACLU gives any shits about* and why they engage in the work of representation if they don’t actually care).
- Okay, I confess, I do know how exactly you’ve come to acquire this access to the private thoughts and sentiments of ACLU attorneys: Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity told you on Fox News, of course.