Monday, July 13, 2009



Dispute over flag protest erupts in Wisc. village

We read:
"An American flag flown upside down as a protest in a northern Wisconsin village was seized by police before a Fourth of July parade and the businessman who flew it — an Iraq war veteran — claims the officers trespassed and stole his property. A day after the parade, police returned the flag and the man's protest — over a liquor license — continued.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin is considering legal action against the village of Crivitz for violating Vito Congine Jr.'s' First Amendment rights, Executive Director Chris Ahmuty said. "It is not often that you see something this blatant," Ahmuty said.

In mid-June, Congine, 46, began flying the flag upside down — an accepted way to signal distress — outside the restaurant he wants to open in Crivitz, a village of about 1,000 people some 65 miles north of Green Bay. He said his distress is likely bankruptcy because the village board refused to grant him a liquor license after he spent nearly $200,000 to buy and remodel a downtown building for an Italian supper club.

Congine's upside-down-flag represents distress to him; to others in town, it represents disrespect of the flag.... Congine, a Marine veteran who served in Iraq in 2004, said he intends to keep flying the flag upside down. "It is pretty bad when I go and fight a tyrannical government somewhere else," Congine said, "and then I come home to find it right here at my front door."

Source

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

That the police action is a clear violation of his First Amendment right to free expression is obvious, but not the real story here. The real story should be, "who ordered the police to act, and why". You know they didn't do this on their own. I'd bet that if and when all the facts come out, it will be found that someone's personal/business motives were behind the attack on this war hero.

Anonymous said...

While not trying to defend what was done here, the question I have is "what duty or responsibility does a law enforcement agency have to respond to a distress signal?"

If they do have some responsibility, then isn't the repeated flying of a distress signal when there is no actual distress the same as repeatedly calling the police when there is no need for them?

Anonymous said...

While I agree he has the right to do what he did it disturbs me that he feels ok using the flag for something like financial distress and not getting a liquor license. Dunno, maybe its just me thinking a flag flown in distress would be more of a life/death type of situation. I guess next time I run out of milk I will run the flag upside down in front of my house.

G. S. Patton said...

No, the police don't have a duty to respond to the "symbolic act" of flying the flag upside down, since it's not a crime. I'd bet most of them don't even know what it means. Rather than insulting the flag, i think in this case, it was meant as a political statement regarding an inefficient government.

If some junkie, hippie, anarchist in Mexifornia has the right to burn the flag, then a veteran who has tasted combat in the service of his country should have the right to use that flag to make a "constituionally protected" political statement.

Anonymous said...

"The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it's good-by to the Bill of Rights." [H.L. Mencken]

David W. Hunter said...

Has anyone been able to determine why he has been denied a liquor license? If the zoning laws on the books state you can't serve alcohol at that location then Mr. Congine should have tried to acquire the license before he spent $200K remodeling the building.

That being said, the police had no right to remove the flag. Saying it was "causing a disturbance" is pretty weak.

Anonymous said...

Seems to me that he should have taken it down on the 4th to respect his fellow residents and continued his protest the next day (what the police effectively made him do) But then that would show consideration for others and politeness, something common in our military but increasingly rare in society as a whole.

Anonymous said...

Do you mean like radical leftists do when they protest?

It's pretty difficult to stand-up for what you believe, (a truly rare act) while being polite and considerate.