BrianGarst.com

Some stories just make you shake your head and ask, “Is this really America?”

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.

…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.

A government using tyrannical “licensing” laws to unfairly stand in the way of a man’s right to earn a living sounds like a legitimate reason to be in distress.

Congine’s upside-down-flag represents distress to him; to others in town, it represents disrespect of the flag.

Hours before a Fourth of July parade, four police officers went to Congine’s property and removed the flag under the advice of Marinette County District Attorney Allen Brey.

Marinette County Sheriff Jim Kanikula said it was not illegal to fly the flag upside down but people were upset and it was the Fourth of July.

“It is illegal to cause a disruption,” he said.

Causing a disruption is illegal?  You’d expect that out of the mouth of a totalitarian like Ahmadinejad, but not an American Sheriff.  The idea that the legality of an action depends on whether other people become upset is ludicrous. People don’t get to silence other people’s speech because it offends them, and nor should they get to violate another’s property rights because they don’t approve of how a private citizen is using his own flag on his own property.  The police were way out of line.  Is having a basic understanding of the constitution really too much to ask from law enforcement?

constitution